B2K didn’t need streaming to sell their comeback. They sold it at the door.

The R&B group’s label, BPC Music Group, says 138,000 fans bought ECLIPSE bundled with tickets to the nationwide Boys 4 Life Tour — the album packaged with the live show, redeemed with a code emailed to ticket holders. It’s the kind of old-school bundling the industry used to swear by, rebuilt for the streaming era. The label even has a name for it: “newstalgia.”

To be clear about what that number is: 138,000 is ticket-and-album packages, not a first-week album sales total. The label hasn’t said how many fans have actually redeemed the album, or how many of the bundles count toward Billboard’s charts. But as a measure of demand for a group that hadn’t made a studio album in nearly 24 years, it’s a loud one.

ECLIPSE dropped November 6 — 12 tracks, 40 minutes, the group’s first album since 2002’s Pandemonium! — and hit No. 1 on Apple Music on release day. Lead single “Mileage” topped Apple Music’s R&B Songs chart, and Bow Wow — the tour’s co-headliner — pops up on “Boyfriend.” Read our Nov 6 ECLIPSE post for the full album details.

Omarion, J-Boog, Lil’ Fizz and Raz-B are back in the room together. And 138,000 people paid to be in the room with them.

Sources: AllHipHop · PR Newswire via Morningstar · The Hype Magazine

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.