The new album by Irish rockers U2 has blasted to the top of the US music charts, topping the Billboard 200 list with 840,000 copies sold in its first week.
Sales of How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, the group's 14th effort, were nearly double those of its previous album, All That You Can't Leave Behind, which sold 430,000 copies in the week after its 2000 release.
The No 1 showing marks the sixth time the band - which first made the Billboard list in 1981 - snagged the top spot on the trade publication's rankings.
U2 got an added boost from the long Thanksgiving weekend when Americans traditionally shop, and from a massive ad campaign to promote the long-awaited album, featuring the smash hit Vertigo.
U2 popularity mushrooms
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
