Labor Day has been the first Monday of September since its founding in 1894. More recently, the music industry has traditionally begun releasing new albums on Tuesdays. Music Times has done its research to celebrate the holiday, and found the five biggest-selling albums from the last 15 years that were released the day after Labor Day.
5. "Night Visions" by Imagine Dragon (September 4, 2012)
Imagine Dragons is certainly the newest face on this list, but the first-year sales trends of debut album "Night Visions" seems to suggest that the band could be around for a while. "Visions" debuted with 83,000 in first-week sales during 2012, but the album has held a higher weekly average than almost any other album from last year. It doesn't hurt to have a single like "Radioactive," which is still in the Billboard Hot 100, and has sold more than 4 million downloads.
4. "The Blueprint 3" by Jay Z (September 8, 2009)
Jay Z had laid off the retirement talk, releasing the third installment in his "Blueprint" series a "mere" two years after "American Gangster." Fans were hyped after the loaded "D.O.A. (Death of Autotune)" seemed to declare war on hip-hop's biggest trend, but it was the more friendly singles, "Run This Town" and "Empire State of Mind" that make "Blueprint 3" memorable. The album sold nearly 500,000 copies after one week, allowing Jay to break Elvis Presley's record for most albums debuted at no. 1 on the Billboard charts. The album has sold a little more than 3 million copies worldwide.
3. "A Bigger Bang" by The Rolling Stones (September 5, 2005)
The Rolling Stones weren't creating quite the bang they had 40 years earlier, but fans were still more than willing to jump for the band's first new album in eight years. The album only peaked at no. 3 on the Billboard 200, but still managed to sell 546,000 copies in its first week (the band fell sales victim to the now questionable "Most Wanted" by Hilary Duff and the sales juggernaut of Kanye West's "Late Registration"). The band hasn't released anything new recently, so this may have been their farewell album, as far as we know. At least they went out with a bang, selling somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.5 million albums.
2. "Toxicity" by System of A Down (September 4, 2001)
Surprised to see these guys ahead of Jay Z? System of A Down was the biggest name in rock leading up to the release of its second album, with singles like "Aerials" and the title-track receiving constant airplay. "Toxicity" debuted with 220,000 first-week sales, far less than most of the albums on this list, but has shown the most staying power overall. The album has sold more than six million copies to date, and remains System's go-to album. Rumors abound of new music from the group, but they'll be hard-up to live up to this, SPIN magazine's 2001 album of the year.
1. "B'Day" by Beyonce (September 4, 2006)
Beyonce established herself as a star with her first solo album, "Dangerously in Love." "B'Day" was just confirmation that she would become the biggest pop star of the decade. The album produced six singles, including "Irreplaceable" and "Get Me Bodied." It seems ridiculous to say, but those are honestly some of her less memorable singles. Still, the album sold 541,000 albums in its first week and topped the Billboard 200. "B'Day" is now hovering around 8 million albums sold.
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