Meanwhile, Hoizer and Weezer will battle for next highest starts. Alex & Sierra and Tinashe will start modestly, while Keyshia Cole will underwhelm.
After a competition last week that turned out to be underwhelming, Blake Shelton was crowned the winner of the sales “race” when the final numbers rang through; his BRINGING BACK THE SUNSHINE started with just over 100,000, just 9,000 off my initial prediction. Lady Antebellum barely snagged No. 2 with 74,000 copies and Barbara Streisand’s Partners fell a mere 44% to claim the No. 3 position, selling 73,000 copies. It has sold 396,153 copies to date.
Tony Bennett’s collaboration album with Lady Gaga, Cheek to Cheek, fell to No. 4 selling 55,000 copies (-58%; 186,000 copies total), Prince started at No. 5 with ART OFFICIAL AGE (43,000), Kenny Chesney’s The Big Revival fell 2-6 with 40,000 copies (-69%), Maroon 5’s V rebounded 9-7 with 34,000 copies (+33%; 336,615 copies sold to date) thanks to a limited time discount price on iTunes and The Script’s No Sound Without Silence began at No. 8 with 24,000.
Chris Brown’s X dropped 6-9 with 22,000, and the Prince/3RDEYEGIRL album began at No. 10 with 21,500. Tove Lo was new at No. 13 with Queen of the Clouds (20,000), Colbie Calliat’s Gypsy Heart started at No. 15 with 17,500, Childish Gambino’s surprise Friday release, Kauai, began with 16,000 at No. 17 and Steve Aoki’s Neon Future 1 started at No. 19 with a meager 15,000.
Alt-J was down 4-27 with an 83% decline to 11,000, PENTATONIX was down 5-33 with a 81% decline to 9,000 and Jennifer Hudson was down 13-38 with a 62% cut to 8,500.
While almost all of those numbers are grim, Jason Aldean’s latest release, Old Boots, New Dirt, is expected to debut with 400,000 copies sold… or more. That should be just enough to get some things rolling again in the album department. The only bad news? Reviews for the album have been mixed… but then yet again, no one really seems to care about music reviews.
Hoizer and Weezer will start with maybe 15-20% of what Aldean will start with (60,000-80,000 each), while Alex & Sierra, Childish Gambino and Tinashe will battle for 4th, 5th and 6th place. I expect the albums to come in in that order each selling maybe 40,000-55,000 copies. However, Tinashe is currently getting lots of good press.
Yellowcard’s Lift A Sail should start in 7th with 35,000, while Keyshia Cole’s Point of No Return could start with an abysmal 30,000 in 8th place; approximately 33% of what her previous release sold. Flying Lotus’ You’re Dead, bolstered by fabulous reviews — 90/100 on Metacritic –, could start in 9th.
Evergreen by Broods, 24 Karat Gold by Stevie Nicks and Modern Vintage by Sixx:AM will likely be 10th, 11th and 12th. Betty Who’s Take Me When You Go will start outside the top 20, as will Caribou’s Our Love.
Come back for more news. I’ll be reviewing Tinashe’s Aquarius as well as Childish Gambino’s Kauai along with some other holdover releases from last week (Tove Lo, The Script, Lady Antebellum).
CDS Music Chart 