Arguably the most anticipated album the year, Jay-Z and Kanye West’s Watch The Throne has been on everyone’s radar for the past several months. And now that the album has been released, fans have reacted in a major way and according to reports, Watch The Throne has now broken the U.S. iTunes sales record for first-week sales.
According to Billboard, Watch The Throne, which went on sale exclusively through iTunes from Aug. 8-11 before going on sale at all digital and physical retailers on Friday, Aug. 12, has sold 290,000 downloads via the online retailer as of Sunday, Aug. 14.
The album’s first-week sales broke the previous record that was held by Coldplay’s 2008 album,Viva La Vida Or Death and All His Friends, which sold 282,000 downloads in its first week on iTunes.
Nielson SoundScan will release Watch The Throne’s combined digital and physical first-week sales figures on Wednesday, Aug. 17. The set is expected to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with sales ranging between 410,000 and 450,000 units.
Fans are clearly paying to watch the Jay-Z and West sit powerfully atop their hard-earned musical thrones as well as the top of the charts. –nicholas robinson
