People Still Buy Music: Arcade Fire is probably going to be No. 1 on the Billboard charts

Arcade Fire is poised to unseat Katy Perry atop next week’s Billboard album charts. The band’s Reflektor is projected to sell around 135,000 copies by Sunday. That should beat whatever Perry’s Prism sells during this, its second week in stores. While Prism debuted with 286,000 copies sold, sales of most records that debut at No. 1 drop about 70 percent in their second week. And if Prism’s sales drop 70 percent, moving around 85,000 copies, that would make Arcade Fire victorious commercially, if not also morally.

In that case, Reflektor would be Arcade Fire’s second No. 1 record. Its first was 2010's The Suburbs, which has sold 776,000 copies to date.