Surely bolstered by our coverage and your haikus, Vampire Weekend’s sophomore album, Contra, topped the Billboard 200 in its first week of release with 124,000 copies sold. Kesha (oh, excuse us — Ke$ha) did the yeoman’s work of knocking reigning chart queen Susan Boyle out of the top spot last week, leaving the door open for Contra in this latest sales frame. And yes, the music industry is totally fractured to the point where sales aren’t necessarily indicative of overall popularity, but Vampire Weekend hitting No. 1, coupled with the band’s ubiquity, means we have to officially declare them as graduated from “indie-scene rock stars†to just plain old “rock stars.†(Not in the Jack Daniels–guzzling sense of the word.) It’s been a polarizing ride from amusingly named band with a promising EP to national sweethearts, but now your little cousins may very well be rocking “Horchata†while they’re tacking up their Taylor Lautner posters (once they’re done listening to Ke$ha, of course). Congratulations, boys!
Vampire Weekend Lands First No. 1 Album [Billboard]