In what adds up to the slowest climb into the top five in chart history for a song not aided by crossing over from country to pop or multiple releases, Lights progresses 6-5 this week in what is its 29th appearance on the countdown.
Goulding follows into the top five this year fellow Brits Adele, The Wanted and One Direction. Adele has cracked the chart's top five twice in 2012, with chart-topper Set Fire To The Rain and Rolling In The Deep, which returned for a second appearance in February following her Grammy wins having reached number one the year before. The Wanted's Glad You Came peaked at three and One Direction's What Makes You Beautiful at four, while Jessie J just missed out on adding to the British tally in February with Domino stalling at six.
Lights' sales grew by 6% last week to 160,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan, a new high for the track. Its parent album of the same name also hit a new sales peak last week, one of a number of titles to see a significant uplift thanks to an Amazon promotion offering selected releases at just 99 cents for one day (July 3). Seventeen albums' sales increased by more than 100% but none more than Goulding's album whose sales rose 444% to 23,000, helping it rise 95 places to a new peak of 21 on the Billboard 200.
The Amazon promotion has also had a profound impact on this week's Billboard 200 Top 10, led by Katy Perry's Teenage Dream, which rises 21-2 with sales up 417% to 80,000, while Gotye's Making Mirrors improves 31-6 as sales increase 248% to 44,000, Fun's Some Nights rises 23-7 with sales up 181% to nearly 43,000 and a 396% sales lift to 37,000 units results in The Black Keys' El Camino accelerating 55-10.
A number of other albums outside the Top 10 similarly move up, including Florence + The Machine's Ceremonials going up 77-18 and The Wanted's self-titled album improving 117-30. It should be noted the promotion falls foul of chart regulations brought in by Billboard in light of Lady Gaga's Born This Way last year selling more than 1 million copies in its first week because Amazon was selling it at 99 cents. The rule stipulates that if an album during its first four weeks of release is sold for less than $3.49 those sales will not count towards the chart. However, all the releases in the offer were older than that.
As a result of the promotion's impact on the chart both Adele's 21 and One Direction's Up All Night drop to new lows on the Billboard 200. In the case of Adele's album, it falls 7-9 with sales down 3% to 41,000, while One Direction's Top 10 residency ends after 16 weeks with their album sliding 8-11.
Claiming his second Billboard 200 number one this week is Chris Brown whose Fortune debuts at the top with 134,000 sales, less than half what his first chart-topper and last release F.A.M.E. opened with in 2011.
Last week's number one, Linkin Park's Living Things, drops to five as sales fall 72% to 64,000, while Maroon 5's Overexposed descends 2-4 with sales down 70% to 68,000. Justin Bieber's Believe remains in third place, despite its sales declining 40% to 70,000, and Kenny Chesney's Welcome To The Fishbowl is down 6-8 with sales slipping 30% to 43,000.
Carly Rae Jepsen's Call Me Maybe leads an unchanged top four of the Hot 100 as it spends a fifth week at number one and remains the top download seller, shifting another 244,000 copies last week. Maroon 5 featuring Wiz Khalifa's Payphone is still at two, Gotye featuring Kimbra's Somebody That I Used To Know at three and Katy Perry's Wide Awake at four.
In fifth position, Ellie Goulding's Lights is now one of seven tracks in the Hot 100's Top 40 by Brits and is joined by One Direction's What Makes You Beautiful (moving 11-13) and One Thing (41-39), The Wanted's Glad You Came (13-15), Calvin Harris with Let's Go (31-26) and Feel So Close (29-31), and Cher Lloyd's Want U Back, which gains five places to a new peak of 26 as its weekly download sales increase 22% to 68,000.
The Wanted's other Hot 100 entry, Chasing The Sun, also reaches a new high as it climbs 72-70, while Alex Clare's Too Close climbs 61-59 and Rita Ora's How We Do (Party) drops 65-68.
Boosted by the Amazon promotion, US album sales were last week up 1.0% on the week and 8.6% on the equivalent week a year ago to 5.80 million units, while year-to-date sales stand at 156.26 million, 2.8% lower than 12 months ago.
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