Daft Punk Dance To #1 For Career-Best Debut

All those months of teasers paid off for Daft Punk. The anonymous French duo will land the biggest debut of their career, first #1 album
 and second-best debut of the year on the Billboard 200 next week (behind Justin Timberlake’s 968,000 for The 20/20 Experience) when their fourth studio album, Random Access Memories, tops the tally with sales of 339,000, according to figures provided by Nielsen SoundScan.

The final number topped early predictions, which had Memories moving around 300,000 copies. It also beat their previous best U.S. chart showing (#4) for the 2010 soundtrack to “TRON: Legacy, ” which moved 70,000 units in its debut. According to Billboard, 65 percent of DP’s sales were from downloads (221,000), which also gives them the second-biggest digital week of the year behind Timberlake’s 452,000.

The album’s first single, 
 is also their top-charting single to date, peaking at #10 so far, with more than 350,000 downloads, plus another 710,000 in England. It is also the fastest-selling album in the U.K. so far this year. According to Spotify, one in five U.S. users listened to all of Memories in its first week on the service and every track on the disc was streamed at least 500,000 times in the first week on Spotify in the U.S.

Just behind the #2 debut from Darius Rucker’s True Believers (83,000), indie rock sad sacks the National hit a new high with Trouble Will Find Me (#3, 75,000) and rapper French Montana landed at #4 with his major-label debut, Excuse My French (56,000).

Thirty Second to Mars were blocked from their first-ever top five debut for LOVE LUST FAITH + DREAMS (#6, 53,000) by “The Great Gatsby” soundtrack, which slipped a spot to #5 with just under 54,000 in sales. Last week’s #1, Vampire Weekend’s Modern Vampires of the City, slipped down to #7 as sales were off by 64 percent to 48,000. The bigger drop was for Demi Lovato’s Demi, which slipped 11 spots to #14 in week two as sales fell to 26,000.

Next week’s charts will feature new entries from The-Dream and Alice in Chains, with Daft Punk expected to keep the crown for another round.

Over on the Digital Songs chart, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ “Can’t Hold Us” kept the top spot once again with another 212,000 downloads, while Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” (featuring T.I. and Pharrell) fell one spot to #3 (191,000) and Pink’s “Just Give Me a Reason” was down a spot to #4 (184,000).

Daft Punk had a nice week on the singles chart as well, with “Get Lucky” moving up 53 percent and five spots to #5 (180,000), while Selena Gomez’s “Come & Get It” was down a spot to #6 (171,000). Late A Firm Handshake singer Zach Sobiech, who died on Monday after a battle with cancer, entered the chart at #7 with “Clouds” (156,000, up 8,149 percent). Imagine Dragons were at #8 with “Radioactive” (148,000), Timberlake at #9 with “Mirrors” (142,000) and Icona Pop rounded it out at #10 with “I Love It” (134,000).