XL tops US chart with Vampire Weekend

10:20 | Thursday January 21, 2010

The New York band’s second album Contra, released directly in the States by the UK indie, sold 120,000 copies in its opening week to debut at the top as Susan Boyle’s I Dreamed A Dream held at two and Ke$ha’s Animal dropped to three.

The success makes it the first time in nearly two decades that a UK indie has topped the main US albums chart. The last time it happened was June 1991 when Virgin Records, just a year before it was bought out by EMI, reached number one with Spellbound by Paula Abdul.

Additionally, Contra comes with independent distribution and is, according to Nielsen SoundScan, only the 12th such album in chart history to top the Billboard 200. The distributor is Alternative Distribution Alliance, which also reached number one last October with Pearl Jam’s self-released album Backspacer.

XL itself has enjoyed US chart-topping success before with an act, but that was achieved through licensing repertoire to another label. In that instance its album The Fat Of The Land by Prodigy debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 in 1997 via a deal with Maverick/Warner.

Other XL releases and acts have also been successful in the States, but often again through deals with other companies. These include Adele with Columbia and M.I.A. with Interscope, although, since opening a US office, XL has increasingly released material directly itself in the market as well as still licensing to other labels.