Bruno Mars has much to celebrate this week as his sophomore album “Unorthodox Jukebox” tops the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart for the first time since its release December 10, 2012.
The vocally powerful set moved 95,000 copies according to Nielsen SoundScan due to an Amazon sale, raising sales of the album by 96% compared to the previous week. This is also the first time Bruno Mars has had a No. 1 album as he sells strongly with digital single sales. The updated Billboard chart will be released tomorrow, Thursday March 7.
Amazon had several albums for sale for $1.99 for one day only and then raised the price on many to $3.99 which helped drive the album to the top. After Amazon’s promotional price of $0.99 for Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” in 2011, Billboard was forced to change the rules on how albums chart and that promo pushed her into platinum status in one week. Any album priced less than $3.49 in its first four weeks will not count at all towards their weekly chartings. Since Mars’ album has been out for almost three months, he was eligible to chart with the price reduction. To date, “Unorthodox Jukebox” has sold 960,000 copies total in the United States. “Jukebox” debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Top 200 with 192,000 copies sold. The album has also topped the Australian, Swiss and UK album charts.
Bruno’s lead single “Locked Out of Heaven” lead the Hot 100 chart for six consecutive weeks and at the time became his ninth song to enter the Top 10 on the Hot 100 in just two short years. The song also is his fourth chart topper. To date “Locked Out of Heaven” has sold over 3 million copies in the United States.
Bruno Mars burst onto the mainstream scene with his hit single “Just The Way You Are” which is one of the best selling singles of all time worldwide selling over 12.5 million copies. The song has been certified 5x platinum in the U.S. alone with sales exceeding 5.6 million copies. The opening hit to his career also earned him a Grammy Award in 2011 for Best Pop Vocal Performance.
Mars’ follow-up single “When I Was Your Man” was released on January 15th and this week rises to the No. 2 spot on the Hot 100 chart.
