Dave Matthews Band Debuts At #1 On Billboard 200
Posted by Joseph Lee on 09.19.2012
The second time in history the top six spots have all been debuts...
Dave Matthews Band has debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 with Away From The World, marking only the second time that the history of the chart that the top six albums are debuts.
The last time this happened was on October 11, 2003, when The top six included Outkast's Speakerboxx/The Love Below (#1), Dave Matthews Band's Some Devil (2), Limp Bizkit's Results May Vary (3), R. Kelly's The R. in R&B Collection (4) Obie Trice's Cheers (5) and Nickelback's The Long Road (6).
Away From The World sold 266,000 copies this week, which is the sixth straight #1 debut for the band. Their last album, 2009's Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, sold 424,000. Away From The World's debut is actually the smallest debut for the band since 1996's Crash came in at #2 with 254,000.
Coming in at #2 is Little Big Town's Tornado, which is the highest charting album for the group and their best sales week with 113,000. They recently had their first #1 Country Song with "Pontoon", and this album marks their second #1 on the Country Albums chart.
Bob Dylan returns for his fifth consecutive top ten album with Tempest at #3. It follows 1997's Time Out Of Mind (#10), 2001's Love and Theft (#5), 2006's Modern Times (#1) and 2009's Together Through Life (#1), which debuted with 125,000.
The Avett Brothers have their best week ever with a debut at #4 for The Carpenter and 98,000 sold. The group had not had a top ten release until now. 2009's I And Love And You was the band's previous highest sales week with 40,000.
The XX also has their highest week ever with Coexist, which earned 73,000 at #5. Their last album, a self-titled debut, hit #92 in 2010 and spent 41 weeks on the chart.
The last new debut in the top six is ZZ Top's La Futura, which is the first album from them since 2003's Mescalero. This is their highest rank since 1990's Recycler debuted at #6. It's also their first top ten since 1990 when Greatest Hits hit #9. The 31,000 debut is the band's highest since 1994 when Antenna sold 38,000 in its fifth week on the chart. This is ZZ Top's first album for American Recordings after four for RCA between 1994 and 2003.
ZZ Top are not the final debut this week, however. Amanda Palmer's Theatre Is Evil debuts at #10 with 24,000. 93% of sales came from digital downloads or through Internet retailers. Most of the sales are because of a Kickstarter campaign created by Palmer to fund the making of the album. Those who gave a certain amount of money either got a download or a physical copy of the album.
1. Dave Matthews Band - Away From The World (266,000)
2. Little Big Town - Tornado (113,000)
3. Bob Dylan - Tempest (110,000)
4. The Avett Brothers - The Carpenter (98,000)
5. The xx - Coexist (73,000)
6. ZZ Top - La Futura (31,000)
7. Imagine Dragons - Night Visions (29,000)
8. Matchbox Twenty - North (28,000)
9. Now 43 (24,000)
10. Amanda Palmer - Theater Is Evil (24,000)
Album sales totaled 5.11 million, up 7% from last week (4.76 million) but down 8% compared to last year (5.58 million). Year-to-date album sales stand at 207.29 million, down 5% compared with the same total at this point last year (217.64 million).
