AC/DC Puts HSM3 on Ice

Black Ice rockers top the Mouse House soundtrack on the Billboard album charts

By David Jenison Oct 29, 2008 8:02 PMTags
E! Placeholder Image

Zac Efron and his High School pals were just sent packing down the highway to hell.

Despite dominating the box office and owning the charts with their previous two soundtracks, the kids of High School Musical 3: Senior Year couldn't do anything to stop the power of AC/DC.

The veteran rockers, with a big assist from Wal-Mart, owned the charts this week, selling 784,000 copies of their new Black Ice to 297,000 copies of HSM3, per Nielsen SoundScan.

Exclusively sold in Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores, as well as on the band's website, Black Ice is the first AC/DC album to debut at No. 1 (For Those About to Rock We Salute You reached No. 1 in a nondebuting week almost 27 years ago).

The album not only achieved the chart-topping feat in the U.S., but more than two dozen other countries, including the U.K., Canada, Japan, Argentina, France, Italy, Germany and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band's native Australia.

Wal-Mart's deep discounts on past albums also allowed AC/DC to dominate the catalog market. Back in Black topped the Catalog chart with 21,000 copies, with four other AC/DC titles making the top 10 and another eight in the top 100. Remarkably, AC/DC catalog sales are approaching 5 million copies for the year.

High School Musical 3: Senior Year, meanwhile, started class at No. 2. While its 297,000-copy debut is the best start for a theatrical soundtrack in three years, it's still a ways behind the 615,000-copy debut for the TV-movie soundtrack to last year's High School Musical 2.

Overall, the week's big bows were great for retailers, as Black Ice and HSM3 sold a combined 1.1 million copies. In comparison, last week's top 10 combined for just 660,000.

Mary Mary's The Sound (37,000 at No. 7) scored the third of the week's top 10 debuts.

Thanks in part to his recent appearance on Saturday Night Live, Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III reentered the top 10 (25,000, No. 10). With over 1 million copies sold in its summer debut, Tha Carter III is the only 2008 album to top AC/DC's first-week sales.

Other notable debuts included Hank Williams III's Damn Right Rebel Proud at No. 18, Lee Ann Womack's Call Me Crazy at No. 23, Escape the Fate's This War Is Ours at No. 35, Of Montreal's Skeletal Lamping at No. 38 and the reunited Labelle—featuring Patti LaBelle—at No. 45 with Back to Now, the group's first new album in 30 years.

Over on the Digital Tracks chart, Beyoncé sold 190,000 copies of her new single, "If I Were a Boy," for a No. 1 debut over Britney Spears' "Womanizer," now at No. 2 on 181,000 copies. "If I Were a Boy" is the lead single to Beyoncé's third solo album, I Am...Sasha Fierce, out Nov. 18.

Thanks in large part to AC/DC and HSM3, sales are up over 8 percent from last week, though still down 15 percent compared to the same week in '07, when Carrie Underwood's Carnival Ride rode the top spot.

Here's a recap of the top 10 albums for the week ended Sunday, according to Nielsen SoundScan:

  1. Black Ice, AC/DC
  2. High School Musical 3: Senior Year soundtrack, various
  3. Paper Trail, T.I.
  4. Lucky Old Sun, Kenny Chesney
  5. Death Magnetic, Metallica
  6. Rock N Roll Jesus, Kid Rock
  7. The Sound, Mary Mary
  8. Year of the Gentleman, Ne-Yo
  9. Jennifer Hudson, Jennifer Hudson
  10. Tha Carter III, Lil Wayne