New music continues to come forth as we enter the month of October.
Once again, the Billboard 200 was topped by a duets album, this time in the form of Cheek to Cheek by Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga. This collection didn't reach the sales level that Barbra Streisand did last week (more on that later) but it did move 131,000 copies, enough to take the top spot. Interestingly, it's Gaga's third chart topper and only Bennett's second. She can only hope to have his relevance when she reaches his age however: This marks the second time the crooner has set the record for oldest living performer to top the Billboard 200.
The duo barely pulled it off however. Kenny Chesney was hot in pursuit with his own The Big Revival bringing in 130,000 and just narrowly taking no. 2 instead of first place. Streisand herself, even more interestingly, took no. 3 with 127,000 more copies of her Partners album sold. It marks the first time since Susan Boyle's 2010 The Gift that an album of original music has dropped by such a small percentage in its second week. This also marks the first week during 2014 that three albums have simultaneously sold more than 125,000 copies in one week.
Alt-J comes in way behind Streisand at no. 4 but still has the best sales week of its career. This Is All Yours sold 68,000, marking the band's first Top 10 stop. Pentatonix was the last of four new debuts in the Top 5 this week as PTX: Vol. III sold 46,000 copies (also that group's highest debut yet).
Chris Brown fell off a bit further than Streisand did last week as his X fell to no. 6 with 37,000 copies sold. That's a 75 percent drop, which admittedly not too bad for a big-name album in its second week. He was followed at no. 7 by Awesome Mix Vol. 1, the pop music soundtrack to Guardians of The Galaxy, which fell to no. 11 during last week's big sales surge. It sold 30,000 copies this week.
Joe Bonnamassa made an especially big splash for the blues genre, coming in at no. 8 with Different Shades of Blue, his first collection of totally original songs and his highest debut ever. Maroon 5 stuck around for a fourth week, moving 26,000 copies of V. Jennifer Hudson took this week's last spot with JHud, an album that sold far less than what the soul vocalist is used to. The album moved 24,000 copies.
