Bon Jovi’s “What About Now.â€With the top of the Billboard album chart this week looking like a bit of a flashback to 1986, Bon Jovi is No. 1 and David Bowie has landed at No. 2 with his first new album in a decade.
Bon Jovi’s “What About Now†(Island) sold 101,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, the band’s third in a row to reach No. 1. Mr. Bowie’s new album, “The Next Day†(Columbia), sold 85,000 copies, sending him higher than he has ever been on the American chart. (The closest he came before was in 1976, when “Station to Station†went to No. 3.)
On the singles chart, Baauer’s “Harlem Shake†is No. 1 for a fifth week, but its lead is narrowing as the song’s viral life cycle winds down. When it entered the chart at No. 1 â€" thanks to Billboard starting to incorporate YouTube videos into its chart methodology â€" the song had 103 million streams; this week it had 28 million. “Harlem Shake†also had 146,000 downloads, while the No. 2 single this week, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’s “Thrift Shop,†had 270,000 downloads.
Back to albums, the rest of the Top 10 is a mix of holdover hits and new arrivals. Luke Bryan’s compilation “Spring Break … Here to Party†(Capitol Nashville), last week’s No. 1, fell two spots to No. 3 with 61,000 sales, and Bruno Mars’s “Unorthodox Jukebox†(Atlantic) is also down two, to No. 5, with 43,000 sales.
New albums include the Christian album “Passion: Let the Future Begin†(sixsteps), at No. 4 with 48,000; Mindless Behavior’s “All Around the World†(Streamline/Conjunction/Interscope), at No. 6 with 37,000; and Eric Clapton’s latest, “Old Sock†(Bushbranch/Surfdog), bowing at No. 7 with almost 37,000 sales. (SoundScan’s publicly reported numbers are rounded.)
Next week’s chart is expected to be dominated by Justin Timberlake’s comeback album, “The 20/20 Experience†(RCA), which Billboard’s chart experts predict will open with more than 750,000 sales.
