Here are two artists that most people would never expect to see mentioned in the same sentence: 2 Chainz and Taylor Swift. Don’t worry, the odd pair don’t have a collaboration in the works – at least, not yet. Rather, they both scored major debuts on the US charts this week.
2 Chainz’s debut album, ‘Based On A T.R.U. Story’, entered the Billboard 200 at #1 this week with sales exceeding 147K copies. The rapper, best known for his hit single ‘No Lie (Ft. Drake)’, is only the third new artist to top the chart in 2012, thus far, following One Direction with ‘Up All Night’ and Jack White with ‘Blunderbuss’.
However, the Billboard Hot 100 was all about girl power, courtesy of Swift who notched her first chart-topping single with ‘We Are Never Getting Back Together’ and made history in the process. Vaulting from #72 to #1 on the lineup this week, the song sold over 623K downloads with the highest one-week digital sales total by a female act and second overall behind only Flo Rida’s ‘Right Round’, which sold 636,000 in the week of February 28th 2009.
See the leading releases in the top 10 of both Billboard 200 and the Hot 100 below:
1. 2 Chainz – ‘Based On A T.R.U. Story’ – 147K (debut)
2. Various Artists – ‘Now 43′ – 75K (total: 186K)
3. Rick Ross – ‘God Forgives, I Don’t’ – 43K (total: 322K)
4. Insane Clown Posse - ‘Mighty Death Pop’ – 41K (debut)
5. Maroon 5 – ‘Overexposed’ – 36K (total: 470K)
6. Justin Bieber – ‘Believe’ – 35K (total: 783K)
7. One Direction - ‘Up All Night’ – 29K (total: 1.13 M)
8. Adele – ’21′ – 26K (total: 9.71 M)
9. Zac Brown Band – ‘Uncaged’ – 25K (total: 456K)
10. Yellowcard - ‘Southern Air’ – 23K (debut)
1. Taylor Swift – ‘We Are Never Getting Back Together’
2. Flo Rida – ‘Whistle’
3. Ellie Goulding – ‘Lights’
4. Carly Rae Jepsen – ‘Call Me Maybe’
5. Katy Perry – ‘Wide Awake’
6. fun. – ‘Some Nights’
7. Maroon 5 – ‘Payphone (Ft. Wiz Khalifa)’
8. Justin Bieber – ‘As Long As You Love Me (Ft. Big Sean)’
9. Maroon 5 – ‘One More Night’
10. David Guetta – ‘Titanium (Ft. Sia)’
Listen to Swift’s ‘We Are Never Getting Back Together’ below: