‘Les Misérables’ Soundtrack Tops Billboard Album Chart
The soundtrack to the big screen adaptation of Broadway musical Les Misérables topped the Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday, edging out British folk rockers Mumford & Sons.
Les Misérables sold 92,000 albums in the week, according to data from Nielsen SoundScan, a 32 percent decline from last week for the star-studded production featuring the singing of Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman. It was the No. 2 album last week.
The soundtrack had the poorest showing for a No. 1 album since Christian hip-hop and pop artist tobyMac’s Eye on It topped the chart in September with 69,000 in sales.
Mumford & Sons’ Babel rose to the second spot from No. 8, finishing behind Les Mis by only a thousand albums sold. The British band’s second album was boosted by a sale price and heavy promotion on the Apple iTunes Store.
Country-pop star Taylor Swift, whose album Red spent the past four weeks atop the chart, dropped to third.
American Idol winner Phillip Phillips’ The World from the Side of the Moon took fourth and British boy band One Direction’s Take Me Home was fifth on the chart.
U.S. album sales for last week, which totaled 6.26 million, rose 8 percent compared to the same week last year.
A total of 34.53 million songs were downloaded last week, a 5 percent increase from last year.
(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, editing by Jill Serjeant and Jackie Frank)
© 2013 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.
