With just over 50% of reports in, Rapper J. Cole will unseat Taylor Swift and take the top of the chart. His sales are predicted to be so high that her massive TEA/SEA numbers cannot catch up this week. Taylor will be back at the top soon. “2014 Forest Hills Drive” is J. Cole’s third number one album and the predictions are that he will sell around 345K. That’s up from his 2013 release “Born Sinner” which sold 297K. This will make it the biggest opener for a hip-hop album in over a year (Eminem opened with 792K Nov 10, 2013). We used to get several massive first weeks from Rap albums every year, but that has faded recently.
Taylor Swift will have another big week despite being in second place. The pundits are predicting 270K in sales and that’s nothing to sneeze at over a month after your album was released. In fact, most artists dream of that kind of number in their first week. Her predicted SPS is 300-325k.
Pentatonix continues strong and steady sales with their Christmas album predicted to end 3rd with 197K in sales (205-215k SPS). Their previous Christmas album is at 26th. Carrie Underwood’s greatest hits album is out and it will be the number one Country album of the week. Her sales are predicted to be 85-90K (90-95k SPS) which is pretty impressive for a GH album. One Direction, from UK XF, have dropped to 8th for the fourth week of their fourth album “4”. Kelly Clarkson, the original American Idol winner, has her 2013 Christmas album at 40th. Now 52 at 12th features a track from the last X-Factor US winners Alex and Sierra.
The rest of the top 10 is rounded up with AC/DC at 5th, K. Michelle (R&B) is debuting at 6th, Garth Brooks is a steady-Eddie at 7th, Gaurdians of the Galaxy surge to 9th and Sam Smith is in the lonely spot of 10th.
The judges are represented by Blake and Adam. Blake has a Christmas album at 34 and his current album at 41. Adam’s Maroon 5 is at 35th.
CHART DATE: 12/15/2014
LAST UPDATE: 12/15/2014 12:59:32
NOW IN: 50.65%
LW TW artist / album label sales index
— 1 J. COLE 2014 FOREST HILLS DRIVE 254,646
1 2 TAYLOR SWIFT 1989 117,734
2 3 PENTATONIX THAT’S CHRISTMAS TO ME 110,319
— 4 CARRIE UNDERWOOD GREATEST HITS: DECADE #1 63,898
3 5 AC/DC ROCK OR BUST 53,495
— 6 K. MICHELLE ANYBODY WANNA BUY A HEART? 46,069
7 7 GARTH BROOKS MAN AGAINST MACHINE 36,038
5 8 ONE DIRECTION FOUR 28,404
28 9 GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY SOUNDTRACK 26,954
8 10 SAM SMITH IN THE LONELY HOUR 26,707
…
13 12 NOW 52 VARIOUS ARTISTS 21,552
…
14 26 PENTATONIX PTXMAS 10,154
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49 34 BLAKE SHELTON CHEERS, IT’S CHRISTMAS 7,324
37 35 MAROON 5 V 7,307
…
43 40 KELLY CLARKSON WRAPPED IN RED 6,158
— 41 BLAKE SHELTON BRINGING BACK THE SUNSHINE 6,092
…
— 50 TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA CHRISTMAS ATTIC 4,376