First! Adam Lambert’s Trespassing tops this week’s Billboard 200 albums chart with just a 77,000-copy debut, making the album not only the first No. 1 for Lambert (his major-label debut For Your Entertainment only got to No. 3, beat by Susan Boyle and Andrea Bocelli), but also the first solo album by an openly gay artist to top the ranking. It’s also the lowest-selling No. 1 since the third week of August 2011, when Adele kept her throne with just 76,000.
2 Through 10: Adele’s 21 is still up there at No. 2 (63,000), Carrie Underwood tumbles from her top spot to No. 3 (54,000), but Norah Jones climbs to No. 4 with 45,000 (though she sold 24 percent less than last week). No. 5 belongs to Tenacious D’s Rize of the Fenix debut (44,000), a chart record for the buddies of Dave Grohl. Now 42 stays in the top 10 at No. 6 (42,000). Beach House’s excellent fourth studio album Bloom gives the Baltimore duo a career high of their own, at No. 7 with 41,000 copies sold — neither Devotion nor Teen Dream, the two of three previous Beach House albums to chart, even made the top 40. Glee takes No. 8 with the debut of its Season Three: Graduation Album (39,000), while Lionel Richie (No. 9 with 39,000) and One Direction (No. 10 with 34,000) still cling to the bottom rungs of the top 10.
The Idol Factor: Lambert’s No. 1 is a landmark for myriad reasons, and a couple of them are coups for American Idol, which, as SPIN has reported previously, has been struggling to keep up with competing shows. Trespassing marks not only the seventh No. 1 ever for an Idol finalist (Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard, Clay Aiken, Chris Daughtry, and Scotty McCreery have all done it), but also the third week in a row the Billboard 200 has been dominated by a winner (Underwood has dominated the past two weeks), which is the longest winning streak ever for the competition show. Good timing, too — tonight either Phillip Phillips or Jessica Sanchez will be named the latest Idol winner.
Top Me, Maybe: Following her bubblegummy performance at the Billboard Music Awards Sunday night, Carly Rae Jepsen knocks Gotye off his bitter throne on the Digital Songs chart with “Call Me Maybe” — 293,000 people downloaded the song, giving it a 25 percent boost in sales (“Somebody That I Used to Know” didn’t too horribly, though, coming in at 289,000 and dropping just 10 percent).
