Justin Timberlake just made a major case against record industry sales estimates.
Originally forecast to sell 500,000 opening week copies, his comeback album “The 20/20 Experience” blew away those forecasts the second it came out of the gate. After opening day sales were tabulated, projections had already been revised to more than 750,000 for the first week.
And as the week continued, expectations kept growing. A report late last week said he had a shot at reaching 900,000. A follow-up on Sunday said 950,000 was in reach.
And here we are, with the week’s sales finally calculated, and the total for “20/20” is 968,000. The figure, which gives Timberlake a dominant number one debut on the Billboard 200, makes for the nineteenth best opening week of all time and represents the best for a male artist since Lil Wayne’s “Tha Carter III” dropped in 2008.
Timberlake can, in fact, claim the third-best opening week total for a male singer (non-rapper). Only Usher (“Confessions,” 1.1 million) and Garth Brooks (“Double Live,” 1.09 million) scored higher debuts.
— Kacey Musgraves’ “Same Trailer Different Park” will be the only other debut in the top ten. Billboard has not yet released sales data on her album, but Hits Daily Double estimates a second-place finish with about 42,000 first-week sales.