Rapper Lecrae leads debut-filled top ten of Billboard 200 chart

[September 18, 2014]  By Piya Sinha-Roy

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rapper Lecrae earned his first chart-topping album on the weekly U.S. Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday, leading seven new records in the top ten of the chart.

Texas native Lecrae's seventh studio album "Anomaly" sold 88,000 copies in its first week according to sales figures compiled by Nielsen SoundScan.

Last week's chart-topper, Maroon 5's "V," dropped to No. 2 this week with sales of 80,000.

Other new entries in the top ten this week included soul singer Jhene Aiko's "Souled Out" at No. 3, alt-rock singer-songwriter Ryan Adams at No. 4 with his self-titled album and country music singer Lee Brice at No. 5 with "I Don't Dance."

Alt-rockers Interpol debuted at No. 7 with "El Pintor," country music singer Dustin Lynch came in at No. 8 with "Where It's At" and veteran British rocker Robert Plant rounded out the new entries with "Lullaby and ... The Ceaseless Roar."

For the week ending Sept. 14, total album sales clocked in at 4.2 million units, down 9 percent from the comparable point in 2013, while year-to-date album sales totaled 166.9 million, down 15 percent compared with last year, Billboard said.

(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Marguerita Choy)

[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.