Watch the Throne surpasses Viva la Vida as digital first-week sales king.
By Rob Markman
Jay-Z and Kanye West
Photo: Getty Images
There should be some interesting conversation this week between Jay-Z and his buddy Chris Martin. Billboard is reporting that when the sales numbers for Watch the Throne are released Wednesday, Hov and Kanye West will break Coldplay's U.S. one-week sales record on iTunes.
Billboard learned through its sources that the album — which was exclusively available through iTunes from its release on August 8 to August 11 — sold approximately 290,000 units through Sunday. That's 8,000 more digital copies than Coldplay slung when they dropped their 2008 album, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends.
On Friday, Throne was released to physical retailers, and when the first-week digital and physical sales are tallied together, it is a safe bet Jigga and Yeezy will land the #1 spot on the Billboard albums chart.
See what fans thought of the Watch the Throne pop-up store, which appeared in NYC last week.
When MTV News interviewed a panel of hip-hop experts last week, estimations of Jay and Kanye's sales varied. Vibe editorial director Datwon Thomas guessed the Throne would sell 500,000, while Hot 97 DJ Kast One thought the album would push up to 400,000 copies.
Predicting the final first-week sales number for Watch the Throne isn't easy, though. While most albums traditionally drop on a Tuesday, WTT was released on a Monday, and its four-day iTunes exclusivity further complicated matters. By the time the physical CD was released on Friday, it was difficult to judge how buyers would react. While the album was originally predicted to sell just north of 500,000 copies, now that number is looking like it will fall anywhere between 410,000 and 450,000.
What do you think Watch the Throne will sell in its first week? Tell us in the comments!
Related Videos Related Photos Related ArtistsSource: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1669138/jay-z-kanye-west-itunes-record.jhtml
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