Number one spots for both Luke Bryan and Katy Perry

Singers score top slots on Billboard charts in different categories.

LOS ANGELES:

Country singer Luke Bryan’s latest record stormed straight to the top of the Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday. But mainstream pop singer Katy Perry also scored her biggest digital song debut to date with new single Roar.

Crash My Party, the fourth studio album from Bryan, sold more than 527,000 copies in its first week, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan, making it his best debut so far. It is also the third biggest opening for an album this year, behind Jay Z’s Magna Carta... Holy Grail, which sold 528,000 copies in its first week in July, and Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience, which debuted with 968,000 copies in March.

Hip-hop artist K Michelle was the only other new album to enter the top 10 of the Billboard 200 this week, landing at second position with her debut album Rebellious Soul and selling 71,000 copies.

On the other hand, pop singer Perry, who released her first single, Roar, from the upcoming album Prism last week, scored her best sales week as the song sold more than 557,000 downloads and topped the Billboard Digital Songs chart.

The song also notched number two position on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, which measures radio airplay, online streaming and sales, but it was unable to knock-off Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines featuring TI and Pharrell, which clocked its 11th non-consecutive week on the number one slot on the chart.

With her single, Perry was able to beat out stiff competition from Lady Gaga, who released her new single Applause from upcoming album, Artpop, which ranked third on the digital songs chart with 218,000 downloads and finished at number six on the Hot 100 chart.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 23^rd, 2013.

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