Daft Punk debut at No. 1, set Spotify record

There was no luck involved in Daft Punk’s dominance at music retail over the last week. The fourth studio album from the veteran electronic act will debut at No. 1 on this week’s Billboard pop chart, having sold 339,000 copies in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The showing is easily Daft Punk’s best on the U.S. charts. Daft Punk’s last non-soundtrack studio effort, 2005’s “Human After All,” bowed at No. 98 on the pop chart, according to Billboard. To date, that album has sold just 125,000 copies, less than half of what “Random Access Memories” sold in its first week.

Remarkably, “Random Access Memories” put up its high sales numbers after being listened to more than 8 million times in the U.S. on streaming service Spotify. “Random Access Memories” bested Mumford & Sons’ “Babel” for the most-ever streamed album on the platform, which now claims more than 24 million users worldwide.

While “Random Access Memoires” set a new streaming record on Spotify, Daft Punk’s label Columba Records declined to release specific figures. “Babel” when it was released last year was streamed about 8 million times in its first week. However, a release from Spotify notes than 1 in 5 U.S. users of the service listened to “Random Access Memories.”

“Random Access Memories” marks the second album bearing the Daft Punk name to land inside the top 10. The act’s 2010 soundtrack to “TRON: Legacy” reached No. 4, according to Billboard, and sold 70,000 copies in its first week. Daft Punk’s best-selling album in the U.S. is “Discovery,” which Billboard reports has sold 796,000 copies.

“Random Access Memories” is coming at a time when the dance and electronic music that Daft Punk helped bring more mainstream awareness to has never been more popular. Oddly, “Random Access Memories” sees Daft Punk moving further away from futuristic sounds, instead crafting an album grounded in more vintage, psychedelic grooves.

Nevertheless, the album’s lead single, the house-tinged “Get Lucky” featuring Pharrell Williams reached No. 10 last week on Billboard’s Hot 100. An updated chart will be released Thursday. Since “Get Lucky” was made available on Spotify on April 18, it has been streamed more than 33 million times globally.

The U.S. pop chart was previously topped by indie-pop act Vampire Weekend, whose “Modern Vampires of the City” saw the breezy act experimenting with weirder textures. It sold more than 134,000 copies in its debut week.

The National, whose “Trouble Will Find Me” represents another collection of tense rock numbers from the Brooklyn-based act, was expected to debut at No. 2. Early indications from Billboard had the album selling as high as 70,000 copies.

The full chart is released early Wednesday.

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