Congrats to Nicki for selling selling 375,000 albums her 1st week. Debuts 2nd only Kanye sold more.
Kanye West, Nicki Minaj Score Big Debuts on Billboard 200
As expected, Kanye West and Nicki Minaj arrive in the Nos. 1 and 2 slots, respectively, on the Billboard 200 albums chart. Mr. West sold 496,000 of his "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," while Minaj moved 375,000 of her "Pink Friday" debut according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Both sales starts are a bit lower than initially projected, as some industry insiders had predicted in the early part of last week that the pair were on track to start with perhaps 550,000 and 400,000, respectively.
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Nevertheless, West's 496,000 gives him his fourth straight No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 and the fourth-best sales week of 2010. It's also a better launch than the 450,000 that greeted his last set, 2008's "808s & Heartbreak." As for Minaj, she racks up the second-best sales week for a female hip-hop act. Only Lauryn Hill has done better, when "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" started at No. 1 with 423,000 in 1998.
Also, this week marks the first time in two years that the Billboard 200 has seen two albums bow with more than 300,000 units. It last happened on the list dated Dec. 6, 2008, when Beyonce's "I Am ... Sasha Fierce" started at No. 1 with 482,000 while Nickelback's "Dark Horse" galloped in a No. 2 with 326,000.
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Many chart-watchers were keeping tabs West's presence in both the Amazon MP3 and iTunes stores last week. Amazon offered "Fantasy" for the entire week at just $3.99, while iTunes did not promote the album on the front its store until Saturday (27) -- five days after its Monday release.
West's "Fantasy" starts with 224,000 downloads -- 45% of the album's overall first week. While SoundScan does not disclose retailers' specific numbers -- so we don't know how much of that 224,000 is owed to Amazon MP3 or any other service -- that number ranks as the fourth-biggest digital week for any set.
It's behind only the debuts of Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" (288,000 in 2008), Taylor Swift's "Speak Now" (278,000 this year) and Eminem's "Recovery" (255,000 this year). It's notable that those albums all had larger overall first-week sales figures -- each began with well over 700,000 -- making West's digital debut more impressive because of its ratio of digital-to-physical copies.
Last week's No. 1 album, Susan Boyle's "The Gift," slips to No. 3 with 263,000 (down 21%), while Taylor Swift's "Speak Now" feels the heat from her NBC Thanksgiving TV special, rising five spots to No. 4 with 241,000 (up 64%). Jackie Evancho's "O Holy Night" falls three rungs to No. 5 with 142,000 (down 41%) while Rihanna's "Loud" drops three as well to No. 6 with 141,000 (down 32%).
