Radiohead Take Top Position On Charts
January 9, 2008

It looks like not everyone downloaded In Rainbows by Radiohead for free when it was available at the end of last year because the store copy of the latest masterpiece from Thom Yorke and the boys debuted on top of the sales charts, according to the latest Billboard charts. In Rainbows was available online for downloaders to determine how much they were willing to pay for it. Radiohead themselves estimated that over a million digital copies were sold at an estimated $6-10 million for the band, but it looks like that was only the beginning. For the week ending Sunday, In Rainbows sold another 122,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan numbers published by Billboard and released today. It should be noted that these aren't only people shunning the internet, 25 percent of the sales apparently came from iTunes. It's hard to say how many copies would have sold if In Rainbows hadn't been available online for so long. Billboard wouldn't make the copies downloaded there part of the sales total because it was unclear how many were actually sold and how many were downloaded for free.

Like everything Radiohead does, the success of In Rainbows is even more atypical because there was no single to support the recording to its chart success. "Jigsaw Falling Into Place," the technical single released by the band," only reached number 69 on the Modern Rock chart, while "Bodysnatchers" actually ranked higher at number 24.

In 2003, Hail to the Thief landed at number one its first week with 300,000 copies sold, a number that you have to assume In Rainbows would have beat if a million copies hadn't been downloaded in the last several months. Hail to the Thief sold a million copies overall. That album was released by EMI, but In Rainbows was put out by TBC Records. Radiohead plans to tour soon but dates are still unannounced.

Growing Pains by Mary J. Blige fell two spots from the top position to number three, selling another 89,000 copies. Another Queen of soul, Alicia Keys, claimed the second spot for another week with an additional 112,000 copies sold, according to E!

The highest debut this week belonged to the Juno soundtrack, cracking the charts at number eight with 38,000 copies sold. The rest of the top ten were all holdovers, including Now That's What I Call Music! Vol. 26 at number four, Taylor Swift by Taylor Swift at number five, Exclusive by Chris Brown at number six, The Ultimate Hits by Garth Brooks at number seven, Coco by Colbie Caillat at number nine, and Long Road Out of Eden by The Eagles at number ten. Yes, Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus has FINALLY fallen out of the top ten in its 28th week on the charts.

For more music news, check out our stories on Hannah Montana, Amy Winehouse, and The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.