Mumford & Sons’ second album, Babel, moved over 600,000 copies to have the largest debut sales week of 2012, beating out new releases by Justin Beiber, Madonna and Pink. This is the band and their recording label, Glassnote Records’ first number one record on the Billboard 200 albums chart. The album was released on September 25th.
Beiber’s Believe sold 374,000 and fell to second place. Madonna’s MDNA sold 359,000 and sits at number three. Pink’s The Truth About Love sold 280,000 for the fourth spot.
The record became a rock album’s biggest sales week since AC/DC’s Black Ice sold 784,000 its debut week on November 8, 2008. It became the biggest sale week for Sony distributed RED Distribution since Bone Thugs N Harmony’s The Art of War topped 394,000 units in 1997.
On the digital sales side, Babel sold 420,000 downloads for the second most digital album sales in a week ever.
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