Posted by Andrew Unterberger on 07/11/2012 at 3:38 PM News

The Popdust Files: Billboard, charts, chris brown, fortune, sales

As previously forecast, Chris Brown takes the top spot on the albums chart this week with his fifth album Fortune, which sells 134k in its first period of release. As with Usher’s Looking for Myself, the #1 placement disguises a relatively weak sales week, as both Brown and Usher’s prior albums sold over twice as much in their debut weeks. Nonetheless, it is Breezy’s second consecutive chart-topper, and far outpaces the next-highest debut—Flo Rida’s Wild Ones, which debuts at #14 with 31k sold. (Remarkably, that performance is far superior to the first-week numbers put up by Flo Rida’s previous release, Only One Flo (Part One), which sold a paltry 11k back in 2010.)

Photo: courtesy of Flo Rida

The rest of the albums chart looks like a flashback to at least a half-year ago, as nearly half the albums in the top ten are old releases which see their numbers boosted thanks to heavy Amazon.com discounting—heavy, as in, reduced all the way down to 99 cents. Albums affected include Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream (discounted to promote Katy’s Part of Me movie, no doubt—#2, 80k sold), Gotye’s Making Mirrors (#6, 44k) and fun.’s Some Nights (#7, about 43k). Though these rebounding albums cause Adele to slip from 7-9 with her 21 album, she still ties Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill for the most weeks spent in the top ten for an album by a female artist, with 72.

Photo: courtesy of Katy Perry

Next week: Indie heroes like Dirty Projectors and Twin Shadow duel it out with country superstars Zac Brown Band for the top spot. We’d probably put our money on Zac, but only a fool counts out David Longstreth ahead of time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4Eziae5KXE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEAAHbPR38c

[Billboard]