The box office success of the Hunger Games film has been widely reported on this week. Now, it's the turn of the movie's soundtrack to boast about its chart success. According to Nielsen Soundscan, who monitor the sales results, 175,000 copies of the soundtrack album were sold in the first week, meaning that it has debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.
Billboard.com reports today that the soundtrack to The Hunger Games - featuring tracks by the likes of Taylor Swift - is the first film soundtrack to hit the top of the chart since Michael Jackson's This Is It, back in 2009. And it's the first multi-artist soundtrack to reach number one since the release of The Twilight Saga: New Moon (which hit the top spot a week before Jackson's). The recent Grammy award winners Taylor Swift and the CIVIL WARS collaborate on 'Safe and Sound' and the soundtrack also includes contributions from Arcade Fire ('Abraham's Daughter'), Maroon 5 ('Come Away to the Water') and Miranda Lambert ('Run Daddy Run'). The soundtrack has topped the U.S. album chart ahead of the anticipated return from The Shins, at number three as well as Adele's long-reigning sophomore album, 21, which sold 130,000 copies.
The film for which the soundtrack was made is the first adaptation of Suzanne Collins' trilogy of teen novels, set in a post-apocalyptic future. The movie stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth. In its opening weekend, it became the highest grossing non-sequel movie of all time.