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Pearl Jam appears to be on course to grab their first No. 1 album in 13 years on the Billboard 200 next week.
Prognostications by industry experts have suggested that “Backspacer,” the band’s new album that was released on Sunday, will probably sell somewhere between 175,000 to as many as 200,000 copies by the end of the week. This type of sales figure should place them easily ahead of their competition when Billboard’s 200 chart is published on Wednesday for the week ending September 27.
Pearl Jam’s new album, not on a major label for the first time, is being sold in the United States exclusively through iTunes, Target, independent retailers and Pearl Jam’s website.
The last studio release for the group in 2006 bowed out at No. 2 on Billboard’s 200 after selling 279,000 copies, as reported by Nielsen SoundScan. Pearl Jam was last at the No.1 spot in 1996 with “No Code” its third album to top the charts.
Following “No Code” the band has had three No. 2 albums- “Pearl Jam,” Binaural,” and “Yield,” as well as a No. 5 in 2002 with “Riot Act.”
Other albums that are attempting to break in high on Billboard’s 200 chart in the next week include “Life Stars Now” by Three Days Grace, “War is the Answer” from Five Finger Death Punch, “Draw the Line” by David Gray, and “The Boy Who Knew Too Much” from Mika. Currently topping the charts is “The Blueprint 3″ from Jay-Z, which sold a total of 298,000 copies for the week ending September 20.
