Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot jumps back onto Billboard’s album charts following its 20th anniversary deluxe reissue on Sept. 30. The set, first released in 2002, re-enters Top Album Sales (dated Oct. 15) at a new peak of No. 4 – and its first week in the top 10 – with 13,000 copies sold in the U.S. in the week ending Oct. 6 (up from a negligible sales sum a week earlier).
The album was remastered and reissued across an array of formats, including many with a robust amount of bonus tracks. The formats available on the more affordable end of the spectrum included a $9 digital download album and a $19 double-CD set. More spendy fans could splurge for such packages as a $110 eight-CD set, a $140 seven-vinyl LP package and a $235 super deluxe boxed set with 11 vinyl LPs, a CD and a book. All versions of the album, old and new, are combined for tracking and charting purposes.
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot also debuts at No. 1 on the Catalog Albums chart and bows in the top 10 on Top Rock & Alternative Albums, Top Rock Albums, Top Alternative Albums, Americana/Folk Albums, Tastemaker Albums and Vinyl Albums. It also re-enters the Billboard 200 at No. 56 – the set’s highest rank since 2002. (The album debuted and peaked at No. 13 on the May 11, 2002-dated chart.)
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Top Rock & Alternative Albums, Top Rock Albums, Top Alternative Albums and Americana/Folk Albums rank the week’s most popular rock and alternative albums, rock albums, alternative albums, and Americana/folk albums, respectively, by equivalent album units. Catalog Albums lists the week’s most popular older (catalog) titles by equivalent album units. Tastemaker Albums ranks the week’s best-selling albums at independent and small chain record stores. Vinyl Albums tallies the top-selling vinyl albums of the week.
Of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’s 13,000 copies sold in the week after its reissue, physical sales comprise 12,500 (8,000 on vinyl and 4,500 on CD) and digital downloads comprise 500.
Elsewhere on Top Album Sales, Slipknot blasts in at No. 1 with The End, So Far (50,000 sold), marking the rock band’s fourth chart-topper. The set was available across an array of collectible physical formats, including nine CDs with alternative cover art (a different cover for each of the band members), a signed CD, three boxed sets (with one of two T-shirts or a hoodie), seven vinyl LPs and three cassette tapes.
Denzel Curry’s Melt My Eyez See Your Future debuts at No. 2 on Top Album Sales with 16,000 sold, following its Sept. 30 release on physical formats. The set was initially released via streaming services and digital retailers on March 25. The album’s sales were bolstered by its availability in 11 different vinyl variants, four cassettes, but just one CD. The album debuts at No. 1 on the Vinyl Albums chart with 13,500 copies sold on wax.
Tyler Childers’ new album Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven starts at No. 3 on Top Album Sales with 16,000 sold, garnering Childers his third top 10 effort on the tally.
Unlike The End, So Far and Melt My Eyez, Childers’ new album was available to purchase in just three formats: a standard digital album, a CD and a black vinyl edition. However, the set is effectively a triple album, as Childers recorded the album’s eight songs in three different versions. (The three portions of the album are subtitled Hallelujah, Jubilee and Joyful Noise.) In turn, while the digital album is priced at a relatively low $11.99 on his Childers’ webstore, the three-CD set sold for $24.98 while the triple-vinyl LP sold for $59.95.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs notch its second top 10 on Top Album Sales as the act’s latest studio album Cool It Down arrives at No. 5 with 12,000 sold. Sammy Hagar & The Circle’s Crazy Times comes in at No. 6 with 10,000 – it’s the second top 10 for Hagar. Bjork’s new studio set Fossora enters at No. 7 with 9,000 sold – her second top 10 and highest charting album ever on the 31-year-old tally. She had previously topped out at No. 9 in 2007 with Volta.
Grateful Dead’s massive 17-CD boxed set In and Out of the Garden: Madison Square Garden ’81, ’82, ’83, debuts at No. 8 with 8,000 sold. The $179.98 box contains six unreleased concerts recorded at Madison Square Garden over six nights in March of 1981, September of 1982 and December of 1983. In and Out of the Garden is the 32nd top 10-charting effort for Grateful Dead on the 31-year-old Top Album Sales chart, and the act’s fifth top 10 in 2022 (more than any other artist this year).
Rounding out the new Top Album Sales chart is NCT 127’s 2 Baddies (falling 4-9 with 8,000 sold; down 41%) and TWICE’s former No. 1 Between 1&2: 11th Mini Album (dipping 8-10 with 7,000; down 13%).
In the week ending Oct. 6, there were 1.659 million albums sold in the U.S. (up 0.2% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 1.295 million (down 1.7%) and digital albums comprised 364,000 (up 7.8%).
There were 609,000 CD albums sold in the week ending Oct. 6 (down 1.4% week-over-week) and 676,000 vinyl albums sold (up 2%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 26.043 million (down 8% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 29.228 million (up 1.1%).
Overall year-to-date album sales total 71.256 million (down 7.9% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 55.673 million (down 3.3%) and digital album sales total 15.583 million (down 21.2%).
