On the Charts: Imagine Dragons Conjure Up Number One

With the post-Grammys sales surge ebbing away — and no other major debuts to battle with — Imagine Dragons cruised to the top of the Billboard 200, as the Las Vegas arena rockers’ second LP, Smoke and Mirrors, grabbed the Number One spot thanks to 195,000 units sold. It’s the best sales week yet for the “Radioactive” act, besting the opening week sales of their debut, Night Visions, of 83,000 in September 2013. That album, which peaked at Number Two on the charts, went on to sell more than 2.5 million copies.

Last week’s winner and the best-selling album of 2015 so far, Drake’s surprise If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, dropped to Number Two. After selling 495,000 units in four days, the Drake release pushed another 187,000 purely digital copies. Last week’s second-place finisher, the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack, ended the week at Number Three and another 165,000 copies sold.

Outside the top three, no other albums hit six-digits last week: After Taylor Swift’s 1989 slipped to Number Five last week – its lowest placement since it debuted in October 2014 – the album rebounded slightly, moving up to Number Four, due to another 93,000 units sold. 1989 flipped spots with last week’s Number Four, Ed Sheeran’s X, while Sam Smith’s In the Lonely Hour, the biggest benefactor of the post-Grammy spike, thanks to his dominating the night, came back to reality by falling from Three to Six.

This week, Imagine Dragons’ Smoke and Mirrors will have to duke it out against Big Sean’s Dark Sky Paradise and Kid Rock’s First Kiss for next week’s Number One.