Only once in 52 years has a number 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart sold fewer copies than this week’s album, Justin Bieber’s My World 2.0. It is back on top after beating out some weak competition.
Bieber sat at number one on the chart for the first three weeks after his album was released. He made an unexpected return to that spot this week because last week’s new releases simply could not compete with him, in spite of slower sales of his album.
The result is that My World 2.0 got back to number one on the Billboard 200 after selling only 60,000 copies. The album now has the distinction of having the second lowest number of album sales in the history of Billboard.
The album with the lowest number of album sales in the history of Billboard was the Dreamgirls soundtrack back in 2007. It sold 300 copies fewer than Bieber’s but was able to grab the number one position that week.
Bieber’s closest competition is Lady Antebellum which sold 54,000 copies. The National’s new album, High Violet, sits in third spot. The Iron Man 2 sountrack and Sea of Cowards by Dead Weather round out the top 5.
Data has been gathered by Nielsen SoundScan since 1991. 5.3 million albums, all styles combined, were sold last week in the U.S., the lowest weekly sales on record.