Carrie Underwood's 'Blown Away' leads album sales, Norah Jones gets second place
Randee St. Nicholas
Carrie Underwood blew away the competition on the Billboard 200 this week, scoring her third straight number one album with her fourth release, Blown Away, and moving 267,000 copies.
Other Top 10 newcomers included Norah Jones, with her Danger Mouse-produced Little Broken Hearts, B.O.B., Marilyn Manson, and the first-ever soundtrack from NBC's Smash.
Check out the full Top 10 below:
1. Carrie Underwood, Blown Away – 267,000
This is Underwood's third straight number one after 2009's Play On, which debuted with 318,000, and 2007's Carnival Ride, which started with 527,000. Underwood's 2005 debut Some Hearts is her only album to not reach the summit of the chart — it debuted at No. 2 with 315,000 (behind Madonna's Confessions on a Dance Floor) and eventually sold 7.2 million copies. Her current single "Good Girl" has climbed up to No. 8 on the country songs chart, and follow-up "Blown Away," which she performed on the Idol stage last week, kicks off its run at No. 22 on the Hot Digital Songs chart.
2. Norah Jones, Little Broken Hearts – 110,000
Norah Jones could have stayed the course and made lovely, jazz-tinged, perhaps slightly snoozy records and gone platinum for the rest of her career (her Grammy-winning debut Come Away With Me sold over 10 million copies, and her three subsequent records have all reached platinum status), but the chanteuse took a risk with her darker, Danger Mouse-produced fifth album. As such, Little Broken Hearts opened to Jones' lowest sales ever — but somehow, we doubt she's too worried about it.
3. Various Artists, Now 42 – 95,000
The last five editions of the popular compilation albums have debuted in third place. It's the hits, kids: Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You," Flo Rida's "Good Feeling," Karmin's "Brokenhearted" and more.
4. Adele, 21 – 77,000
At this point, what's left say? Last week, it had sold roughly 8.9 million copies; now, it's rounding out on 9 million. Adele's world domination continues.
5. B.o.B., Strange Clouds – 76,000
The Atlanta rapper's sophomore album sold slightly fewer copies than his 2010 debut B.o.B Presents: The Adventures Of Bobby Ray, which started at number one with sales of 84,000 and ended up selling about 597,000 copies total. Still, after a handful of singles that didn't exactly burn up the chart ("Strange Clouds" and "Play the Guitar" both failed to make much of an impact on radio), B.OB. should be happy with these results. It seems his late-in-the-game pop-oriented material, like Ryan Tedder tune "So Good" and Taylor Swift collaboration "Both of Us" (which debuts at number 8 on this week's Hot Digital Songs chart), helped lift the album's fortunes in the weeks leading to its release.
6. Lionel Richie, Tuskegee – 64,000
The soft-rock star's country comeback record has sold 679,000 copies in six weeks. Say you, say him, say platinum: It was also just certified for shipments of 1 million copies to stores.
7. Jack White, Blunderbuss – 56,000
The onetime White Stripes frontman, who earned his first chart-topping week ever last week, dropped by 59 percent after last week's debut, still giving him 194,000 total in two weeks.
8. One Direction, Up All Night – 45,000
After eight weeks, the UK boy band has sold a whopping 586,000 units of their debut effort. That's what makes them beautiful (at least to Simon Cowell).
9. Soundtrack, The Music Of SMASH – 40,000
The first collection of songs sfrom NBC's inside-Broadway musical drama Smash started slower than the first Glee soundtrack, which debuted at number 4 in November 2009, but that's to be expected given Smash's smaller audience and general proportion of pop covers to originals.
10. Marilyn Manson, Born Villain – 38,000
He may have been born to his lowest numbers yet — but it's still the Prince of Darkness' seventh top 10 album.
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