First! Some weeks, the charts move in mysterious ways. This is very much one of those weeks. Today, Wale sits atop the Billboard 200 with The Gifted, an album that is “special” at best. The unlikely Maybach Music affiliate sold a whopping 158,000 copies of his third album according to Nielsen SoundScan, meaning people are actually totally into “the schizophrenic identity shifts, awkward slang usage, shameless pandering to female fans, and Cosmo corniness that lets him describe something as ‘the smell of beauty.'” Okay, enough about Wale. What’s positively cray is the fall of Yeezus. Kanye West’s controversial latest has dipped a full 80 percent in sales, moving only 65K. If it wasn’t a slow release week, the record wouldn’t have landed far past No. 3.
2 to 10: Timbaland protégé J. Cole holds onto No. 2 with Born Sinner, which is just bad meaning bad (84K). A Christian rock band named Skillet hits No. 4 with Rise (60K), though it’s possible a significant chunk of those sales are due to the group’s obvious appropriation of the Skrillex logo (squint and you can’t tell the difference). Speaking of obvious appropriation, Daft Punk jump a spot to No. 5 with Random Access Memories (31K), followed very closely by Florida Georgia Line’s Here’s to the Good Times (31K) and India.Arie, who makes her fifth Top 10 debut with her fifth album, SongVersation (31K). From there … trust us, you’re not into it. Imagine Dragons nab No. 8 with Night Visions (29K); something called August Burns Red is back (?) with Rescue & Restore (26K) at No. 9; and Black Sabbath’s disappointing 13 does 25K, sneaking in at No. 10.
Thicke Wallet: “Blurred Lines” is No. 1 on the Hot 100 songs chart for a fourth week after selling 423,000 more digital copies — that’s a drop of less than 1 percent from last week. Kudos to Robin Thicke, T.I., and Pharrell, who also appears on the reigning No. 2 track “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk. The Billionaire Boys Club is looking more literal than ever.
Yeezus Drops: After starting with a 327K sales week, Kanye West’s latest fell hard. In fact, that 80 percent drop all the way down to 65K is the fourth biggest tumble from No. 1 in the SoundScan era (1991 onward). Harder face-plants have been executed by Madonna (MDNA, 87 percent), Lady Gaga (Born This Way, 84 percent), and Mac Miller (Blue Slide Park, 83 percent).
