By Eric Kelsey
LOS ANGELES, May 22 (Reuters) – Indie rock band Vampire
Weekend on Wednesday grabbed the top spot on the weekly
Billboard 200 album chart, besting new albums from country
legend George Strait and pop singer Demi Lovato.
“Modern Vampires of the City” sold 134,000 copies in its
first week, according to figures compiled by Nielsen SoundScan,
and became the second album to debut at the top of the weekly
Billboard 200 for the New York-based rockers.
It was also the first independently distributed album to
debut at No. 1 on the chart since country singer Jason Aldean’s
“Night Train” in November last year.
Strait’s “Love Is Everything,” his 27th studio album, sold
120,000 units and entered the chart at No. 2 while Lovato’s
“Demi” album sold 110,000 units and landed at No. 3.
Last week’s top album, “Golden” by country trio Lady
Antebellum, fell to No. 5 this week while the soundtrack to the
“The Great Gatsby” film dropped from No. 4 from No. 2.
On Billboard’s Digital Songs chart, which measures digital
single track download sales, rapper-producer duo Macklemore &
Ryan Lewis’s “Can’t Hold Us” held steady at No. 1 with 231,000
downloads.
Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” featuring rapper T.I. and
singer Pharrell Williams came in at No. 2 and Pink’s “Just Give
Me a Reason” featuring FUN. frontman Nate Ruess rounded out the
top 3 on the Digital Songs chart.
Total album sales this year stands at 111.4 million, a 5
percent decline over the same period last year.
Digital song downloads have totaled 531.2 million so far in
2013, off 3 percent in the same period last year.
(Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Cynthia Osterman)
