Lupe Fiasco scores his first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 this week as “LASERS” tops the chart with opening week sales of 204,000.
The rapper is one of four acts with debuts in the Top 10. “Glee”s” fifth volume, and the first to include original tunes, bows at No. 3 with sales of 90,000. Avril Lavigne”s first set in four years, “Goodbye Lullaby,” enters at No. 4. Her last set, 2007″s “The Best Damn Thing,” debuted at No. 1 with an opening tally of 286,000. “Goodbye” sells 87,000 in its first week.
Similarly reflective of the radical drop in album sales, R.E.M.”s fantastically reviewed “Collapse Into Now” comes in at No. 5 with sales of 57,000. That is more than a 50% drop from 2008″s “Accelerate,” which started at No. 2 with 115,000, according to Billboard.
The last debut in the Top 10 belongs to country singer Sara Evans, whose “Stronger” starts at No. 6 on The Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Country Albums chart with sales of 55,000.
For the rest of the Top 10, Adele”s “21” drops out of the top spot to No. 2 with still strong sales of 133,000 copies. Mumford & Sons” “Sigh No More” falls 3-7 after a nice, prolonged post-Grammy sales bounce; Marsha Ambrosius”s “Late Night & Early Mornings” slips 2-8, Justin Bieber”s ” Never Say Never” slides 4-9 and the “Now 37” multi-artist compilation rounds out the list, moving 5-10.