Imagine Dragons narrowly edged out Drake on this week's Billboard 200 charts, as streaming and single downloads allowed the emcee and If You're Reading This It's Too Late to almost catch the rock band's Smoke + Mirrors. On the pure albums chart however, the Las Vegas band had a more significant cushion: Its second album sold 169,500 copies, marking the highest sales week of its career. Drake's surprise album sold 129,000 copies in its second week.
The Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack kept pace from last week, albeit moving closer to Drake in terms of overall sales. The compilation sold another 113,500 albums last week. Taylor Swift stayed at no. 4 with 1989, which sold 55,500 copies.
Swift's placement indicates that the sales run of Grammy performers is, for the most part, over. Sam Smith had been ahead of Swift with his In The Lonely Hour as the result of winning four Grammys and performing with Mary J. Blige on the broadcast. This week he came back down to a more earthbound 47,000 albums sold. Ed Sheeran was another performer who benefitted from the further Grammys exposure. He's down to no. 6 this week with x, which sold 44,000 albums.
One series of albums that benefitted, as usual, from the transition from Billboard 200 to Albums Charts, is compilations. Coming in at no. 7 is Now 53, unavailable for streaming, which sold 39,000 albums. Further on down the line, coming in at no. 10, is the 2015 Grammy Nominees collection, which gets one more week in the Top 10 in the wake of the aforementioned awards show. It sold 23,500 copies.
Getting back to the regular order, a new album appeared at no. 8 on the Albums chart after it afield to crack the Top 10 on the Billboard 200. Aaron Watson and Underdog, his tenth studio album, debuted at no. 8 with 26,000 in sales. Meghan Trainor and Title comes in at no. 9 in her sixth week on the chart, moving 24,000 units.
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