Target, who needs Target? Apparently not Frank Ocean. The Odd Future crooner's major label debut, Channel Orange may have gotten banned from the big box retailer after he offered it up a week early to iTunes to combat an early leak, but his first-week sales were still pretty solid.
Though he was bested by grits-and-gravy rocker Zac Brown's Uncaged album, which debuted at #1 on sales of 234,000, Ocean's Orange hit #2 with 131,000 in digital sales, according to figures provided by Nielsen SoundScan. The physical copy of the disc hit stores on Tuesday, so it's possible that he could have another big week in his second frame.
To put the feat in perspective, Ocean's sometimes knotty, highly personal R&B stylings nearly equaled the first-week sales for Chris Brown's fifth album, Fortune, which ruled the charts last week with sales of 135,000.
Brown and Ocean were the only new faces in the top 10, which mostly saw a shuffling of the previous week's raters, with most suffering double-digit sales dips.
The rest of the top 10: Justin Bieber, Believe (#3, 45,000, down 35 percent), Brown, Fortune (#4, 45,000, down 67 percent), Maroon 5, Overexposed (#5, 44,000, down 67 percent), Linkin Park, Living Things (#6, 37,000, down 42 percent), One Direction, Up All Night (#7, 36,000), Adele, 21 (#8, 35,000, down 14 percent), Katy Perry, Teenage Dream (#9, 34,000, down 58 percent) and Kenny Chesney, Welcome to the Fishbowl (#10, 32,000, down 26 percent).
In a slow release week, among the other debuts was the latest from hard rock veterans P.O.D., Murdered Love (#17, 16,000), rapper Aesop Rock, Skelethon (#21, 14,000) and indie rockers Dirty Projectors, Swing Lo Magellan (#22, 14,000). While he continues to sell downloads by the barrel, Flo Rida's latest album, Wild Ones, took a big tumble in week two, falling 10 spots to #24 as sales trailed off by 56 percent to 13,000.
Ocean's physical CD release will jockey for position with Nas' Life is Good , the latest Kidz Bop CD and the return of reggae rapper Matisyahu.