it's all about the Beatles and Jay-Z this week on Billboard's albums charts.
Based on preliminary sales numbers from Nielsen SoundScan, Jay-Z's "The Blueprint 3" shifted 476,000 copies in the week that ended at the close of business on Sunday (Sept. 13) night. That will easily give Jay his 11th No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart when the new figures are released in the morning on Wednesday, Sept. 16.
As for the Beatles, preliminary figures indicate the Fab Four's catalog of albums -- including those titles not part of its new reissue series -- sold a combined 626,000 units in the U.S. last week according to SoundScan. In the week previous (week ending Sept. 6), the band's collective albums sold just 21,000.