On the Charts: Ke$ha Boots Boyle, “Animal” Debuts at Number One
The Big News: Thanks to the Hot 100 hit “TiK ToK” and a relatively light release schedule, Gaga-in-waiting Ke$ha debuted atop the Billboard Top 200 with her first album Animal, joining a small club of female artists to enter the charts at Number One with their first LP. By selling 152,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, Ke$ha accomplished what Alicia Keys, Mary J. Blige and many others failed to do — knock Susan Boyle’s I Dreamed A Dream out of the top spot. Boyle settled into Number Two with another 93,000 copies. For the second consecutive week, and for only the second time in chart history, female artists held all five spots in the Top Five, as Lady Gaga, Keys and Blige rounded out Three-Four-Five respectively.
Debuts: Outside of Ke$ha, the charts were practically devoid of any major new releases. The only other artist to penetrate the Top 30 with a debut was former Idol runner-up Katharine McPhee, whose new disc Unbroken entered the charts at 27 and 15,300 copies sold. Further down, the 75th anniversary of the birth of Elvis Presley helped the King’s Elvis 75 collection come in at 46.
Last Week’s Heroes: Since the charts remained largely unchanged, let’s take a closer look at Ke$ha’s big week, where much of the accomplishment came on the digital end. Animal was also the week’s Number One Digital Album, and was the third best-selling digital album debut ever by a female artist behind Taylor Swift and Britney Spears. Ke$ha’s “TiK ToK” and “Blah Blah Blah” scored One and Two on the Digital Tracks chart, become only the fourth artist ever — after Black Eyed Peas, Beyoncé and Mariah Carey — to accomplish that feat (Ke$ha’s “Your Love Is My Drug” also entered the Digital Tracks chart at Number 11). In total, Ke$ha sold roughly 693,000 digital tracks last week.