R&B singer Robin Thicke landed his first No. 1 album on Wednesday as his latest record, “Blurred Lines,” topped the Billboard 200 album chart, led by the single of the same name that has become one of this summer’s biggest hits.
Thicke’s sixth studio album sold 177,000 copies in its first week, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan. The album features collaborations with rappers Kendrick Lamar, T.I. and singer/producer Pharrell Williams.
The album’s lead single, “Blurred Lines,” featuring T.I. and Williams, spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart this summer.
Thicke, 36, son of Canadian actor Alan Thicke, first emerged a decade ago with the album “A Beautiful World” and reached a new level this year with the catchy, raunchy hit “Blurred Lines,” which also yielded an eyebrow-raising, nudity-filled video.
The single also climbed back to No. 1 on Billboard’s Digital Songs chart this week after being knocked off by One Direction’s “Best Song Ever” last week. “Blurred Lines” sold 400,000 downloads this week, bringing its total digital tally to 4.2 million since its release in March.
Rock band Five Finger Death Punch entered the chart at No. 2 this week with its latest album, “The Wrong Side of Heaven and the Righteous Side of Hell: Volume 1,” selling 112,000 copies.
It came ahead of rapper Jay Z’s “Magna Carta ... Holy Grail,” which dropped one spot to No. 3.
Other new entries in the top 10 on this week’s Billboard 200 album chart include indie rapper Tech N9ne’s “Something Else” at No. 4 and boy band Backstreet Boys at No. 5 with “In A World Like This.” Backstreet Boys, one of the biggest U.S. pop bands of the 1990s, are staging a comeback with all five original members and embarked on a world tour with another 1990s boy band, New Kids on the Block, in 2012.
“In a World Like This” is Backstreet Boys’ ninth album to make its debut in the top 10 of the Billboard 200.
Pop rockers Emblem3, one of the runners-up on Fox reality talent show “The X Factor” last year, entered the Billboard album chart at No. 7 with their debut record, “Nothing to Lose.” Overall album sales in the week ending Aug. 4 totalled 5.1 million, down 3 per cent from the comparable week in 2012.
