We’re in the full swing of fall now, with plenty of new releases hitting shelves most every week. Leading the pack on the latest Billboard 200 chart is Pearl Jam‘s Backspacer — the band’s first album to hit No. 1 since 1996′s No Code. After catching flak from some fans for striking a retail deal with Target for Backspacer, Pearl Jam ended up selling 189,000 copies in week 1, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That’s not a bad number, but it’s a good bit less than the 279,000 that their previous record put up in 2006. Make of that what you will.
Other top-selling new releases came from Three Days Grace, who made it to No. 3 with 79,000 copies sold of Life Starts Now; Brand New, who placed at No. 6 with 46,000 copies sold of Daisy; Five Finger Death Punch, who proved violence sells by shifting 44,000 units of War Is the Answer for a No. 7 finish; Harry Connick Jr., coming in at No. 8 with 37,000 copies sold of Your Songs; The David Crowder Band, a Christian electro act whose Church Music takes No. 10 with 36,000; David Gray, whose Draw the Line lands at No. 12 with 35,000; and Mika, whose The Boy Who Knew Too Much squeaks in at No. 19 with 27,000. Also of note is Monsters of Folk‘s self-titled debut, which was relegated to No. 144 last week after selling a paltry 3,000 copies through Amazon’s MP3 store (which offered it two days early); this week, with the album available across all retail formats, they sold a respectable 33,000 and moved up to No. 15.
What do you think of those results? Did you buy any of these albums last week? Any albums you expected to show up higher or lower? Weigh in below.
More from EW’s Music Mix:
Jay-Z tops albums chart again; Oprah bump for Whitney Houston
Chris Brown, “I Can Transform Ya”: Are you ready to hear this?
Joss Stone’s new single, “Free Me”: Hear it
Lady Gaga on Kanye’s VMAs outburst: “He feels so f—ing bad!”
Mika at number 19? Come on, America!
Surprises me too. Wasn’t his first album the top selling album in the world of like 2007 or something?!
Who or what is Mika?
You know…Mika, I live on the second floor…
Best selling international male singer of 2007. It means nothing for America.
Great, Pagan, you just had to make me go look up Mika on Amazon. They sound a little like Queen. Without the great vocals and guitars. And song writing.
Hey RK, It’s Luka, not Mika. That is, if you are referencing the Suzanne Vega song…
your sense of humor is missing.
Sorry, but Mika’s new CD is pretty lame. Loved the last CD – Relax is such a great song – but this one is just way too teeny bopper pop.
Wow, Yield didn’t hit No. 1. Crazy! And this does? Wow again. Congrats to the band for reinventing itself yet again!
Yield didn’t hit #1 because of the God-forsaken Titanic soundtrack, which is sad on so many levels…
monsters of folk are great, love their album, going to see them in concert in november
Go, Pearl Jam!
pearl jam rocks
So basically what you’re saying is that Pearl Jam isn’t doing well, the music industry is doing terrible.
Acutually just the oppisite Pearl Jam is doing great….lets not forget they are now an indie label not back by a major source of cash flow and distribution. So to make it number 1 is a feat in its self.
The music indus. has gone to the dumps and has been there for awhile.
Cheers
They aren’t on an indie label – they have NO label. They financed and distributed this album themselves.
What I’m curious about is if these numbers include the amount they sold through the tenclub.net… if not, you’d have to add a decent number!
Nice to see an actual rock band w/ major credibility by both fans & critics these days top the Album Chart. This is rare & very nice to see. Way to go Pearl Jam!!!
Agreed!
Thumbs Up.
I bought Sean Kingston’s album. I was playing that for 5 days straight following its Sept 22nd release. Guess it didn’t sell that well. Must have debuted between 50 and the 100s. Might have sold 20,000 because I don’t see it listed in this article. He’s going to have to promote that album more after having 3 hits off the first one and 1 recent one off this new effort. It’s a fun catchy album.
well done pearl jam, S.O said it best, cant wait to see them OCT 31st!
And the 28th and 30th!!!!!
everybody now…PEARL JAM! PEARL JAM! PEARL JAM!!
See you in Philly!
I bought Pearl Jam. Best band in the world and you can download 2 free full length concerts from them when you buy the cd. 2 concerts + 1 new album all for $11.99. Well worth the price. See you in Austin on Sunday!!!!!
I’ve actually been listening to the concerts more than Backspacer…the new album is great and all but nothing beats live PJ.
First of all, Mika is a guy, not a band. And his new album and the previous are EXCELLENT!! I bought that and Pearl Jam’s new one, and have been rocking out. Long live Eddie Vedder!
Got the new Pearl Jam and am digging it – congrats to them!! I’ve always been a fan, but would like to see them rock a little harder!! Rock on!!
Great to see Pearl Jam releasing it’s own album and getting to #1. The so-called ‘fan outrage’ about Target seems mostly inflated by websites like EW.
The overall drop in record sales since 1996 isn’t surprising and has no reflection on the quality of music. It just shows the impact the of iTunes, bitTorrent, etc and how the music industry has completely missed out on how to make money from New Media environment.
Loving the new PJ album…Can’t wait to hear PJ headline at Austin City Limits this weekend!
Good for Pearl Jam, they’ve earned it. After all these years, and they’re still one of the best bands around.