The album was only up for sale on iTunes for part of last week, but “Watch the Throne” still makes an impressive showing at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 this week. The Jay-Z and Kanye West collaboration album moved 436,000 units, as it ran as an exclusive on the digital retailer from Aug. 8-11 then to all other sellers starting on Friday (Aug. 12). Nielsen SoundScan”s sales tallies run from Mondays to Sundays. More than three-quarters of those sales came from digital downloads, with 321,000 being a new record single-week high.
The total sum makes “Watch the Throne” the second-biggest single-week seller this year, behind Lady Gaga”s whopping 1.1 million one-week sale for “Born This Way”s” debut.
This makes it 12 No. 1 albums for Jay-Z and five for Ye. Only the Beatles have more No. 1 albums in history, with 19. Both of their last albums sold in the same ballpark: Hov”s “The Blueprint 3” moved 476,000 and West”s “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” entered with 496,000.
Meanwhile, Luke Bryan earns his highest Billboard 200 bow yet with “Tailgates & Tanlines” at No. 2 with 145,000. His previous “Doin” My Thing” debuted and peaked at No. 6 with 58,000 in 2009.
The 39th installment of “Now That”s What I Call Music!” bows at No. 3 with 110,000.
Adele”s “21” slips out of the top 3 for the first time since it started up ther 25 weeks ago, falling No. 1 to No. 4 (73,000, -4%).
Eric Church”s “Chief” falls No. 2 to No. 5 (37,000, -32%), Jason Aldean”s “My Kinda Party” sits at No. 6 (36,000, -13%) and Beyonce”s “4” ascends No. 8 to No. 7 (27,000, -22%).
Ace Hood”s “Blood Sweat + Tears” debuts at No. 8 with 26,000, besting his previous high-water mark with 2009″s “Ruthless,” at No. 23 with 20,000.
Jackie Evancho”s “Dream With Me” re-enters the top tier from No. 22 to No. 9, with a little help from a sale at Target and a PBS pledge drive.
The “Kidz Bop 20” compilation descends No. 7 to No. 10 (25,000, -32%).
Album sales are up 5% compared to last week and up 20% compared to the same week last year. Sales for the year are up 2%.