When all was said and done, Lady Gaga’s Born This Way sold 1.108 million copies out of the gate last week, which was obviously way more than enough for the Rolling Stone cover girl to end Adele’s nine-week reign at #1 on the Top 200 and land her first chart-topping LP on Billboard‘s main tally. (By comparison, Brad Paisley’s ninth album This Is Country Music debuted at #2 on the strength of 153,000 copies sold).
Born This Way‘s initial success marks the largest first week for an album since 50 Cent’s The Massacre sold 1,141,000 in 2005. Gaga has now posted the second-best first week for a female artist’s album in the Nielsen SoundScan era. (Top honors go to Britney Spears’ 2000 sophomore offering Oops!…I Did It Again, which rolled out with 1,319,000 copies in week one.) Born This Way is also now the 17th album to debut with more than one million copies sold since 1991, when SoundScan began tracking record sales data.
Much has been made of the two days last week (Monday and Thursday) that Amazon’s MP3 store offered up Born This Way for 99 cents. According to Billboard, if you subtracted the entire week’s worth of sales at that particular digital retailer (440,000), the album would have still sold 668,000 copies — i.e. more than the first-week totals of both Adele’s 21 (352,000) and Britney Spears’ Femme Fatale (276,000) combined.
In other words, go pop a bottle of bubbly, Gaga. You’ve earned it.
The Top 10 of Billboard’s Top 200 chart:
1. Lady Gaga, Born This Way *new* *1 week*
2. Brad Paisley, This Is Country Music *new*
3. Adele, 21
4. Glee Cast, Glee: The Music, Vol. 6 *new*
5. Various, MMG Presents: Self Made, Vol. 1 *new*
6. Various, NOW 38
7. New Kids On The Block & Backstreet Boys, NKOTBSB *new*
8. Foster The People, Torches *new*
9. Jason Aldean, My Kinda Party
10. Mumford & Sons, Sigh No More
She is very tricky and sly – it’s all about her management – it’s unfair – album ain’t worth the sales – BTW – a lot of primitive tunes…. Femme Fatale WAY MUCH BETTER than Gaga’s BTW….
I claim again, Gaga is just REMIX of good artists of all times..she doesn’t have her own style like Britney, Beyonce or Christina
r u lost your mind? look at and listen, she is the only singer that is not a copy!
Total copycat!
She doesn’t have her own style? I like Xtina and Britney too… but they don’t write their own songs or come up with their own chord progressions or beats. They’re given all the pieces and trained how to put it together. Many great writers have made their hooks and hits which I’m fine with… but I give props to gaga either writing and developing most of her songs together with other writers and musicians rather than shopping for the next best sound.
This young lady is a blessing!
Hey, u lost ur mind – SHE IS JUST COPY – RIP OFF – ALL THE WAY!! Don’t make me laugh, please…
“Born This Way’s initial success marks the largest first week for an album since 50 Cent’s The Massacre sold 1,141,000 in 2005.”
What happened to Taylor Swift and Speak Now?
Hey, Riley – ‘Speak Now’ sold 1,047,000 in its first week last fall, according to Billboard/Nielsen SoundScan.
How many of the 1.1 million were from Amazon’s 99 cent giveaway though? That’s the only reason I bought it. I think it influenced a ton.
F*** this bitch, if it wasn’t for the 99 cent promo, she wouldn’t have sold that much… bunch of stupid fans who saved $15 for one album, ended up getting to buy so many more copies
Gaga sold 400000 copies with the amazon sale….Taylor Swifts would have been more without those by like 300000+
I think She used her money and give it away to make it # 1..Nobody buys her records nowadays..this ALBUM sucks!!
I love Lady Gaga and the album but to me, selling an album that you’ve worked really hard on for only 99 cents is a very cheap and sly way to sell over a million copies of an album. Britney did it without a trick like that, so Gaga can. I love her and her music, but I would be a little ashamed.
99 cents.
Qantity & Quality are 2 different things.
Who cares about numbers, the truth is, this album is a wreck
Hello lady gaga won the battle of divas… she can sing live and dance and stage her own concert,write own songs,play piano – multitasking talent queen than any pops artistes who were made of. gaga u deserve it…
She hasn’t won the battle – she just uses tricky ways for winning….she’s just witch with so many wigs..agree that she can sing like any other pop diva….her dance moves ain’t perfect…playing piano is ridiculous ..don’t mention it again, please)))…and the most important thing – she doesn’t have magic – the power, the energy on stage like Britney, Madonna or Beyonce….she just DOES EVERYTHING RIGHT ON STAGE and NOTHING MORE….
at least she’s a singer, unlike Britney!
not to mention that she can talk and dance, unlike Britney who is just a commercial puppet virtual star that cannot even kickoff a public appearence. Britney is a shame for music industry!
Don’t touch Britney…and don’t compare GAGA-MONSTER with Brit….Gaga IS SHAME for public….
I like that Britney does what she wants to do – I like that now she is lazy on stage, that she lyp-sinc..that she doesn’t sing live…I like her politics…she just do things at the right time for her….at the end she stays on top anyway…
Gaga will never get Britney’s place – NEVER! hard times for her are ahead…and then we’ll talk…Britney’s competitor is Christina.and she’ll always be..so go away Gaga’s monster fans like MaRihanna))
We – Brit’s fans – hate Gaga – cause You (Gaga’s fans) compare her with Britney..so stop doin’ that and we’ll accept her…if we could after all this sh**t
And once again – Lady Gaga doesn’t have powerful magnitisizm, charizma and energy on stage like Britney – THAT’S THE MOST IMPORTANT THING for staying long on top – she is like Robot on stage – right moves, right singing and nothing else..and that’s boring..and don’t argue anymore!
Eh, not really a good dancer. When she dances she looks like shes being thrown around but she has an amazing voice. She’s very talented. It’s just this video disturbs me. Love the song though.