It's official: Modest Mouse's new disc We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank debuted at #1 on the Billboard album chart this week. Isaac Brock and his li'l buddy Johnny Marr moved 129,000 units of Ship (by comparison, MM's last album, Good News For People Who Love Bad News, debuted at #19 with 68,000 sold on its release in 2004), beating out Joss Stone, American Idol alum Elliott Yamin, and, uh, Shaw-Blades (i.e. Tommy Shaw of Styx and Jack Blades of Night Ranger).
Decent taste triumphed even further this week as new releases by LCD Soundsystem, El-P, Ted Leo And The Pharmacists, and J Dilla's posthumous Ruff Draft all landed in the Top 200.