Charts: ‘Straight Outta Compton’ Sends N.W.A Back to Top Five
Straight Outta Compton‘s impact on the box office continues to reverberate into the music world as the classic N.W.A LP that lends its name to the biopic is back in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200. While Straight Outta Compton (the film) finished Number One for a second straight week, Straight Outta Compton (the album) surged to Number Four on the charts, selling 44,000 total copies. As Billboard notes, N.W.A haven’t been this high on the Billboard 200 since their Niggaz4Life was released in June 1991.
Fittingly, Dr. Dre‘s Compton was a notch ahead of N.W.A as the rapper’s new album finished at Number Three with 51,000 total units in its second week. Luke Bryan‘s Kill the Lights sold 99,000 total albums to own the Number One spot for a second consecutive week, although he didn’t face much competition: Only two new releases finished in the Top 10, and neither made it to the Top Five.
Movement on the charts was so slow this week that Ed Sheeran‘s X, an album that was released over a year ago, jettisoned to Number Two after loitering in the lower half of the Top 10 in recent months. Sheeran’s semi-new album sold 96,000 total copies in its 61st week on charts, aided by a Google Play deal that sold the LP digitally for 99 cents as well as NBC’s Live at Wembley Stadium special that aired August 18th.
The Voice contestant Melanie Martinez’s Cry Baby debuted at Number Six, while Bullet for My Valentine’s new Venom bowed in at Number Eight. Remarkably, this week’s Number Eight through 10 albums – Venom, Future’s DS2 and Sam Hunt’s Montavello – all sold within a few hundred copies of each other, so each finished the week with 28,000 in sales when rounded to the nearest thousand.