We saw a brief hiatus of Charts Don't Lie over the holiday break, but that doesn't mean sales slowed down, in fact, it appears to have been the opposite. Over the holiday season, many artists saw a rise on the charts as more copies were sold of their respective albums. So this week, you'll see artists featured that probably haven't appeared on Charts for a while. It's interesting to see which artists were able to climb up the Billboard 200 over the holidays, and whose albums remained low on the list (Game, for example, stayed low on the charts keeping relatively the same position at #44).
1) Bruno Mars – Unorthodox Jukebox: Bruno Mars’ pop stardom keeps him atop the list for the return of Charts Don’t Lie. His second studio album is at #6 on the Charts, having sold 55,237 copies over the past week.
2) Alicia Keys – Girl On Fire: Mrs. AK is also keeping a float on the charts, since we last checked in she had moved 58k. This week she adds another 44,455 units to that amount, and remains in the top ten but only just at #9.
3) Kendrick Lamar- good kid, m.A.A.d city: K. Dot has moved up the charts since we last saw him featured., as it appears quite a few rappers did over the holidays. Last week the Compton rapper was at spot #17, while last we saw him on our Charts feature was at spot #31. But now he’s climbed up to right above T.I. at spot #14. Perhaps due to the holidays he saw an increase in sales, with 35,003 copies sold.
4) T.I. – Trouble Man: Heavy Is The Head: Tip's Trouble Man sits right below the good kid on the charts this week, at #15 he moved slightly less than Kendrick. 33,667 units moved. His opening week was strong, with debuting at #2 and moving around 175k. We’ll have to see how much more momentum he can maintain on the charts though.
5) Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – The Heist: The Heist also found resurgence on this list, perhaps once again due to the holiday spirit. The rapper and producer are back at #22 with around 23k sold over the past week.
6) Frank Ocean – Channel Orange: Another stranger to our Charts Don’t Lie for a period of time, Ocean lands at #32 this week, rising from last week’s #51 spot (which happened to be right under Macklemore & Ryan Lewis last week). This equates to 17,349 copies of his Def Jam debut selling.
As not very much actually dropped over the holidays, we don't really see any new-comers to Charts. Even in the coming weeks, there are not many new hip-hop albums dropping, apart from A$AP Rocky's Long.Live.A$AP (January 15th). It'll be very interesting to see what his numbers come in at, seeing as his album leaked extremely prematurely. Do you guys think that will effect his sales?