On the Charts: The 1975’s New LP Cruises to Number One
British rockers the 1975 earned their first Number One album on the Billboard 200 as their second LP I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware sold 108,000 total copies in its debut week to claim the top spot. The 1975 group dramatically improved on the numbers of their self-titled debut LP in 2013, which peaked at Number 28. As evidence of the band’s up-and-coming status, Billboard notes that it took The 1975 26 weeks to sell what I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware moved in its first week on shelves.
While the 1975 were celebrating their best chart placement yet, last week’s other major new release, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis‘ This Unruly Mess I’ve Made, staked an underwhelming sales performance in its first week. The follow-up to The Heist entered the Billboard 200 at Number Four with only 61,000 total copies sold; by comparison, the Best Rap Album Grammy-winning The Heist debuted at Number Two and 78,000 copies in October 2012 on its way to platinum status.
The 1975’s chart victory meant Adele‘s two-week streak atop the Billboard 200 came to an end as 25 settled for Number Two and another 74,000 copies. Rihanna‘s Anti dropped one spot to Number Three while Justin Bieber’s Purpose closed out the Top Five.
However, the biggest Top 10 surprise comes courtesy of Kelly Clarkson, whose 2015 album Piece by Piece rocketed from Number 120 to Number Six thanks to the singer’s return to American Idol. The first Idol winner performed a new version of the title track “Piece by Piece” during her visit to the show’s final season, and bundled-together downloads of that track – pinned to a deluxe version of Piece by Piece – helped push Clarkson’s album back to the top of the charts. Billboard also reports that the 120-to-Six jump is an album’s biggest leap into the Top 10 in a decade.
One other new release – Anthrax‘s For All Kings – finished in the Top 10, with the long-running metal act’s new album entering the Billboard 200 at Number Nine, their best debut since 1993’s Sound of White Noise opened up at Number Seven.