Idolator

Wow, either Groban moved 178k on Sunday and Monday alone, or a whole lot of people bought a Christmas album after Christmas. That's impressive either way.
When's the last time an album scanned as many sales the week before the release date as Radiohead did? Could be another sign that In Rainbows is going to surpass most sales predictions.

@GovernmentNames: According to a chat I had yesterday with dennisobell, it was in 1994 with Pearl Jam's Vs. Although I think that tally was due at least in part to legit sales of the vinyl version, which came out early...

How much did that sell? The last big one I remember was the last Destiny's Child album, which actually sold 61k and cracked the top 20 for the week before its street date.

@GovernmentNames: Aha, good call. I forgot about the Destiny's violation (that was in '04). I think you're right about that one, because unlike some of the other early breaks we've seen this decade from Eminem, Metallica, et al. (where the label moved the release up), the Destiny's debut was a total violation -- fueled by retailers bickering over pricing/positioning on a blockbuster other during the run-up to Thanksgiving that year.

At the risk of ghettoizing black artists, I tend to ignore R&B/hip-hop street-date violations because they're so common at black-owned/oriented record shops. The list of post-SoundScan R&B/hip-hop albums, especially hip-hop, that debuted early on street-date violations is long, too long to run down here (or, frankly, for me to remember offhand).

But I tend to remember records by guitar-playing honkies that break early due to a violation because they're so rare, which is why Pearl Jam stuck out in my memory (and it was Vitalogy, not Vs.). But Maura's right about the vinyl release; so really, I was wrong -- that one doesn't count, either. Who knows? Maybe among guitar-playing honkies, the Radiohead break is unprecedented.

That said, the Destiny's break should probably count on my unofficial list of non-hip-hop-related breaks -- the gals' complexions/R&B status notwithstanding -- because that break involved major chain retailers, not just small black-owned shops.

Ah, you're right, it was Vitalogy (although Vs. definitely had early vinyl/violation scans too, just not as much). Still, 40k, not quite as much as Destiny Fulfilled, which I wouldn't be surprised if it held the all-time record.
The Radiohead break is weird and unprecedented just because I assume these violations are usually due to obsessive fans, of which they have many, most of whom downloaded the album (or bought the 'discbox') ages ago. Maybe releasing this right at the beginning of January was a great way to capitalize on all those casual fans that've seen the album on every year-end list for the past 2 months.