Album Charts: Drake Debuts At No. 1 With 447K Albums Sold

Since dropping his So Far Gone mixtape last year, the buzz surrounding Drake and his music has been crazy. Last week, it finally translated into sales when his debut album Thank Me Later finally impacted the Billboard charts.

The Young Money rapper hit the charts at no. 1, as expected, selling an impressive 447,000 copies to top the Billboard 200 over new releases from Tom Petty and Sarach McLachlan.

According to Billboard.com, Drake's album performance records the third-best sales week of the year for a single album. The top two sales weeks of 2010 are owned by Sade's Soldier of Love (502,000 off its debut week in February) and Lady Antebellum's Need You Now (481,000 in its first frame in January).

While Drake's debut is at no. 1, the official release of So Far Gone sold another 6,100 copies this week to land at no. 76.

After Drake, there isn't much going on as far as new hip-hop releases. But, some previously released albums are still faring well.

In at no. 13 is Usher's Raymond v. Raymond selling 29,000; B.o.B's The Adventures of Bobby Ray lands at no. 17 with 20,000 sold; Plies comes in at 18 with Goon Affiliated selling just under 20,000; and the Black Eyed Peas' The E.N.D. closes out the top 20 at 19 with 19,000 sold.

That wraps things up this week. To cop any of these new releases, head over to Amazon.com.

According to Billboard.com, overall album sales in this past chart week (ending June 20) totaled 6.14 million units, up 9% compared to the sum last week (5.61 million) and down 9% compared to the comparable sales week of 2009 (6.76 million).