After a lagging 2014, which has thus far included dismal record sales and a long reign of Queen Elsa and the Disney Frozen soundtrack, it seems like the music charts across the world have a new (old) savior... Coldplay. This week (May 26), the "A Sky Full Of Stars" band have won the UK charts with the best sales week of the year with Ghost Stories, and it's looking to do the same in America.
According to Official Charts Company, Coldplay's sixth studio album easily landed the No. 1 spot in the UK by selling 168,000 copies during its inaugural week. Those numbers, courtesy of Chris Martin and co., were enough to keep Michael Jackson's latest posthumous album Xscape away from the No. 1 spot in its second week.
The huge sales numbers for Ghost Stories helped also gave Coldplay the honor of 2014's fastest-selling album in the UK (thus far). Previously, singer-songwriter Paolo Nutini's latest album Caustic Love held that title, selling 109,000 copies during its first week in April.
The sales success of Ghost Stories is looking to continue for Coldplay here in the United States, with the album easily aiming for the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 this week. The album is projected to sell between 370,000 and 390,000 copies this week in the U.S., according to industry sources at Billboard.
Like the U.K., the high-300,000s sales figures will give Coldplay the fastest-selling album of 2014 to date in America, and will easily knock The Black Keys' Turn Blue from the peak of the Billboard charts.
In a year marked by lagging record sales, the previous hottest-seller of 2014 was Eric Church's The Outsiders, which moved 288,000 copies upon its release in February. Last week, Akron rockers The Black Keys arrived at No. 1, selling 164,000 copies of Turn Blue.
