Rock band Avenged Sevenfold comes flying in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. The group’s sixth studio album, “Hail to the King,” sold 159,000 copies in its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
It’s the second-largest sales week for the rock band, just shy of the debut of its last album, 2010’s “Nightmare” (No. 1 with 163,000).
The new album’s title track has climbed to No. 12 on Billboard’s Hot Rock Songs chart, and spent the past four consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Active Rock airplay tally.
Avenged Sevenfold’s opening is also the largest week for a hard rock album in more than a year. The last such release to sell more in a week was Linkin Park’s “Living Things,” when it launched at No. 1 with 223,000 on July 14, 2012. (The two bands are labelmates on Warner Bros. Records.)
“Hail to the King” also debuts at No. 1 on Hard Rock Albums, Alternative Albums and the overall Rock Albums chart. On the Billboard 200, “Hail to the King” is the band’s third top 10 effort, following “Nightmare” and 2007’s “Avenged Sevenfold” (No. 4).
They Still Want Their MTV: Now that a full week has passed since MTV’s Video Music Awards, both the Billboard 200 and the Hot Digital Songs charts swell with gainers thanks to the show.
In total, sales of songs performed on the VMAs and the albums released by the show’s performers moved more than 2 million copies for the week — a gain of 37%. (That includes studio albums, EPs, collaborative sets and hits compilations.)
The 21 songs that were performed during the show — including the 11 tunes heard in the lengthy Justin Timberlake/’N Sync medley — sold 1.8 million downloads for the week: a collective rise of 36%. The biggest increase, in terms of unit gain, belongs to Robin Thicke’s “Give It 2 U,” which moved 84,000 downloads — up 60,000 (251%). Only one of the songs sung at the VMAs declined in sales: Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” which dips 3% to 244,000.
Of the performers’ albums (which collectively grew by 41% in sales), Timberlake’s “The 20/20 Experience” had the largest unit gain, rising by 22,000 to 37,000 (up 147%). It returns to the top 10 on the Billboard 200, climbing 22-6.
Fresh Twist: A familiar name returns to the top 10 of the Billboard 200, but surprisingly only for a second time: Alabama. With the arrival of “Alabama & Friends” at No. 8 (32,000), the veteran country band notches its highest-charting album, thanks to such big-name friends as Kenny Chesney, Luke Bryan and Florida Georgia Line. Despite placing 42 entries on the Top Country Albums chart, Alabama has claimed only one previous top 10 set on the Billboard 200: “The Closer You Get,” which reached No. 10 in 1983.
Alabama’s new collaborations set is a twist on the familiar question: How do you celebrate your old hits, but in a fresh way?
Lionel Richie took the concept to another level a year ago with “Tuskegee,” for which he reinvented his catalog of pop and R&B songs as country-fied duets. Since Richie’s success, a handful of creatively executed, self-tributing albums have preceded “Alabama & Friends”‘ arrival in the top 10.
Last November, Tony Bennett invited a number of Latin stars to collaborate on “Viva Duets,” which reached No. 5. The set revisited familiar favorites from Bennett’s catalog, but with a Latin twist. The stars on the album include Marc Anthony, Gloria Estefan and Vicente Fernandez. Earlier this year, John Fogerty reworked his catalog with an all-star rock and country lineup for “Wrote a Song for Everyone.” The duets album opened in June at No. 3, becoming his second-highest-charting set after the chart-topping “Centerfield” in 1985.
Looking Ahead: On next week’s Billboard 200, 20-year-old singer/actress Ariana Grande could nab her first No. 1 album. The budding pop star’s debut release, “Yours Truly,” is on course to sell 110,000-120,000 copies. If Grande bows at No. 1, she’ll be the first female artist to do so with a debut album since January 2010, when Ke$ha’s “Animal” opened atop the chart. Tamar Braxton’s “Love and War” will likely be next week’s second-biggest bow. It’s aiming for a launch of 100,000-110,000 copies.