First solo artist with a posthumous No.1 debut on the Billboard 200

Since the first “Billboard 200 era” US albums chart on 17 August 1963, no solo artist had debuted at No.1 posthumously until Selena (USA, b. Selena Quintanilla) scored a chart-topping entry on 5 August 1995 with Dreaming of You. The Tejano star’s fifth studio album was released by EMI Latin on 18 July 1995, following her tragic death on 31 March 1995 at the age of 23. Dreaming of You sold 331,000 copies in the first week to debut at No.1 ahead of albums by Jodeci, Hootie & The Blowfish and TLC.

Janis Joplin (d. 4 October 1970) climbed to No.1 on 27 February 1971 with Pearl, in the album's fifth week on the Billboard 200. Jim Croce (d. 20 September 1973) took 47 weeks to reach No.1 with You Don’t Mess Around with Jim on 12 January 1974, and John Lennon (d. 8 December 1980) hit No.1 with Double Fantasy on 27 December 1980, in its fourth chart week. Joplin, Croce and Lennon were the only three posthumous US chart-toppers before Selena. None of them debuted at the top of the chart.

Makaveli/2Pac (23 November 1996, 14 April 2001 & 1 January 2005), The Notorious B.I.G. (12 April 1997 & 24 March 2007), Aaliyah (15 September 2001), Elvis Presley (12 October 2002), Ray Charles (5 March 2005), Johnny Cash (22 July 2006), David Bowie (30 January 2016), Prince (7 May 2016), XXXTentacion (22 December 2018), Pop Smoke (18 July 2020) and Juice WRLD (25 July 2020) have all had posthumous No.1s on the Billboard 200 since Selena in 1995. Of these, Makaveli/2Pac (all three albums), The Notorious B.I.G. (24 March 2007), Presley, Cash, Bowie, Prince, XXXTentacion, Pop Smoke and Juice WRLD all debuted at No.1 to match Selena’s feat. As of 27 March 2021, however, Selena remained the only solo female artist to posthumously bow at No.1.

On 13 November 2017, Dreaming of You was certified 59x multi-platinum – for shipments of 3.54 million units in the US – by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). More than 3 million copies of the album have been sold in the US.

Selena was the recipient of a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards on 14 March 2021.