The Numbers Game: Rihanna Is #4 + Birdman & Wiz Khalifa Debut

rihanna-ratedr-revealed-nappyafro

This is one of those Numbers Game where a lot of stuff came out but I really wasn’t looking forward to almost any of the releases. We do have a full house lead by Rihanna’s return to the charts.

Rihanna‘s 4th album, Rated R, was released and landed at #4 and sold over 180,000 copies. Somebody asked me today what I thought about that. I really don’t know. On one hand it does seem low considering all the press that Rihanna gets (Think about how many photos you’ve seen of her just walking down the street). On another note, Rated R did beat the first week sales of Good Girl Gone Bad and if you didn’t know that album moved units. I guess we can just wait to see what happens to the sales in the coming weeks. Wonder what Chris Brown’s Graffiti will do?

Another person debuting this week with their 4th album is Birdman. Pricele$$ lands at #29 with 35,000 albums sold. I see Cash Money really pushing this album with all the videos being shot for it. Hey, we all know this is just to hold off the Drizzy and Wayne fans.

Cash Money strikes again with their British export Jay Sean. Now I could lie and say that I liked/hated his album but I’ve never heard anything from this guy besides the what’s on Birdman’s Pricele$$ (And that was for a review). Jay Sean’s third album, All Or Nothing, lands at #33 and sales around 30,000 (Which is very good considering).

Did you know that Boyz II Men released an album last Tuesday? Me neither. Love comes in at #89.

I could say the same thing about Angie Stone. Unexpected (Fitting title) lands at #99.

The Dame Dash directed Blakroc project by The Black Keys was released last week and charts at #125. I wanted to love this album so bad just based off the promo video but in the end I only really liked one song, the Mos Def/Jim Jones featured “Ain’t Nothing Like You (Hoochie Coo)”. You still may wanna check it out for yourself though.

And lastly, one person I’m happy for is the independent Wiz Khalifa. Like his album title says, Deal Or No Deal, he comes in at #148 and moves over 5,000 units. Even though the sale figures may not break the bank, the kid even making the Top 150 is a win by itself with mostly internet marketing and word of mouth for the album’s promotion. Taylor Gang bitch!

And of course, the numbers…

#4 Rihanna/Rated R (Last Week: NA) – 181,400; Total: NA [Debut]
#11 Michael Jackson/This Is It [OST] (Last Week: #7) – 108,100; Total: 890,400 (Gold) [5 Weeks]
#19 50 Cent/Before I Self Destruct (Last Week: #5) – 65,800; Total: 227,000 [2 Weeks]
#28 Jay-Z/The Blueprint 3 (Last Week: #30) – 36,900; Total: 1,337,200 (Platinum) [12 Weeks]
#29 Birdman/Pricele$$ (Last Week: NA) – 35,800; Total: NA [Debut]
#33 Jay Sean/All Or Nothing (Last Week: NA) – 30,800; Total: NA [Debut]
#45 Leona Lewis/Echo (Last Week: #13) – 23,000; Total: 90,300 [2 Weeks]
#89 Boyz II Men/Love (Last Week: NA) – 11,800; Total: NA [Debut]
#99 Angie Stone/Unexpected (Last Week: NA) – 10,000; Total: NA [Debut]
#125 The Black Keys/Blakroc (Last Week: NA) – 7,400; Total: NA [Debut]
#148 Wiz Khalifa/Deal Or No Deal (Last Week: NA) – 5,900; Total: NA [Debut]

Founder
  1. I think The Blueprint 3 will be the highest selling Rap album of 2009 ousting Relapse, and possibly beat out The Black Eyed Peas at the rate it’s going and still moving the number of units it’s doing. That’s gonna be a real good look for Hov, but I don’t know why BP3 wasn’t nominated for “Best Rap Album” for the Grammys (maybe he missed the deadline with September release).

    Rihanna selling 180,000 copies her first week is definitely good, but I don’t think it will surpass the 2.5 million that ‘Good Girl Gone Bad’ did overall. Honestly, I don’t think ‘Rated R’ is as good as that album (or has as many big singles) and it fell below the expectations that people had for her. I think the Chris Brown incident had a lot to do with the sales the album attained as she built the album’s buzz and promotion around that situation. The whole alter-ego/dark side style that she’s taking on from that incident is not a good look for her as that’s how most of that album sounds. IMO, Chris Brown’s ‘Graffiti” album will outsell RiRi’s album cause CB really hasn’t lost as many fans and supporters because of the incident as people thought he would or should have, and his singles (“I Can Transform Ya”, “Crawl”) have hit more than RiRi’s (“Russian Roulette”, “Hard”).

    @ Birdman’s ‘Pricele$$’… SMH… The 35,000+ that actually spent money on that album “priceless” © MasterCard.

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