TobyMac earns his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart ever with “Eye On It,” which is notable for another reason. He is the first Christian album artist to top the sales chart since 1997, back when LeAnn Rimes released her spiritual set “You Light Up My Life – Inspirational Songs” on Nov. 1 that year.
TobyMac — formerly of DC Talk — sold 69,000 copies of this set.
Shady Records signees Slaughterhouse starts at No. 2 on the tally with “Welcome to Our House” moving 52,000 copies. Their previous self-titled debut only made it to No. 25 with 18,000 when it bowed in 2009.
Trey Songz’ “Chapter V” slips No. 1 to No. 3 with 41,000, a sales decrease of 69%, as “Now 43 falls No. 3 to No. 4 (41,000, -9%).
Alanis Morissette’s new set “Havoc and Bright Lights” debuts at No. 5 with 33,000. Her previous 2008 album “Flavors of Entanglement” peaked at No. 8, but moved 70,000 in its first week.
Maroon 5’s “Overexposed” sits tight at No. 6 (31,000 -4%), 2 Chainz’s “Based On a T.R.U. Story” descends No. 2 to No. 7 (29,000, -38%), Carrie Underwood’s “Blown Away” flies up No. 21 to No. 8 (28,000 +85%) with a little help from an iTunes sale sticker. The band fun.’s “Some Nights,” is up No. 11 to No. 9 (25,000, +3%) and Adele’s “21” re-enters the top ten from No. 12 to No. 10 (23,000, -2%).
Fun fact on the latter: “21” has spent 79 nonconsecutive weeks in the top tier, which is the third-longest running stint in the top 10 since 1963. According to Billboard Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” and “The Sound of Music” soundtrack logged longer top 10 runs, with 84 and 109 weeks respectively.
Sales are down 3% compared to last week and down 26% compared to the same week last year. Sales for the year are down 4% so far.