The Beatles, Jay-Z dominate album sales week

Hova bows at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 with over 400,000

By Katie Hasty Wednesday, Sep 16, 2009 3:43 PM

Jay-Z at his "Answer the Call" benefit concert on Sept. 11, 2009

Credit: AP Photo/Andy Kropa

Jay-Z dominates The Billboard 200 with his 11^th No. 1 on the chart, "The Blueprint 3," but The Beatles had an awfully good week too.

The rapper has sold 476,000 copies off of a Friday release date, while the legendary band moved 626,000 combined - that number includes the boxed sets and individual albums, reissues or not. The digitally remastered sets were released last Wednesday.

Jay-Z is now holds the title for second-most No. 1 albums on The Billboard 200, behind, well, The Beatles, who have 19.

The individual Beatles remastered albums don't qualify for The Billboard 200, but do show up on the Top Comprehensive Albums and Top Pop Catalog Albums charts, the same tallies where you could find all those Michael Jackson albums that are experiencing a big bump this year. However, you will find the new "Beatles in Mono" and "Beatles in Stereo" boxed sets on The Billboard 200, since they're all-new conceptions, at Nos. 40 and 15, respectively . Yeah, we're not wild about these rules either.

Of all the Beatles remastered albums, "Abbey Road" sold the best, moving 89,000.

Back on big chart, Miley Cyrus's "The Time of Our Lives" stays put at No. 2 with 120,000 copies and Whitney Houston's "I Look to You" falls 1-3 (88,000, -71%). Raekwon's "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Pt. 2" bows at No. 4 (68,000), Brooks and Dunn's "#1s... And Then Some" debuts at No. 5 (55,000) and Trey Songz's "Ready" slips 3-6 (45,000, -65%).

Black Eyed Peas' "The E.N.D." ascends 11-7 (44,000, +29%) as Boys Like Girls' "Love Drunk" has a No. 8 start with 41,000. Kings of Leon's "Only By The Night" descends 7-9 (40,000, -11%) while Taylor Swift's "Fearless" falls 9-10 with 33,000 (-6%).

Sales this week are up 7% compared to last week but down 2% compared to the same sales week last year. Sales for the year are down 14% overall.

Katie Hasty
Managing Editor

After five years as a columnist and editor at Billboard, Katie Hasty joined HitFix in 2009 for music and film reporting out of New York. The Midwest native has worked as a writer, music promoter and in A&R since 1999 and performs with her band Numbers And Letters.