Alice Cooper's 'Detroit Stories' Debuts at No. 1 on Billboard's Top Album Sales Chart
By Keith Caulfield
3/9/2021
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www.billboard.com/articles/news/9537526/alice-cooper-detroit-stories-top-album-sales-chart/Plus: Willie Nelson, Julien Baker, Bob Dylan with George Harrison, Neil Young with Crazy Horse, NOFX and Architects debut in the top 10, while The Black Crowes' 1990 debut album returns.
Alice Cooper crowns Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated March 13) as the rock legend’s latest studio album Detroit Stories debuts at No. 1. It’s the first chart-topper for Cooper in the 29-year history of the Top Album Sales chart.
Detroit Stories leads a very busy Top Album Sales chart, where seven albums debut in the top 10.
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now MRC Data. Pure album sales were the measurement solely utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow
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Detroit Stories sold 13,000 copies across all available formats (CD, vinyl LP, digital download) in the week ending March 4, according to MRC Data. Of that starting sum, 9,500 were sold via CD and 2,000 came via vinyl LP. The remaining 1,500 were digital albums.
The album also starts at No. 1 on the Tastemaker Albums chart, which ranks the top-selling albums at independent and small chain music stores. Thirty-eight percent of the album’s first-week total sales (5,000) came via indie and small chains.
On the all-genre Billboard 200, Detroit Stories bows at No. 47, marking the act’s 27th chart entry, stretching back to 1969’s Pretties for You. (From 1969 through 1973, Alice Cooper charted six albums as a band. Then, from 1975 onwards, Cooper charted as a soloist.)
Detroit Stories also debuts at No. 2 on Hard Rock Albums, No. 5 on Top Rock Albums, No. 7 on Independent Albums and No. 18 on Vinyl Albums.
The new top 10 of the Top Album Sales chart is crowded with debuts from veteran acts and chart legends Willie Nelson (No. 2, That’s Life; 12,000 sold), Bob Dylan with George Harrison (No. 4, 1970; 11,000), Neil Young With Crazy Horse (No. 5, Way Down In the Rust Bucket; 9,000) and NOFX (No. 7, Single Album; 7,000). Nelson’s Billboard chart history dates to 1962, while Dylan made his chart debut in 1963. Harrison first dented the charts as one-quarter of The Beatles in 1964. He notched his first solo hit in 1969. Young initially reached Billboard’s charts as part of the band Buffalo Springfield in 1967 and later as a soloist in 1969. NOFX has a comparatively shorter chart history, as the rock band first hit the Billboard charts in 1994.
Nelson’s That’s Life is his second jazz covers set of songs made famous by Frank Sinatra, following 2018’s My Way. That’s Life also debuts at No. 1 on Traditional Jazz Albums and the overall Jazz Albums chart, Nelson’s fourth and third No. 1s on the tallies, respectively. On the Billboard 200, That’s Life bows at No. 58, marking Nelson’s 81st chart entry.
At No. 3 on Top Album Sales, singer-songwriter Julien Baker bows with her third studio album, Little Oblivions. The set launches with nearly 12,000 sold and marks her first top 10 and biggest sales week yet. It also enters at No. 39 on the Billboard 200 -- her first top 40-charting effort on that list. Little Oblivions also debuts at No. 1 on the Americana/Folk Albums chart, and at No. 1 on the Vinyl Albums chart (8,500 sold -- 73% of the album’s overall first-week sales).
Little Oblivions also makes a splash on a number of other charts, including debuts at No. 2 on Tastemaker Albums, No. 4 on Top Rock Albums, No. 5 on Alternative Albums and No. 5 on Independent Albums.
Dylan’s 1970 compilation is part of his ongoing archival release series of previously unreleased recordings, and starts with 11,000 sold. Harrison is billed as a special guest on the project, as it boasts nine tracks recorded with Harrison in 1970. The album also starts at No. 3 on Tastemaker Albums, No. 4 on Americana/Folk Albums, No. 10 on Top Rock Albums and No. 76 on the Billboard 200.
Young With Crazy Horse’s live album Way Down in the Rust Bucket starts at No. 5 with 9,000 sold. The set captures the act’s Nov 13, 1990, concert at The Catalyst in Santa Cruz, Calif. Way Down also debuts at No. 4 on Tastemaker Albums, No. 5 on Americana/Folk Albums, No. 15 on Top Rock Albums and No. 109 on the Billboard 200.
BTS’ Be falls from No. 1 to No. 6 with just over 7,000 sold (down 74%), following the album’s surge back to the top of the list a week ago. It jumped back to No. 1 after the 2020 album was issued on Feb. 19 in a new deluxe CD package.
Rock band NOFX captures its first top 10 on the Top Album Sales chart with the No. 7 arrival of Single Album (7,000 sold). The set is the group’s 14th full-length studio album, and first since 2016’s First Ditch Effort. The new effort also debuts at No. 2 on Vinyl Albums, No. 13 on Alternative Albums, No. 29 on Top Rock Albums and No. 26 on Independent Albums.
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The Black Crowes’ smash debut album Shake Your Money Maker re-enters Top Album Sales at No. 9 following its 30th-anniversary reissue on Feb. 26. The 1990 album was re-released and remastered in multiple formats bolstered with unreleased songs, B-sides and live tracks. All versions of the album are tracked together on the chart. In total, the album sold just under 7,000 copies in the week ending March 4 -- up 4,107%.
Shake Your Money Maker debuted on the Billboard 200 chart dated March 24, 1990, and peaked at No. 4 (on April 6, 1991) and was last on the chart dated May 15, 1993. It spent 165 weeks on the list in that span of time.
Shake Your Money Maker has sold 5 million copies in the U.S., according to the Recording Industry Association of America. The set launched five hit singles on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart between 1990 and 1991: “Jealous Again” (No. 5), “Twice as Hard” (No. 11), “Hard to Handle” (No. 1 for two weeks), “She Talks to Angels” (No. 1 for one week) and “Seeing Things” (No. 2).
Shake Your Money Maker re-enters the Billboard 200 at No. 110, and debuts at No. 5 on Tastemaker Albums, No. 6 on Hard Rock Albums, No. 16 on Top Rock Albums and No. 12 on Vinyl Albums. (It debuts on those latter four charts as all of them were launched many years after Shake completed in its initial run on the charts back in the early 1990s.)
British rock band Architects debuts at No. 9 on the Top Album Sales chart, as the group’s new studio set For Those That Wish to Exist bows with a little under 7,000 copies sold. It’s the ninth studio effort for the band and first top 10. The set also bows at No. 4 on Hard Rock Albums, No. 11 on Top Rock Albums, No. 11 on Independent Albums, No. 17 on Tastemaker Albums and No. 80 on the Billboard 200.
Morgan Wallen’s former No. 1 Dangerous: The Double Album rounds out the new top 10 on the Top Album Sales chart, as it falls 3-10 with 6,500 copies sold (down 4%).
