One Direction’s Four Makes Historic No. 1 Debut On Billboard 200 Chart Replacing Taylor Swift’s 1989

Hey everybody, I hope you all enjoying Thanksgiving and December is finally here. Now, it appears that Taylor Swift’s 1989 was dropped out of the Billboard’s Top 10 Albums chart’s number 1 peak allowing in favor of One Direction’s Four. Now, before I discuss One Direction’s Four, it appears that Four is One Direction’s fourth album because the title of the album represents 4 albums. So, let’s check out One Direction’s Four. Shall we?

Now, according to Billboard, One Direction is only group to debut at No. 1 with their first four albums. Sounds fascinating, huh? Let’s continue.

One Direction makes history, again, as the act’s new album Four debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. They are the only group in the 58-year history of the chart to see their first four albums debut at No. 1. (A year ago, they became the first group to enter at No. 1 with their first three studio sets, when Midnight Memories bowed atop the chart.)

The new album was released on Nov. 17 through SYCO/Columbia Records.

Here’s a by-the-numbers look at the achievements the British/Irish quintet has made with Four’s chart-topping arrival:

- With 387,000 sold in the week ending Nov. 23, according to Nielsen SoundScan, Four earns the second-largest sales debut of the year, and the biggest week overall for a group. Only Taylor Swift’s 1989 was larger, with its 1.287 million start.

- One Direction is the only group to see their first four studio albums debut at No. 1. (They were already the only group to arrive atop the list with their first three sets.)

- They are the fourth act, overall, to have their first four studio albums debut at No. 1. They follow soloists Britney Spears (between 1999 and 2003), DMX (his first five, 1998-2003) and Beyonce (five, 2003-2013).

- Four tallies the biggest week for an album by a group since One Direction’s previous effort, Midnight Memories, started with 546,000 on the Dec. 14, 2013-dated Billboard 200 chart (reflecting the sales week ending Dec. 1).

- Four is One Direction’s fourth No. 1 album in a row, in less than three years. They previously topped the list with their debut effort, Up All Night (on the list dated March 31, 2012), Take Me Home (Dec. 1, 2012) and Midnight Memories.

- In the history of the Billboard 200 chart, only three groups have reached No. 1 with their first four studio albums: One Direction, The Monkees (between 1966-1967) and The Kingston Trio (with their first five sets, 1958-1960). While all four of One Direction’s albums debuted at No. 1, The Monkees and The Kingston Trio’s releases climbed to No. 1 after entering the chart at a lower rank. (The chart didn’t see its first debut at No. 1 until 1975, when Elton John’s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy started atop the list.)

- In total, just six acts have reached No. 1 with their first four studio releases: Beyonce, DMX, The Kingston Trio, The Monkees, One Direction and Britney Spears.

So, it appears that One Direction has released a One Direction album 4 years in a row. Avril Lavigne has 4 albums 9 years after her music career started in 2002 with Complicated and Arista’s Let Go. It appears that RCA and bratty songs lost Avril Lavigne is huge in America appearance and number 1 Avril Lavigne singles. Taylor Swift got 4 albums quicker and faster than Avril Lavigne after her fourth album, Red released 6 years after her debut album back in 2006. Girlfriend was lucky though since the song peaked at number 1 on the Hot 100 chart back in 2007 and RCA has backed up on that one. That’s because Avril Lavigne used to be popular back in 2002 as non-pop mainstream music (hip-hop and rock) took over during 2002 and Complicated peaked at number 1 on Adult Top 40 as Avril Lavigne broke a record set by Natalie Imbruglia's Torn when Complicated held the number one spot on the Adult Top 40 chart for 16 weeks in a row and Let Go sold more than 6 million copies in North America by the end of 2002 throughout US and Canada. But not anymore. After 2002, Avril Lavigne vanished in 2003 while I’m With You went big during 2003 along with the Losing Grip music video for MTV to watch. Then in 2004, general public lost interest to Avril Lavigne by the time RCA took over Arista’s Under My Skin and RCA start butchering Under My Skin by putting in the wrong singles like My Happy Ending and not letting He Wasn’t aired on MTV during 2005 and only in the UK in that year. Then RCA ruined Avril Lavigne by putting in bratty songs like Hot and making her dreadful third album, The Best Damn Thing, which lose fans for bashing the mega hilarious Girlfriend and began moving away from her after listening to the 6 times platinum Let Go and the messy post 2002 sophomore album, Under My Skin. RCA delayed her fourth album several times and Goodbye Lullaby lost her number 1 comebacks and Avril Lavigne’s new Max Martin songs like Wish You Were Her by putting in bratty songs that almost butchered Goodbye Lullaby like What The Hell. RCA will never want to work with Avril Lavigne again and RCA moved on to other artist like Britney Spears. By that time, Avril Lavigne’s post 2002 singles from 2004-2013 like My Happy Ending can get easily walled against other songs from 2004-today like Tim McGraw, Umbrella, Firework and Come And Get It. Why Avril Lavigne songs only appeal Complicated and not bother other songs like Here’s To Never Growing Up? Why 2004-today songs only appeal other songs like Mama’s Song and Alejandro? Let me guess, money. RCA and Sony Music hates Avril Lavigne. Who am I kidding? Rambling Avril Lavigne’s post 2002 problems aside and let’s get back to One Direction.

