'Frozen' album sells 2 million, tops Billboard chart for 10th week

[April 17, 2014]  By Piya Sinha-Roy

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) — Two Nordic princesses held their reign atop the weekly Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday as the soundtrack to Disney's hit animated film "Frozen" crossed the 2 million sales mark and continued to hold off new entries.

"Frozen," led by its Oscar-winning hit song "Let It Go," sold 133,000 copies in its 20th week on the chart, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan.

This is the 10th non-consecutive week at the top of the chart for the "Frozen" soundtrack, which has seen rare sales growth months after its release in November 2013.

Disney's "The Lion King" soundtrack topped the Billboard chart for 10 weeks in 1994, and "Frozen" is only one of 11 albums that have spent that duration at No. 1 since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales for the chart in 1991.

The film has also dominated the global box office, crossing the $1 billion mark last month and becoming the highest-grossing animated film of all time.

The "Frozen" soundtrack far outsold the No. 2 album on the Billboard 200 chart this week, R&B singer Pharrell's "G I R L," which sold 29,000 copies and climbed the chart from No. 9.

The singer performed a star-studded set over the weekend at the Coachella music festival, that was also live-streamed on the Internet.

Pharrell's hit song "Happy" also topped the digital songs chart with 257,000 downloads over the past week, bringing its total sales of more than 4.2 million.

New albums in the top 10 this week include Christian rock group MercyMe with "Welcome to the New" at No. 4 and heavy metal rockers Black Label Society at No. 5 with "Catacombs of the Black Vatican." R&B singer SoMo entered the chart at No. 6 with his self-titled album, and country singer Martina McBride notched No. 7 with "Everlasting."

Total album sales for the week ending April 13 was 4.3 million copies, down 21 percent from the comparable week in 2013, Billboard said.

(Editing by Eric Kelsey; editing by David Gregorio)

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