‘Blurred Lines’ Clearly Gives Robin Thicke First No. 1 Album
Stoked by its titular summer megahit single, Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” became the pop singer’s first No. 1 album last week.
Thicke’s Interscope collection launched at the top with a 177,000-unit debut week, according to Nielsen SoundScan data for the week ending Aug. 4. The vocalist’s previous personal best came in 2008, when “Something Else” climbed to No. 3 on the list.
Pushed along by a ubiquitous TV campaign for Radio Shack and fired by a NSFW clip featuring Thicke and collaborators T.I. and Pharrell Williams cavorting with a set of topless models, “Blurred Lines” has dominated the singles chart since late spring. The track has sold nearly 4.3 million copies to date.
Four other new titles crowded into the U.S. top 10 in a busy frame. L.A. metal unit Five Finger Death Punch bowed at No. 2 with “The Wrong Side of Heaven and the Righteous Side of Hell: Volume 1” (Prospect Park), which tracked 112,000. Set outperformed the group’s former high water mark, 2011’s “American Capitalist,” which topped out at No. 3.
Rapper Tech N9ne’s “Something Else” (Strange Music) arrived at No. 4, reaping first-week sales of 58,000. Title equaled the chart posting of his last release, 2011’s “All 6’s and 7’s.”
Backstreet Boys, the dominant boy band of millennial pop, bounced back into the top 10 at No. 5 with “In a World Like This” (K-Bahn), shifting 48,000. While the set is the group’s highest-charting release since 2005’s No. 3 entry “Never Gone,” sales levels are a far cry from its record-breaking hits “Millennium” (1999) and “Black & Blue” (2000), both of which entered with first-week sales in excess of 1 million copies.
Finally, American “X Factor” grads Emblem 3 signed in at No. 7 with their debut album “Nothing to Lose” (Columbia), which moved 46,000. The Washington trio placed fourth in last year’s competition.
The week’s top 10 holdovers include Jay Z’s “Magna Carta Holy Grail” (No. 3, 62,000 sold, off 20%), the “Teen Beach Movie” soundtrack (No. 6, 47,000, off 17%), Selena Gomez’s “Stars Dance” (No. 8, 31,000, off 68%), “Kidz Bop 24” (No. 9, 28,000, down 27%) and Florida Georgia Line’s “Here’s to the Good Times” (No. 10, 28,000, down 4%).
The sophomore release by Americana duo the Civil Wars and the 47th installment of the hits compilation “Now That’s What I Call Music” will take aim at next week’s top 10.
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