Lady Gaga's Born This Way set another record this week, but not one that Gaga's team will be happy about. Sales of the album dropped off by 84% from its sizzling (but discount-inflated) opening week. That's the the steepest drop-off in sales, expressed in a percentage basis, of any of the 17 albums that sold 1 million units in a week in Nielsen SoundScan history.
Gaga's album sold 174,000 copies this week, down from 1,108,000 last week, when sales were goosed by a two-day, 99-cent sale at Amazon.
The old record for the steepest drop-off following a million-unit week was held by*NSYNC's 2001 album Celebrity. Sales dropped by 76% in the week following its 1,880,000 debut. Two recent albums were tied for second place in the steepest drop-off column. Sales ofLil Wayne's 2008 hit Tha Carter III and Taylor Swift's 2010 smash Speak Now both dropped off by 69% in the week following their debuts of 1,006,000 and 1,047,000, respectively.
A big drop-off was to be expected. But the fact that Gaga's drop-off was steeper than any of the other follow-ups to albums that had a million-unit week is troublesome. It seems obvious that the opening week tally for Born This Way was generated not only by hard-core fans, but also by casual fans who just didn't want to pass up such a deal. Last week's near giveaway worked in the short term (by giving Gaga the biggest one-week sales total since 2005), but it may have also served to devalue albums in general and Gaga's brand in particular.
Born This Way may not even log a third week at #1. Adele's 21, which is currently 53K copies behind Born This Way, could easily return to the top spot next week.
If you want to know which three albums experienced the mildest drop-offs in the weeks following their million-plus weeks, here you go. Sales of 50 Cent's 2005 album The Massacreslipped by just 32% in the week following its 1,141,000 debut. Sales of Eminem's 2002 album The Eminem Show dropped by 39% in the week following its 1,322,000 debut. Sales of Garth Brooks' 1998 double-disk set Double Live slipped by 40% in the week following its 1,085,000 debut.
Born This Way fell off even more sharply in the digital realm. The album sold 38K digital copies this week, a 94% drop from its record-setting opening week total of 662K. Born This Way isn't even #1 on this week's Digital Albums chart. That honor goes instead to Death Cab for Cutie's Codes And Keys, which sold 59K digital copies (57% of its total).
Born This Way holds at #1 in the U.K. for the second week, but it drops from #1 to #7 in Japan. Gaga's previous full-length, The Fame, logged seven weeks at #1 in the U.K., but didn't reach #1 in Japan.
Adele's 21 rebounds from #3 to #2 on TheBillboard 200. The album has ranked in the top three for each of its first 15 weeks. This is the best showing by any album since Alicia Keys'As I Am ranked in the top three for each of its first 15 weeks in 2007-2008. Both albums were powered by songs that had long runs at #1 on the Hot 100. Keys' "No One" logged five weeks on top. I expect Adele's "Rolling In The Deep" to hold the top spot for a fifth week when the chart is released later today.
21 tops the 2 million mark in sales this week. It's the first album to sell 2 million copies in 2011. This is later in the year than we saw the first 2 million-seller of 2010 (Lady Antebellum's Need You Now hit the 2 million mark in the week ending May 9), but it's ahead of the pace for 2009 (Michael Jackson's Number Onesreached the 2 million mark in the week ending Oct. 25.)
Eddie Vedder's Ukulele Songs debuts at #4. It's Vedder's first solo studio album. He reached #11 with the 2007 soundtrack to Into The Wild. All nine of Vedder's studio albums with Pearl Jam have made the top 10. The band's best-seller is its first album, Ten, which has sold 9,869,000 copies.
copies, which allowed it to unseat AC/DC's Live At River Plate, which had topped the chart the last three weeks. Pearl Jam reached #1 on Top Music Videos with Touring Band 2000 (for five weeks in 2001) andImmagine In Cornice/Picture 1 (for one week in 2007).
Lil Wayne's "How To Love" vaults from #52 to #5 in its second week (its first full week) on Hot Digital Songs. The song entered the Hot 100 last week at #69. How high will it climb this week? Check back later today when we post Chart Watch: Songs.
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