Britney Spears’ ‘Britney Jean’ Debuts At #4 While Garth Brooks Tops Album Chart

Robbie Daw | December 11, 2013 8:50 am

When you scan the Billboard 200 album chart positions this week, you won’t find Britney SpearsBritney Jean at #1. That spot belongs to country mainstay Garth Brooks, whose collection Blame It All On My Roots: Five Decades Of Influences sold 146,000 copies in its second week of release — enough to hop up from #3 to the top. The #2 and #3 positions seem to have eluded Britney as well, as they belong to previous chart-topper Midnight Memories by One Direction (117,000) and Kelly Clarkson‘s Wrapped In Red (112,000), respectively.

When all was said and done, Britney Jean sold 107,000 copies and thus comes in at #4, her lowest-charting album in the US to date. (Six of her previous seven albums debuted at #1, while 2007’s Blackout hit #2.)

The upside: At least the album didn’t fare as poorly here as it did overseas, where it debuted at #34 over the weekend on the UK album chart. The downside: Christina Aguilera‘s notorious 2010 flop Bionic entered the Billboard 200 at #3, and sold 3,000 more copies than Britney Jean did out of the gate. Are those bobbleheads we hear shrieking from somewhere in the distance?

The moral of the story: Even lip-syncing a performance for some TV promo probably would have helped out here. That, and hiring anyone else but will.i.am to executive-produce.

The Top 10 Of The Billboard 200 Chart

1. Garth BrooksBlame It All On My Roots *1 week*
2. One DirectionMidnight Memories
3. Kelly ClarksonWrapped In Red
4. Britney Spears, Britney Jean *new*
5. The RobertsonsDuck The Halls: A Robertson Family Christmas
6. Eminem, The Marshall Mathers LP 2
7. Pentatonix, PTXmas
8. Michael Buble, Christmas
9. Katy Perry, Prism
10. Mary J. Blige, A Mary Christmas

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