'NOW 50' ends 'Frozen's run at top of Billboard 200; Hunter Hayes starts high

Last week saw the end of a huge run for "Happy" on the Digital Downloads chart, but the Billboard 200 got a similar shakeup this week when the long-running no. 1 album finally got a bump down after eight weeks on top of the charts.

Now 50 took over the top position after debuting with a sales total of 153,000 albums. It's the best selling title in the series in more than five years, thanks largely to "Happy," "Dark Horse" by Katy Perry, and "Talk Dirty" by Jason Derulo and other long-running singles on the Digital Downloads chart.

Frozen stuck around for no. 2 this week, but its 99,000 copies sold mark the first time in seven weeks that it fell below 100,000 in sales (not a bad run). It marks the first week in a while where it hasn't broken a record of some sort as well, but its sales suggest that it could still potentially reach 3 million in total sales by June.

Hunter Hayes is the first of three new albums that come in at spots 3 through 5. His Storyline sold 69,000 copies, a personal high. Sarah McLachlan proved that she's not a relic of the '90s as many are wont to believe. Her album Shine On debuted with 42,000 copies sold. The no. 5 spot went to the Strange Music label, the home for underground mainstay Tech N9ne. The compilation Strangeulation sold 36,000 copies. Interestingly that's 5,000 more copies than mainstream label Young Money got for its Rise of An Empire compilation earlier during 2014.

Pharrell Williams might not have had similarly stratospheric sales for his album G I R L as he did with "Happy," but he's managed to stay in the Top 10 for nine weeks (none of them at no. 1). The album moved more than 24,000 copies this week. Another resilient performer, Luke Bryan, came in close behind with just over 24,000 copies of Crash My Party.

No. 8 went to another newcomer and respectable underground hip-hop act Atmosphere. The group's Southsiders brought in 23,000 copies sold for its first week. Carlos Santana was the last act with a debut album on this week's charts, as Corazon settled at no. 9 after selling 22,000 copies. Lorde returned to round out the Top 10 as Pure Heroine moved another 19,000 copies.

Tags

Frozen, Hunter Hayes, Tech N9ne, Pharrell Williams, Luke Bryan, Atmosphere, Carlos Santana, Lorde