Newsboys & Ray LaMontagne Score No. 1s With New Albums
Newsboys open at No. 1 on Top Rock Albums with "Love Riot," while LaMontagne's Jim James-produced "Ouroboros" bows atop Folk Albums.
Newsboys lead a slew of debuts on Billboard‘s Top Rock Albums chart (dated March 26), as Love Riot debuts at No. 1 with 27,000 copies sold in its first week, according to Nielsen Music.
The set is the Christian band’s first No. 1 on both Top Rock Albums and Alternative Albums and also launches at No. 2 on Top Christian Albums, where it’s the group’s ninth record to reach the top two (six of which have reached No. 1).
The set debuts at No. 14 on the Billboard 200, marking Newsboys’ best rank since 2010’s Born Again, which opened at No. 4.
At the runner-up spot on both Top Rock Albums and Alternative Albums, Ray LaMontagne opens with Ouroboros (27,000; slightly less than Newsboys’ sum before rounding off totals). The album, featuring members of My Morning Jacket and produced by its frontman, Jim James, also arrives as the singer-songwriter’s third No. 1 on Folk Albums, following 2014’s Supernova and 2010’s God Willin’ & the Creek Don’t Rise, the latter credited to Ray LaMontagne & the Pariah Dogs. Those two sets, plus 2008’s Gossip in the Grain, started at No. 1 on Top Rock Albums.
New at No. 3 on Top Rock Albums is comedy duo Ninja Sex Party, which played it straight with new album Under the Covers, chock full of redos of tracks originally recorded in the 1970s and ’80s, including Billboard Hot 100 No. 1s “Take on Me,” originally by a-ha; Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”; Michael Jackson’s “Rock with You” and Van Halen’s “Jump.” The set debuts with 22,000 copies sold, the pair’s highest sales week yet.
As for the other top 10 debut on Top Rock Albums, Swedish band Miike Snow snares its highest rank as III enters at No. 7 (9,000 sold). Previously, the act peaked at No. 13 with 2012’s Happy to You. Miike Snow also scores its first top five on Alternative Albums (No. 5). The debut complements the LP’s lead single, “Genghis Khan,” which continues to rise at radio, having hit No. 11 on Alternative Songs. On Hot Rock Songs, the track hits a new high (20-12), claiming the chart’s top Streaming Gainer award for its 58 percent surge to 1.4 million U.S. streams.
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