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With New No. 1, Jay-Z Grabs Record From Elvis
Beatles, meanwhile, maintain dominance with big week
By Kevin Spak
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Posted Sep 16, 09 11:31 AM CDT
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(Newser)
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Jay-Z and the Beatles lit up the charts this week, Billboard reports. Jay-Z’s The Blueprint 3 sold 476,000 copies, easily capturing the top spot for the week, and giving the rapper his 11th No. 1 album. That nabs him the record, previously held by Elvis, for the solo act with the most No. 1s ever. The Beatles, meanwhile, sold a whopping 626,000 albums this week, a huge leap from just 21,000 the week before.
The monster of a week nearly doubled the Fab Four’s sales for the year, bringing their 2009 total to 1,261,000. Since SoundScan’s sales tracking began in 1991, the Beatles have never sold less than a million albums in a year. Their best-selling individual album last week was the Abbey Road reissue, which, with 89,000 copies, came in third, behind Blueprint 3 and Miley Cyrus’ The Time of Our Lives.