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Thanks to an endless amount of Grammy buzz leading up Sunday night’s big award show, Adele’s smash album 21 topped the Billboard 200 once again this week, selling 237,000 copies.
That figure marks a 95 percent increase over last week — almost entirely as a result of buzz, not necessarily her six Grammy wins. (Soundscan tracks album sales through Sunday night, so the real effect of the Grammy boost will be seen next week.) All told, 21 has topped the chart for 20 weeks (coincidentally, the same amount of time that The Bodyguard soundtrack did) and has sold over 6.6 million copies. The set should blaze right past the 7 million mark over the next few days.
Van Halen’s A Different Kind of Truth started off in second place with 187,000 copies, just a touch behind the band’s last record 1998′s Van Halen III which started its run with 191,000 units. Now 41 debuted one slot lower, moving 141,000 discs — a consistent result for the veteran franchise.
In fourth, the Fray’s Scars and Stories sold 87,000 copies, less than half of what the band’s last album achieved in its first week. Their 2009 self-titled collection moved 179,000 in its first week, though that album’s lead single “You Found Me” caught on with listeners much more than Scars‘ first single “Heartbeat” has. Paul McCartney’s latest album Kisses on the Bottom opened in fifth place with 74,000.
Following her tragic death on Saturday night, Whitney Houston reentered the Top 10 at No. 6 with Whitney: The Greatest Hits, which sold 64,000 units, an increase of 5,994 percent. Consumers took to digital retailers to revisit Houston’s catalog. Collectively, her albums sold 101,000 total copies — 91,000 of which were digital. Again, though, since Soundscan only counts sales through Sunday, Houston will likely receive a much bigger bump next week.
Dierks Bentley debuted in seventh place with his new album Home, which sold 55,000 units this week, a better result than his bluegrass effort Up on the Ridge, which moved 39,000 copies in its first frame.
The Civil Wars also received a notable Grammy bump. Their debut disc Barton Hollow jumped from No. 121 to No. 41 after their buzzy minute-long performance on Sunday night. It will be interesting to see how high they climb on next week’s chart.
Check out the full Top 10 below: READ FULL STORY »
