It's official: Lil Wayne's "Tha Carter IV" has sold 964,000 in its first week according to Nielsen SoundScan, easily enabling its No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200 chart. It is his third No. 1 album following "Tha Carter III" and "I Am Not a Human Being."
"Carter IV" earns the biggest sales week for a hip-hop album (or any set by a male artist), since his own "Carter III" bowed with 1.01 million on the June 28, 2008 chart. "Carter IV" also marks 2011's second-biggest frame, behind Lady Gaga's 1.11 million debut with "Born This Way."
Of course, Gaga's first week was bolstered by two days' worth of 99-cent sale pricing from AmazonMP3's store. "Carter IV" managed to sell nearly a million without such tactics. It's estimated that AmazonMP3 sold upwards of 440,000 downloads of its 99-cent "Born This Way" album.
Speaking of downloads, "Carter IV" shifted 362,000 digital copies in its first week. That marks the second-largest digital sales week of all time for an album; again, behind "Born This Way," with 662,000 downloads.
However, while SoundScan does not disclose retailer-specific figures, sources say "Carter" easily broke the U.S. iTunes Store's single-week album sales record, with around 345,000 sold via iTunes.
The last hip hop album to sell more than Tha Carter IV was Weezy‘s Tha Carter III back in 2008.
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Originally Posted by ThatKidCry
