The Civil Wars Album Debuts At #1

The Civil Wars' sophomore album has debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart this week.

The self-titled project comes after a hiatus for the duo, when last year they cancelled their European tour, citing "irreconcilable differences". When asked in July, Joy Williams said the pair was still not speaking. “To me that doesn’t determine the outcome of the band,” she said, “because if we’re not speaking we can’t determine the outcome of the band at this moment.” John Paul White has not made a comment.

This is all made more impressive by the issues in the duo meaning that there was no promotion for the album release at all, apart from a video on YouTube talking about the record and the process of making it. This week it sold 116,000 copies, by far the biggest week for The Civil Wars, their previous sales record being 36,000 in one week, for Barton Hollow.

It's a great album, and probably speaks for itself, with the well-publicized tensions between Joy and John Paul probably something to do with the sales bump.