Breaking Benjamin, Tori Kelly, And Kacey Musgraves To Hold Top Positions On ‘Billboard’ 200 Album Chart

Billboard’s new album chart won’t be revealed until Wednesday morning, but Hits Daily Double, whose chart uses the same methods as Billboard and has about 99 percent of the same results, shows a clear winner: Breaking Benjamin.

Breaking Benjamin’s album Dark Before Dawn has sold approximately 141,134 physical copies. The total amount of sales counted could go much higher when Billboard counts album streaming equivalents. Breaking Benjamin’s new album has received mostly positive, but some mixed reviews. Go Knoxville says Dark Before Dawn is satisfying but depressing.

“At first, Breaking Benjamin’s new ‘Dark Before Dawn’ is a satisfying retro-hard-rock album, its slashing electricity a sad reminder of how marginalized rock music has become in the mainstream…However, as ‘Dark Before Dawn’ continues down its mopey path of predictability, it serves to remind why this kind of music has a diminished audience.”

Sputnik Music has given Breaking Benjamin’s album a superb 4.5 star rating.

“The album has its highs and lows, as does any album. But in this case, the highs outweigh the lows…Dark Before Dawn will please fans of Breaking Benjamin, and is definitely worth listening to.”

Breaking Benjamin is selling far more than Tori Kelly, who is in second place with Unbreakable Smile. That album has sold approximately 65,000 copies without streaming points counted in. Like Breaking Benjamin, Kelly’s album has received some mixed reviews. PopCrush didn’t seem too impressed with Unbreakable Smile.

“By the time the album reaches minute 20, though, Kelly’s full-sprint devolves into a limping jog.”

PopCrush especially criticizes Kelly’s song “City Dove,” which they say pushes Unbreakable Smile to the point of no return. However, they did end up giving the album three out of five stars.

Kacey Musgraves’ album Pageant Material comes in third with approximately 54,000 copies sold. It’s barely outselling James Taylor’s Before This World, which was No. 1 last week. It will be interesting to see if Kacey Musgrave can also hit the No. 3 position on the Billboard 200 once streaming points are considered.

Joining Breaking Benjamin and others on the Hits Daily Double list are James Taylor, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Sam Hunt, and Florence + The Machine. It’s likely that Breaking Benjamin will not stay at the top since Meek Mill’s Dreams Worth More Than Money is currently the No. 1 selling album at iTunes. Miguel’s Wildheart is at No. 2. Unfortunately, Breaking Benjamin’s Dark Before Dawn has already dropped to No. 6 on iTunes and, based on that, could see a huge drop on Billboard‘s album chart that comes out next week.

[Photo Credit: Billboard]