Iggy Pop Scores First Solo No. 1 on a Billboard Chart With ‘Post Pop Depression’
The alt icon and longtime Stooges frontman roars in at No. 1 on Top Rock Albums, logging his best sales week in the Nielsen Music era.
Iggy Pop has achieved a first in his legendary career: a No. 1, as a soloist, on a Billboard chart.
Post Pop Depression, the animated singer and Stooges frontman’s 17th studio album, is his first solo No. 1 on a Billboard ranking, arriving at No. 1 on the April 9-dated Top Rock Albums and Alternative Albums tallies (which launched in 2006 and 2007, respectively). With 18,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen Music, he posts his best weekly sum since Nielsen began tracking data in 1991. The set also debuts at No. 17 on the Billboard 200, his highest-charting entry, easily besting 1977’s Idiot (No. 72).
The album also launches at No. 1 on the Vinyl Albums and Tastemakers Albums charts. (Vinyl Albums is a longtime chart which is now viewable weekly on Billboard.com. The latter list ranks the top selling albums of the week at an influential panel of stores comprised of independent retailer coalitions and smaller regional chains).
The new set from the rocker, born James Newell Osterberg, was produced by and features vocal and instrumental contributions from Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme. Fellow band member Dean Fertita, as well as drummer Matt Helders of the Arctic Monkeys, also played on the album.
Meanwhile, “Gardenia,” the album’s lead single, became Iggy Pop’s first hit on the Adult Alternative Songs radio airplay chart, this week rising to a new high of No. 26. Sirius XM’s The Spectrum led with 33 plays in the tracking week.
Iggy Pop and the Stooges first charted on the Billboard 200 in 1969. (The band tallied a No. 1 on the Hot Singles Sales chart in 2013.) Founding fathers of alternative and punk, the Stooges were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010.
Pop came close to hitting No. 1 on a Billboard chart back in 1990 on Alternative Songs with the hits “Home” (No. 2) and “Candy” (No. 5, with Kate Pierson). The latter also is Pop’s only charted single on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 (with or without The Stooges); it peaked at No. 28 in 1991.
One other act debuts in the Top Rock Albums top 10 this week: Phoenix metalcore band The Word Alive, whose fourth studio set, Dark Matter, starts at a career-best No. 7 with 7,000 copies sold. It also debuts at No. 4 on Hard Rock Albums, tying 2014’s Real for the group’s best peak, and a career-high No. 6 on Alternative Albums.