AC/DC’s ‘Rock or Bust’ Notches Top 5 Debut on U.S. Album Chart

2008's 'Black Ice' will keep its special status as the only AC/DC album to debut at No. 1 on the U.S. charts -- at least for now.

The first-week sales data for the band's new 'Rock or Bust' LP is coming in, and it looks like they moved roughly 172,000 copies in the States -- good for a No. 3 debut on Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart, behind Taylor Swift's '1989' and Pentatonix's 'That’s Christmas to Me.' While nothing to sniff at, those numbers are well below the heights reached by 'Black Ice,' both in terms of chart placement as well as raw sales.

Released in October 2008, 'Black Ice' sold around 784,000 copies in the U.S. during its first week, which translates to a surprisingly steep drop for 'Rock or Bust.' Given the massive amounts of publicity surrounding the new record -- including Malcolm Young's departure from the lineup due to health problems and Phil Rudd's shocking arrest for a list of alleged criminal activities -- AC/DC's label and management are sure to be on a mission to decipher the soft demand for the final product.

One silver lining here is that the band is still No. 1 in its home country: As Noise11 reports, 'Rock or Bust' debuted at the top of the charts in Australia. First-week returns from elsewhere in the world indicate that the album also hit No. 1 in Belgium, Canada, Finland, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland.

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