US charts: Gaga unable to match Perry and Cyrus's numbers

Lady Gaga's Artpop sits at No 1 in the US this week but with fewer opening sales than Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus's latest albums managed.

Her third album sold 258,000 copies last week, according to Nielsen SoundScan, to start in first place on the Billboard 200, but its tally compares unfavourably to the introductory tallies of Katy Perry's Prism (286,000 sales week one) and Miley Cyrus's Bangerz (270,000). Artpop's initial total is also sharply down on what its predecessor Born This Way opened with in May 2012, although that album's first week of 1.1 million did include an estimated 440,000 sales achieved at Amazon, which was selling the digital version for 99 cents.

The lower sales are still enough to give Gaga a lead of 48,000 units over Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP 2, which drops from No 1 to 2 with sales down 73% to 210,000. She is also part of the new compilation NOW 48, via her hit Applause, which debuts at No 3 with 114,000 takers across last week, interestingly fewer than the latest UK release from the brand managed in a couple of days this week.

With little more than a month to go to Christmas, the number of festive albums in the US chart is on the rise with the top seller continuing to be The Robertsons' Duck The Halls: A Robertson Family Christmas. This drops 3-4 with sales down 9% to 66,000. Kelly Clarkson's festive set Wrapped In Red holds at No 6 with sales reduced by 2% to 42,000, while outside the Top 10 the Christmas parade includes efforts from Brits Susan Boyle (Home For Christmas up 25-23) and Rod Stewart (Merry Christmas, Baby climbing 137-77).

Katy Perry's Prism drops 4-5 with sales down 25% to 46,000, while The Beatles score their 31st Top 10 album as On Air: Live At The BBC Volume 2 starts at No 7 with 37,000 buyers. This is five places higher than where the album started in the UK and becomes the Fab Four's first new Top 10 album since the Love soundtrack to their Cirque du Soleil stage production. At the same time a remastered version of Live At The BBC, which reached No 3 on the Billboard 200 in 1994, returns at No 34 on the back of 9,000 sales.
R&B talent Jhene Aiko makes her Top 10 debut with introductory ELP Sail Out arriving at No 8 after selling 34,000 copies last week as Drake's Nothing Was The Same drops 7-9 with sales down 11% to 33,000 and Lorde's Pure Heroine is down 8-10 with numbers declining 7% to 32,000.

After hitting a new peak of 28 a fortnight ago and then dropping down, Passenger's All The Little Lights is back up, climbing 48-39. It does so as its hit single Let Her Go gains a place to a new peak of 11 on the Hot 100. Bastille's Pompeii also reaches a new high on the Hot 100, climbing 66-53, as its parent album lifts 81-78 on the Billboard 200, having previously peaked at 11. Adding to the positive Hot 100 news from a British perspective is Ellie Goulding whose former UK No 1 Burn rises nine places to a new high of 48.
Five weeks into its run, Paul McCartney's New is down 40-63 on the albums countdown, while Arctic Monkeys' AM continues to hang around, easing 78-83 in its 10th week on the chart. However, there are big falls for a trio of British albums that debuted last week with M.I.A.'s Matangi down 23-90, James Blunt's Moon Landing arriving back to Earth with a 20-96 bump and The Wanted's Word Of Mouth rapidly sinking 17-144.

Lorde's Royals achieves its eighth week at No 1 on the Hot 100, which is compiled from a mixture of sales, airplay and streaming, although is now only the third biggest-selling download (158,000 sales) behind Eminem featuring Rihanna's The Monster (243,000) and OneRepublic's Counting Stars (163,000). On the Hot 100 Eminem and Rihanna hold at 2, Miley Cyrus's Wrecking Ball sticks at 3 and Avicii's Wake Me Up is back up 5-4 to change places with Katy Perry's Prism.

US album sales last week suffered a big drop compared to the equivalent week in 2012. Although the market was only down 5.3% week-on-week, sales were 20.6% lower than 12 months ago with 5.4 million copies sold. That leaves year-to-date sales 7.1% behind where they were at this stage last year with 239.7 million copies sold.

Meanwhile, one-track sales declined 3.4% on the week to 19.9 million units and were down 9.5% on the corresponding week last year. Sales for the year so far stand at 1.1 million, around 4% lower than a year ago.