Kanye West’s Yeezus lead a group of new albums on this week’s Billboard 200 albums chart. While the album did earn the third-biggest debut of the year, it failed to meet industry expectations and was the lowest debut sales week in the rapper’s career.
Billboard reported that Yeezus sold 327,000 copies, putting it behind Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience (968,000) and Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories (339,000) for the year’s biggest debut. That’s far below the lofty expectations from the industry, which thought it would sell around 500,000 copies. But by the weekend, it was clear that it would be lucky for it to reach even 330,000 copies.
It is the lowest sales week of West’s career, even if it is his sixth straight No. 1 debut, notes EW. His previous low was My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which sold 496,000 copies in its first week in 2010.
J. Cole’s Born Sinner sold 297,000 copies in its first week, hitting No. 2. That’s actually the biggest No. 2 debut since December 2010.
Mac Miller’s Watching Movies With The Sound Off sold 102,000 copies, meaning that rappers owned the top 3 spots on Billboard this week. Billboard says that it is the first time since November 2006 that three rap albums debuted with 100,000+ copies.
Kelly Rowland’s Talk A Good Game started off with 68,000 in the No. 4 slot. Black Sabbath’s 13 slid to No. 5 with 46,000 copies.
The rest of the Top 10 included Random Access Memories (40,000); Hunter Hayes (40,000 - thanks to a deluxe reissue); Florida Georgia Line’s Good Times (33,000); 20/20 Experience (32,000) and Imagine Dragons’ Night Visions (26,000).
“Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke is still owning the Digital Songs Chart, selling 424,000 downloads in the past week.
image: Amazon