Posted by Andrew Unterberger on 05/09/2012 at 3:48 PM News

The Popdust Files: Beastie Boys, Billboard, carrie underwood, charts, sales

You could say that Carrie Underwood has Blown Away the competition on this one. Actually, yeah, let’s go with that: Carrie Underwood has Blown Away (!!) the rest of the top ten on the Billboard 200 this week with her fourth album, which sells around 275k in its first week of release. The album is Carrie’s the third consecutive chart-topper, after 2007′s Carnival Ride and 2009′s Play On, though it’s also her lowest-selling first week yet, with Play On‘s 315k being her previous low. (Chin up, Carrie, high 200s is still pretty darn good—better than that loser Bo Bice is doing these days, anyway.)

Carrie finishes on top of other new arrivals from Norah Jones (Little Broken Hearts, near 100k), B.o.B. (Strange Clouds, an underwhelming 70-80k), and the most recent NOW album (42, somewhere in between Norah and B.o.B.). Adele should also be going over the nine million mark with her 21 selling another 75 or so million this week, leaving her just a mil shy of the coveted (and once seemingly unreachable) goal of Diamond certification. Isn’t there some crappy awards show or TV finale she can sing on to push her over the top? Come on, one more million, let’s squeeze it out, America.

Meanwhile, the Top 200 also feels the presence of B-E-A-S-T-I-E. With just a couple days’ worth of sales after the death of founding member Adam Yauch, the Beastie Boys see a number of their albums return to the charts—most notably debut LP Licensed to Ill, which comes back at #18 with 19k sold, with follow-up Paul’s Boutique (#56, 8k) and compilation Solid Gold Hits (#51, 8k) not too far behind. Expect to see these albums have even more of an impact with a full week of post-Yauch sales on the next charts, with maybe a single or two showing up on the Hot 100 as well. THE BEASTIE BOYYYYYYS ….YOU KNOW THEY’RE COMIN’ HOOOOME…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJAGJ8ckmZY

[Billboard]