J. Cole had to wait behind Kanye West”s “Yeezus” and Wale”s “The Gifted” to send his new album “Born Sinner” to No. 1 but, hey, it got there. The hip-hop album rises to the top on The Billboard 200 this week No. 2 to No. 1, despite a 32% sales slide, to 58,000.
That number, by the way, is the sixth smallest sum for a No. 1 in the SoundScan Era of the chart, which started in 1991.
Wale”s “The Gifted” slips No. 1 to No. 2 (50,000, -68%) as “Yeezus” descends No. 2 to No. 3 (39,000, -40%). Imagine Dragon”s “Night Visions” flies up No. 8 to No. 4 (36,000, +23%) as the rock band”s single “Radioactive” increases in radio spins. Florida Georgia Line”s “Here”s to the Good Times” climbs No. 6 to No. 5 (32,000, +3%).
R&B singer Joe debuts at No. 6 with “Doubleback: Evolution of R&B,” which moved 31,000 in its first week. His last 2011 set “The Good, the Bad, the Sexy” started at No. 8 with 33,000.
Daft Punk”s “Random Access Memories” slips No. 5 to No. 7 (28,000, -10%), Macklemore & Ryan Lewis” “The Heist” ascends No. 12 to No. 8 (24,000, +1%), Bruno Mars” “Unorthodox Jukebox” rises No. 13 to No. 9 (22,000, -2%) and Blake Shelton”s “Based on a True Story…” is up No. 15 to No. 10 (22,000, -2%).
Last week”s 4th of July sales tally was down 2% compared to the previous week and down 16% compared to the same sales week last year. Sales for the year are down 6% for the year so far.