The Super Bowl Sold Some Madonna, Kelly And LMFAO Albums. Oh, And Adele.

Written by Naption on February 8, 2012. Posted in News

Posted by Katherine St Asaph on 02/08/2012 at 12:28 PM News

The Popdust Files: adele, Billboard, charts, lana del rey, lmfao, madonna

In the interest of not writing another “Adele Is Still At No. 1″ album-charts article, let’s start with something else. Something timely. Something that doesn’t really need a paragraph of ado, so let’s just get to it:

- Football madness: You know, that one show with all those stars and all those spontaneous gestures. Headliner Madonna’s MDNA isn’t out yet, but her compilation Celebration is; it re-entered the chart at No. 24 with 16,000 sales. M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj’s albums aren’t out yet; their most recent releases are a mixtape (Vicki Leekx) and an already really old album (Pink Friday, which we’d be talking about this time last year). And, y’know, they maybe got five seconds each at the halftime show, and they’re not decades-entrenched stars yet like Madonna, so it’s not too surprising that they’re nowhere big on the charts. Meanwhile, Kelly Clarkson, whose National Anthem at the Super Bowl was as flawless as an anthem that’s a repurposed drinking song could possibly be, moved some albums too; Stronger moved from No. 20 to No. 13 with 21,000 sales. Someone somewhere is already trying to connect this to the election. And since you’re probably quibbling that these really aren’t that many sales, nor are either in the top 10, LMFAO’s Sorry for Party Rocking is No. 9, without even a Shufflebot appearance to boost it further!

- Lana Del You-Know-Who: Like others at Popdust, I’ve got a bit of a personal stake in this one; a couple music critics and I had a Twitter bet going (no actual stakes, just bragging rights), and I low-balled Born to Die at 25K copies. Turns out, 77,000 people are perfectly fine with explaining to houseguests and confused relatives why they’ve got a copy of Lana Del Rey’s album on their coffee table. It was enough to take her album to, as projected, a surprisingly respectable No. 2. Which you might even call a de facto No. 1, because there’s no way anything is ever going to outsell…

- I guess we have to talk about her eventually: Adele is No. 1 again. This, in fact, is Adele’s 19th week at No. 1, which isn’t an official milestone so we’ll make one up: Adele’s finally reached the chart milestone to correspond with debut album 19. Next week, of course, is The Bodyguard‘s 20-week milestone, which could maybe be thwarted by Van Halen, Paul McCartney or the Fray but probably won’t, especially with the Grammys gearing up. Honestly, though, we’re more excited about the milestone after that: 21 weeks for 21. Let’s sit back while it inevitably happens!

- Others: Not much noteworthy: Drake again, Rihanna again, a couple compilations, gospel artist Fred Hammond. But we’re most excited about something going on outside: Gotye’s Making Mirrors had been out digitally for a while, but getting a physical album out made it move 18,000, which is more impressive when you realize that bumps it up 25 spots to No. 20. We endorse this; the album’s great. Even if (because?) it sounds exactly like Sting.

The full top 10:

1. Adele, 21, 122,000
2. Lana Del Rey, Born to Die, 77,000
3. Leonard Cohen, Old Ideas, 41,000 (Lana Del Rey sold more than Leonard Cohen!)
4. 2012 Grammy Nominees, 34,000 (a compilation, here for obvious reasons)
5. Kidz Bop 21, 30,000 (sorry for your No. 5! Maybe you should have sold yourself as Kidz Bop 21.)
6. Drake, Take Care, ~30,000
7. Tim McGraw, Emotional Traffic, 29,000
8. Fred Hammond, God, Love & Romance, 26,000
9. LMFAO, Sorry For Party Rocking, 22,000
10. Rihanna, Talk That Talk, 22,000