Wale, Ludacris and Kendrick Lamar helped ensure that hip-hop took the top three spots on the Album Sales Chart for the second week in a row. Wale, who was also no. 1 on the Billboard 200, sold 90,500 copies of his new record The Album About Nothing. Ludacris got a boost from the strict album sales format of this chart (he placed no. 3 due to stream numbers helping the Furious 7 soundtrack on the 200) and placed no. 2 with Ludaversal, selling 59,000 copies of his new album. Lamar was at no. 1 for two weeks with To Pimp A Butterfly but he'll settle for no. 3 this week after selling another 52,500 copies.
However, due to an influx in new releases this week, the other albums that made up the top three last week—the Empire soundtrack and Action Bronson's Mr. Wonderful—dropped out of the Top 10.
Two more new drops round out the top five this week, as Darius Rucker's Southern Style topped 50,000 in sales while Death Cab For Cutie moved 45,000 copies of its album Kintsugi.
Despite all of the new albums that became available this week, the standards we've gotten used to seeing in the Top 10 tended to see an overall increase in sales. Kidz Bop 28 rose in its second week, falling to no. 6 overall but rising to 42,000 copies. Taylor Swift, likewise, fell back to no. 7 but her 1989 saw a 17 percent rise in sales to 39,000 copies. Sam Smith and In The Lonely Hour rose by the same percentage and gathered 37,500 additional sales and settled at no. 8. What's the explanation? Tough to tell, but a safe bet might be that parents were looking to line children's Easter baskets...after all, all the aforementioned titles are fairly family-friendly.
Furious 7 may not have charted as high on this week's Albums Chart but it still showed an impressive week in stores, cracking the Top 10 for the first time at no. 9. The 36,000 copies sold mark a 476 percent increase from its first week. That suggests the album sold just 7,250 or so copies during its first week. The successful release of the film last weekend is an easy explanation for the rise.
The no. 10 spot goes to another new release, as Surfjan Stevens sold 34,500 copies of his Carrie & Lowell.
