Shawn Mendes Scores US Chart Topper With Debut Album 'Handwritten'
By Ed Biggs in Music / Festivals on 23 April 2015
The 'Life of the Party' singer has risen from internet fame to land a Number 1 record at his first attempt.
Internet sensation Shawn Mendes has completed his rise from a cult following on Vine to chart-topping sensation, as his full-length debut album has entered at Number 1 in the Billboard Top 200. Handwritten sold 119,000 units, including track and streaming album equivalent sales, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
16 year old Mendes is the youngest person to top the American album charts since 2010, when Justin Bieber – six months younger then than Mendes is now – spent a month at Number 1 with My World 2.0.
Shawn Mendes has scored his first Number 1 album with his debut 'Handwritten'
Though Mendes doesn’t currently have a single out at the moment – meaning that Handwritten has reached Number 1 without any significant radio play – he has built on three previous Top 20 hits in the US, including the former Number 1 single ‘Life of the Party’.
More: Shawn Mendes was an “annoying little brat” when he was younger
Shawn Mendes therefore dislodges the Furious 7 soundtrack from the top spot, which falls to Number 2 with 79,000 copies sold. Country music stalwart Reba McEntire scores a new entry at Number 3, selling 62,000 copies of her new album Love Somebody, her first record in nearly five years.
Odd Future leader Tyler, The Creator lands at Number 4 after surprise-releasing his new solo record Cherry Bomb, which emerged nearly a week before its scheduled release date. Nevertheless, it shifted a respectable 58,000 units.
Rock outfit Halestorm scores another new entry at Number 5 with Into The Wild Life (56,000). Below that at 6 is the soundtrack to Fifty Shades of Grey (43,000), and at Number 7 is Taylor Swift’s 1989, which falls out of the Top Five for the first week since its release way back in November last year with 38,000 sales. We guess it had to happen sometime!
Completing the Billboard’s Top Ten are Sam Smith’s In The Lonely Hour in eighth (37,000); Ed Sheeran’s X in ninth (36,000); propped up by Drake’s mixtape LP If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late at Number 10 with (35,000).
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