Slipknot lead Billboard album chart, but Taylor Swift is barrelling down on them

Heavy metal rockers Slipknot's record 5: The Gray Chapter took the lead on the weekly United States Billboard chart on Oct 29, 2014. -- PHOTO: ROADRUNNER RECORDS
Heavy metal rockers Slipknot's record 5: The Gray Chapter took the lead on the weekly United States Billboard chart on Oct 29, 2014. -- PHOTO: ROADRUNNER RECORDS

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Heavy metal rockers Slipknot took the lead on the weekly United States Billboard chart on Wednesday, but their position would probably not last long. Taylor Swift released her first all-pop album 1989 on Monday to big fanfare, and it is already on course to be the year's biggest album, opening with 1 million copies sold in its first week, Billboard said citing industry sources.

5: The Gray Chapter, the second chart-topping record for Iowa-based Slipknot, sold 132,000 copies in its first week according to sales figures compiled by Nielsen SoundScan, and led seven new debuts in the Billboard top 10 this week.

Rapper T.I. landed at No. 2 with Paperwork selling 80,000 copies, while veteran singer-songwriter Neil Diamond landed at No. 3 with Melody Road selling 78,000 copies.

Rapper Logic's Under Pressure debuted at No. 4, country music group Little Big Town's latest album Pain Killer notched No. 7 and a cappella group Pentatonix came in at No. 8 with its festive record That's Christmas to Me. Pop veteran Annie Lennox rounded out the top 10 with Nostalgia.

Last week's chart-topper, Florida Georgia Line's Anything Goes, dropped to No. 5 this week.

For the week ending Oct 19, overall album sales were down less than 1 per cent from the comparable week in 2013 to 4.45 million, while year-to-date album sales tallied 193.4 million, down 14 per cent from the comparable point last year.

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