(Capitol Records) Coldplay's X&Y has debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200. X&Y sold 737,294 copies in its first week of release in the U.S., making it 2005's highest selling rock debut to date. In addition, Coldplay's two previous Grammy-winning albums, A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002, triple-Platinum) and Parachutes (2000, double Platinum), are #1 and #2 respectively on Billboard's Top Pop Catalog Albums chart.
The album also saw the biggest first week sales yet of any digital album, with digital album sales comprising more than 8% of total U.S. sales, according to SoundScan. X&Y was the first digital pre-order ever, available on the iTunes Music Store, and the album also went to #1 in every iTunes territory worldwide.
In the UK, first week sales soared to more than 464,000, making it the second fastest selling album of all time in that country, as well as the biggest selling album of the year so far. Worldwide, X&Y charted at #1 in an additional 20 countries, with more countries still to publish their charts.
Nearly 400,000 tickets were snapped up in the first weekend of sales for the North American leg of Coldplay's "Twisted Logic" tour. The tour launches August 2nd at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. (See below for a complete list of dates.)
Fans had four opportunities to see Coldplay perform material from X&Y during the week of its release: a live concert for MTV's first-ever "Live Leak," a "VH1 Storytellers" performance, an AOL® Music LIVE! concert (played over 700,000 times in the first week, it ranks as one of the Top 10 most popular AOL® Music LIVE! shows to date) and a Yahoo! Music Smash performance. Beginning June 15th, MySpace.com will premiere a live acoustic set of Coldplay performing in Japan.
"Speed Of Sound," the first single from X&Y, is already a multi-format radio hit and the accompanying Mark Romanek-directed video recently debuted in the highest rotation categories at MTV, MTV2 and VH1. MTV2 gave the video an all-day premiere on May 24th, playing it at the top of each hour while Yahoo! Music gave the video its online premiere the same day. MTV.com's "The Leak" exclusively streamed X&Y in its entirety the week prior to its release.
Coldplay currently has the #1 rock video title and the #4 video title overall at Yahoo! Music. The band was featured on numerous home pages the day of the album's release, including Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, Napster, Real Music, MTV.com, VH1.com, MySpace.com, Rhapsody, iTunes, Sony Connect and Target Red Room. Coldplay also recently appeared on the covers of Blender and Entertainment Weekly and performed on the season finale of "Saturday Night Live" in May.
COLDPLAY "TWISTED LOGIC" TOUR - NORTH AMERICAN LEG
8/2 Toronto, ON Air Canada Centre
8/3 Montreal, QC Bell Centre
8/4 Hartford, CT Meadows Music Theatre
8/6 Boston, MA Tweeter Center
8/7 Philadelphia, PA Tweeter Center @ The Waterfront
8/9 Cincinnati, OH Riverbend Music Center
8/11 Pittsburgh, PA Post Gazette Pavilion
8/12 Indianapolis, IN Verizon Wireless Music Center
8/13 East Troy, WI Alpine Valley Music Theatre
8/16 Seattle, WA White River Amphitheatre
8/17 Portland, OR Amphitheatre at Clark County
8/19 San Francisco, CA Shoreline Amphitheatre
8/20 & 21 Irvine, CA Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
8/24 Albuquerque, NM Journal Pavilion
8/25 Phoenix, AZ Cricket Pavilion
8/26 San Diego, CA Coors Amphitheatre
8/30 Detroit, MI DTE Energy Music Theatre
8/31 Columbus, OH Germain Amphitheater
9/1 Darien Center, NY Darien Lake Performing Arts Center
9/3 Holmdel, NJ PNC Bank Arts Center
9/6 & 7 New York, NY Madison Square Garden
9/9 Charlotte, NC Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
9/10 Raleigh, NC Alltel Pavilion
9/13 West Palm Beach, FL Sound Advice Amphitheatre
9/14 Tampa, FL Ford Amphitheatre
9/16 Birmingham, AL Verizon Wireless Music Center
9/17 St. Louis, MO UMB Bank Pavilion
9/18 Nashville, TN Starwood Amphitheatre
9/20 Minneapolis, MN Target Center
9/21 Kansas City, MO Verizon Wireless Amphitheater
9/23 Dallas, TX Smirnoff Music Center
9/24 Houston, TX Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
9/25 Austin, TX Austin City Limits Music Festival
9/28 Atlanta, GA Philips Arena
9/29 Virginia Beach, VA Verizon Wireless Virginia Beach Amphitheater
9/30 Bristow, VA Nissan Pavilion at Stone Ridge