As you may know that One Direction is not an American artist much like non-US artists like Rihanna and Iggy Azalea. One Direction also marks the return of boy bands where we had Backstreet Boys and NSync back in 1995-2001 before 2002-2014 music like Carrie Underwood and Ariana Grande took over. Duh. One Direction only have to US number 1s, What Makes You Beautiful and Story Of My Life. Others like Best Song Ever doesn’t. Duh. So for members, we have Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and One Direction’s albums include Up All Night, Take Me Home, Midnight Memories and Four as I talked about earlier. One Direction’s singles from 2011-2014 includes What Makes You Beautiful, Gotta Be You, One Thing, More Than This, Live While We're Young, Little Things, Kiss You, Best Song Ever, Story of My Life, Midnight Memories, You & I, Steal My Girl, and Night Changes. There’s also a One Direction move called One Direction: This Is Us. Lol. Hold on a second, a One Direction movie? Do we need a One Direction movie? How about no, n, o, no. Music artists and moves don’t work together and never will. Let’s continue.

It appears that One Direction just made history, again. When Four debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, they became the only group in the chart's 58-year history to see their first four albums debut at the list's top slot. So how do One Direction's first-week album sales compare to other boy bands like Backstreet Boys?

According to Billboard, the world's biggest boy band moved 387,000 copies of Four in the week ending Nov. 23, according to Nielsen SoundScan. While that's more copies than the most recent releases from fellow pop stars Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus, it's a notable 29 percent drop from the first-week sales for their previous album.

Midnight Memories, which came out just last year, opened with 546,000 copies in its first week. Their previous album, 2012's Take Me Home, had a similar first week, moving 540,000 copies.

To reiterate, Four's opening week sales are still massive -- but this is the first 1D album since their debut not to cross the half-million mark in its opening week. And that album, Up All Night, came out before the boys were bona fide superstars in the U.S.

Despite their increasing fame and their maturing sound, 1D fever may slowly be cooling off. And there's nothing shocking about that. As a boy band grows up, so does their audience -- and not every tweenage fan sticks with their one-time crushes.

It's worth keeping in mind that overall album sales are down 13 percent compared to the same time a year ago, so it's a challenge for anyone to sell albums. (Still, Taylor Swift somewhat miraculously sold 1.287 million copies of 1989 in its first week -- her best sales week yet and the first album to shift more than a million since Swift's own Red two years ago.)

In the bar graphs above, we've rounded up the first-week sales for the first few studio albums from One Direction, 'N Sync, Backstreet Boys and the Jonas Brothers. So how does 1D's record sales history match up to their boy band predecessors?

In some respects, it's very similar.

'N Sync's three albums followed a similar sales path. Not close to superstardom when their self-titled album dropped in America, 'N Sync's first album sold just 14,000 its first week out (astonishing, right?). It would eventually become a hit, and by the time No Strings Attached dropped, the group sold nearly 2.5 million copies of its second album in its first week -- the largest sales week ever for an album since SoundScan started tracking sales in 1991. But when their swan song, Celebrity, came out, sales slipped to 1,888,000 copies -- a 28 percent sales drop. That's pretty similar to the 29 percent sales drop 1D just saw with Four.

Backstreet, on the other hand, was a different story. Much like NSync, their first album's first-week sales were wildly below the peaks they were soon to reach – they became superstars in America after the first record dropped. Their second album, Millennium, moved 1,134,000 copies in its first week, while Black & Blue sold 1,591,000 in its debut week. But Backstreet went on a two-year hiatus at the peak of their fame. So when their fourth album dropped, the massive sales slip they saw -- Never Gone moved just 291,000 in its first week -- was partly due to the fact that they'd reformed at a point when boy bands were very much passé.

What about the Jonas Brothers? First off, yes, we know the JoBros played their own instruments are wrote their own songs, which makes them remarkably different from other boy bands. But the JoBros made teen pop/rock, they were marketed as teen heartthrobs, and they were quite literally a band made up of boys. It's fair to compare them to other boy bands.

Although their career got off to a slow start (their first album, It's About Time, sold just 10,000 in its first week), by the time their third album, A Little Bit Longer, rolled around, it broke half-million sales in its first week. And even though their fourth did quite well, it saw a similar drop to 1D's fourth -- Lines, Vines and Trying Times opened with 247,000.

Despite the Jonas's success, it took 1D to make boy bands cool again. And even if no one else has replicated their incredible international domination, America is safer place for boy bands thanks to 1D.

Whether 1D's next album will follow the gradual sales slip most boy bands seem to experience after their third or fourth album -- or come back with another half-million selling LP -- remains to be seen.

Well it seems that Four earns the second-largest sales debut of the year, and the biggest week overall for a group with 387,000 sold in the US in the week ending Nov. 23, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Only Taylor Swift’s 1989 was larger, with its 1.287 million start. Pretty impressive for a One Direction album like this one.

So what do you think? What do you think about One Direction's Four sold 387,000 copies in the US during its first week? Sound Off below!