September tends to be packed with big album releases, and this week's Top 10 featured six new entries. The big showdown was between "American Idol" judge Keith Urban and R&B star The Weeknd, and boy was it tight. Who won? Find out below!
WHAT'S NEW
Urban and "Fuse" ended up taking the top spot on this week's Billboard 200, but just barely. The country star was predicted to notch about 110,000 in sales, but the figure slid down to a final count of 98,000. The Weeknd saw his stock rise after a week of playing late-night shows and ended up with 96,000 units moved. The slim margin represents the closest battle since The "Les Miserables" soundtrack narrowly edged Mumford & Sons' "Babel" during January. It's also the first time in six weeks that the top-selling album has been under 100,000 first week sales.
2 Chainz sold 63,000 copies of "B.O.A.T.S. II: #MeTime," less than half of what his debut sold during its first week. Hopefully his cookbook will do better? Three more debuts take spots 5-7: Janelle Monae's "The Electric Lady" sold 47,000, The Arctic Monkeys' "AM" sold 42,000, and Sheryl Crow moved 36,000 copies of her countrified album "Feels Like Home."
MOVING UP
As you can see based on Urban's chart-topping debut and Crow's coming in at no. 7, country music is doing alright. Perhaps the best evidence of this is Luke Bryan jumping up from no. 5 to no. 4 despite having been on the charts for five weeks now. "Crash My Party" sold another 53,000 copies, approaching platinum status. Urban may be gone next week, and Crow probably will be, but Bryan has proven a sales juggernaut.
HEADING DOWN
Three albums that debuted last week managed to grab the last three spots in the Top 10. Tamar Braxton may have lost in her first week to Ariana Grande, but the R&B diva sold 35,000 copies of "Love and War" during week two, compared to 31,000 for Grande's "Yours Truly" (Grande is still ahead overall by 20,000 or so records). John Legend's "Love in The Future" took the top spot, surpassing Nine Inch Nails, which held the no. 3 spot last week but failed to chart in the Top 10 again.
