RUMOR MILL
Babel will score a #1 album next week, with a total between 575-625k, besting Justin Bieber's previous best debut of 374k.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
BABEL'S ON
Mumford & Sons Score Year's Biggest Debut; Green Day, No Doubt, Lupe Fiasco Follow
Their banjo keeps strumming, and now Mumford & Sons have the year's biggest chart debut.
The Glassnote Records folk-rockers' new album, Babel, will score a #1 album next week, with a total between 575-625k, besting Justin Bieber's previous best debut of 374k by what could be more than a quarter of a million units.
That's a lot of picking folks, based on one-day sales reports from music retailers both physical, but especially digital, which could amount to nearly three-quarters of the total.
Coming on the heels of front man Billie Joe Armstrong's iHeartRadio Music Festival outburst over the weekend and subsequent trip to rehab, the first of Green Day's three Reprise albums, Uno, will debut with between 150-175k, which supports the notion there is no such thing as bad publicity when it comes to selling records. Call it a punk marketing set-up.
Interscope's new No Doubt album, Push and Shove, the Orange County ska-popsters' first in a decade, will do a quite respectable 120-125k in first-week sales.
Atlantic hip-hop artist Lupe Fiasco's Food and Liquor II is on target for sales of between 85-95k.
Ultra's new release from electronic dance music icon Deadmau5, Album Title Goes Here, should do in the 40-50k range.
Album sales were up 6% vs. last week, up 3% vs. same week last year and down 5% year to date.
Track sales were up 3% vs. last week, up 13% vs. same week last year and up 6% year to date.
TEA sales were up 5% vs. last week, up 6% vs. same week last year and down 1.5% year to date.
