The special edition cover of Justin Timberlake’s ‘The 20/20 Experience’

As if we all didn’t see this one coming. Following a massive promotional campaign bolstered with timely media propaganda, Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience has roared onto the Billboard 200 and made chart history with its incredible opening sales.

The 20/20 Experience sold an astounding 968K copies in its first week, instantly making it the best-selling album of the slow-paced 2013 to date. The LP has secured Timberlake the biggest debut figures of his career so far by topping 2002′s Justified (439K) and 2006′s FutureSex/LoveSounds (684K).

Wait, that’s not all. The 20/20 Experience also logged the 19th highest opening sales of any album since the launch of the SoundScan era in 1991. In fact, the only male singers to best those figures were Usher  with Confessions in 2004 (1.10 million) and Garth Brooks with Double Live in 1998 (1.09 million).

Last week, Billboard repeatedly updated the sales predictions for The 20/20 Experience by 50K increments. Now, let’s see if the publication gives similar attention future releases by other artists. Watch the video for Timberlake’s “Suit & Tie” below:

Thoughts?