Lorde's second album has debuted at number one on the US chart, according to Billboard.
Lorde debuted new material from Melodrama at the Coachella music festival. Photo: AFP
The album, which was released on 16 June to critical acclaim, earned 109,000 equivalent album units in the week ending 22 June.
Of that number, 82,000 were traditional album sales.
Lorde's first album, Pure Heroine, reached number three in October 2013 and sold 129,000 copies in its first week.
The Billboard 200 chart, which is aggregated by Neilsen Music, has changed since the release of Pure Heroine to better reflect the changing ways people are listening to and accessing music.
It is now based on what it calls "multi-metric consumption", which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums and streaming equivalent albums.
A New Zealand-based pop music commentator said it would be challenging for Lorde's album to retain the number one spot on the famed Billboard charts.
The Spinoff's music editor, Henry Oliver, said it was challenging to balance creativity and commercial viability when launching a new album.
He said artists often had to remain more mainstream to claw their way up the Billboard charts and it was difficult to stay in the number one spot.
Lorde performed at Glastonbury on Saturday night and has a string of music festival appearances lined up for the Northern Hemisphere summer.
Her parents celebrated her achievements over the weekend.