The Numbers Game: Lil’ Wayne (Almost) Sells A Million

Regardless of leopard jeggings, album leaks, or bad reviews (All except with DuB & King Jerm‘s), you still have to salute Lil’ Wayne. While it missed selling a million by less than 34,700 copies, you might as well say Tha Carter IV sold a million copies in it’s first week. Technically, the only person to sell more this year is Lady Gaga’s Born This Way with 1.1 million; but then again, Tha Carter IV wasn’t sold on Amazon for $.99.

Wayne also smashed the previous iTunes first-week sales record with 300,000 (A record that was previously held by Watch The Throne just a few weeks ago).

Many people (Me included) are saying that Birdman/Cash Money bought copies of Tha Carter IV to ensure this mega-sales debut. Birdman spoke to MTV about this:

“Nah, man, that really don’t make no sense. Why would we do that?” Birdman asked. “I press and distribute ’em. Ain’t no need for me to buy ’em. That’s hustling backwards; we ain’t in it for that. I ain’t ever been a part of that type of scheme to be buyin’ records. We don’t do that, homey. We be working too hard to be ó that don’t go with what we do. We truly what we do. We’re real about what we do, we work hard every day at it, and we work for the people. That’s what we do music for: for people. And we appreciate the love they give us back. But no such thing as me buying no CDs. I wouldn’t even play it like that.”

If you haven’t already, check out our review of Tha Carter IV here

Sidenote: While I’m happy for Wayne doing these kinda numbers, I’m also happy that he didn’t sell a million in the first-week. And that’s not because I didn’t want hm to outsell Watch The Throne (I could care less). But I bet King Jerm $60 that Tha Carter IV wouldn’t sell a milli in the first-week and thank god it just missed it.

The Original Jill Scott from the Vault, Vol. 1 landed at #28 and sold 12,000 copies which is pretty good for a compilation of unreleased tracks recorded by Jill Scott when she was signed to Hidden Beach. Seems like the label was trying to cash in on the succes of The Light Of The Sun though. Check out Saule Wright’s nice write up of The Original Jill Scott from the Vault, Vol. 1 at Soulections here.

Glasses Malone finally releases his debut album Beach Cruiser. I say finally because “Certified”, the album’s first single, was originally released in 2007. And some kinda way, this album is released on Cash Money Records (Well, Blu Division/Hoo-Bangin’/Cash Money/Universal Republic/Suburban Noize to be exact). Either way, Beach Cruiser sold 2,700 units and lands at #165.

Slim Thug continues to rep for his squad as we see Boss Hogg Outlawz release yet another entry in the Serve & Collect series with Serve & Collect 3. I actually reviewed Serve & Collect 2 back in ’08, but didn’t feel the need to review this one (It’s kinda mediocre). Serve & Collect 3 grabs the #191 positin and sells 2,400 copies.

A few artists recieved sales boost because of the MTV VMA’s a couple a weeks back (Example: Beyonce’s 4 jumped back in the Top 10) but Tyler, The Creator got the most help as Goblin jumped 54 spots back in the Top 50 (It makes sense because he did win the Best New Artist Award)

I honestly don’t think anything noteworthy is dropping this week, but check back here next week to see for sure.

#1 Lil’ Wayne – Tha Carter IV (Last Week: NA) – 965,300; Total: NA (Gold) [Debut]
#4 Jay-Z & Kanye West – Watch The Throne (Last Week: #2) – 79,600; Total: 786,700 (Gold) [4 Weeks]
#7 Beyonce – 4 (Last Week: #12) – 39,300; Total: 739,300 (Gold) [10 Weeks]
#8 Game – The R.E.D. Album (Last Week: #1) – 38,800; Total: 136,700 [2 Weeks]
#20 Bad Meets Evil – Hell: The Sequel (Last Week: #15) – 17,500; Total: 498,500 [12 Weeks]
#28 Jill Scott – Original Jill Scott From The Vault, Vol. 1 (Last Week: NA) – 12,900; Total: NA [Debut]
#32 Bruno Mars – Doo-Wops & Hooligans (Last Week: #37) – 12,100; Total: 1,248,500 (Platinum) [47 Weeks]
#33 Nicki Minaj – Pink Friday (Last Week: #36) – 11,900; Total: 1,564,600 (Platinum) [41 Weeks]
#35 Kelly Rowland – Here I Am (Last Week: #33) – 11,200; Total: 151,400 [7 Weeks]
#37 Rihanna – Loud (Last Week: #20) – 10,800; Total: 1,443,800 (Platinum) [42 Weeks]
#45 Amy Winehouse – Back To Black (Last Week: #40) – 10,000; Total: 2,431,200 (2X Platinum) [Re-Entry/7 Weeks]
#47 Pitbull – Planet Pit (Last Week: #45) – 9,700; Total: 191,800 [11 Weeks]
#48 Tyler, Tha Creator – Goblin (Last Week: #102) – 9,700; Total: 117,600 [10 Weeks]
#165 Glasses Malone – Beach Cruiser (Last Week: NA) – 2,700; Total: NA [Debut]
#191 Boss Hogg Outlawz – Serve & Collect 3 (Last Week: NA) – 2,400; Total: NA [Debut]

Hip-Hop/R&B album sales for the week of 8/30/11