Mumford & Sons Drops, Tech N9ne Sets Personal Record on Albums Chart

This week Warner Music became the first major label to report higher earnings from streaming than digital downloads, but album sales seem to be doing alright for Mumford & Sons, which tops the sales chart by selling 249,000 copies of Wilder Mind this week. That's a sizable number but more than a 50 percent drop off from the band's previous album, Babel, which debuted with 600,000 copies sold (the biggest rock debut of the decade thus far, in the band's defense).

Josh Groban, somewhat impressively, dropped less than 33 percent from his first week to his second with Stages, a collection of Broadway covers. His continued success—he sold another 102,000 copies—could potentially be attributed to the Mother's Day holiday over the weekend.

Another two new albums come in at the nos. 3 and 4 spots, respectively: Now 54 continues the NOW series popularity streak, selling 71,000 copies, while Tech N9ne has his most successful sales week ever with Special Effects, his 15th studio LP. That record sold 56,000 copies.

Last week's no. 1, the Zac Brown Band, stuck around at no. 5 this week with Jekyll + Hyde, which sold another 55,500 copies (it's got Groban beat by around 20,000 copies over the two weeks, despite falling behind during week two).

No album got a better Mother's Day boost than the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack, which saw a sales increase of 98 percent from the previous week. The collection jumped from around 15,500 copies last week to nearly 31,000 copies this week. Taylor Swift also received a slight push, as 1989 took no. 7 with 25,000 copies sold.

Two new records crack the Top 10 on the Albums chart that didn't make it on the Billboard 200: My Morning Jacket takes no. 8 with The Waterfall, which debuted with 24,500 copies sold. That was followed by Chris Stapleton's Traveller, which came in with 24,000 copies moved.

Sam Smith rounds out the Top 10 this week with his long-running In The Lonely Hour, which sold another 23,000 copies (also up from last week).

Tags

Sam Smith, Chris Stapleton, My Morning Jacket, Taylor Swift, Fifty Shades of Grey, The zac brown band, Tech N9ne, Josh Groban, Mumford & Sons