Kanye West ‘Yeezus’ Album Debuts At No. 1

There was a lot of hype surrounding the debut of Kanye West’s new album Yeezus so it isn’t really surprising to see it at the top of the Billboard chart.

Billboard reports that Yeezus sold more than 327,000 copies during its opening week. That may sound impressive but it is Kanye’s worst debut of his career. The singer’s 2004 album College Dropout sold 441,000.

It is also well below the 500,000 copies that was projected by industry experts.

Of course, it isn’t all bad news for Kanye.

He does have the No.1 album at the moment and the third best debut of the year. Billboard reports that only Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience (968,000) and Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories (339,000) beat out Kanye’s debut.

Yeezus is also Kanye’s 6th No.1 debut.

Keith Caulfied, Billboard’s associate director of charts/retail, said that Kanye didn’t use traditional methods to promote album sales. He did, however, create a bizarre American Psycho ad.

Caulfied told USA Today: “He specifically limited the kinds of traditional promotion done for an album. It’s a smallish figure compared to what he normally does, but considering what hampered it, it’s fairly handsome. If anyone has proven that a lot of risks can be taken to great reward, it’s Kanye West. He’s not a conventional artist, and that’s why people like him. They’re purchasing the album without a lot of information about it.”

Kanye said before the album’s debut that he didn’t care about the album sales as long as he made a “great f***ng record.”