When it rains, it (perhaps only briefly) pours. If Lil Wayne hadn’t just last week posted the best one-week album sales figures in over three years, this week we’d be talking about Coldplay as the temporary saviors of the record business. And maybe we should anyway, since they’re racking up sales in a genre that’s been harder pressed for big bows. The band just sold 721,000 copies of Viva la Vida, the best one-week sales tally for any rock group since — you guessed it — Coldplay’s last album, X&Y, which opened with 737,000 in 2005. In this sales climate (and considering that the album leaked on the Web weeks in advance), selling on par with their blockbuster last effort can only be seen as a serious uptick in fan interest.

Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III experienced the expected decline from its stunning million-plus debut, falling to second place with a 69 percent decrease in sales and a still-healthy 309,000 units. Third place belonged to the tween set, via the soundtrack to the smash Disney Channel telepic Camp Rock, which bowed with 188,000 sales. You have to wonder if it might have done even better if it had been marketed as containing new Jonas Brothers material, but the label played that down to help maintain anticipation for the new Jonas album due in August. Self-avowed girl kisser Katy Perry, also did well, coming in at No. 9 on the Nielsen Soundscan/Billboard chart with 47,000 sales of her One of the Boys album. The Offspring closely trailed at No. 10 with 46,000 units, followed by Judas Priest’s Nostradamus at No. 11 with 42,000.

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Rihanna easily had the biggest chart jump this week with the re-release of her Good Girl Gone Bad record, which was was sold as a deluxe edition with additional tracks, including the current hit “Disturbia.” The repackaged disc sold 63,000, allowing RiRi a leggy leap from No. 124 to No. 7.

Meanwhile, even as they commandeered the album chart, Coldplay ceded singles dominance to Katy Perry, a Capitol Records labelmate, as “I Kissed a Girl” replaced “Viva la Vida” in the top spot on both Billboard’s Hot 100 and Soundscan’s Digital Songs. The track’s sales for the week were up 7 percent to 235,000, for a total so far of 988,000. Debuting in second place on the digital download list was a song from Camp Rock, “This is Me,” by Joe Jonas and Demi Lovato, which sold 135,000. Coldplay’s title track slid down to No. 3 now that fans are more interested in buying the entire album. “7 Things,” the teaser track from Miley Cyrus’ upcoming album, was finally made available across all digital platforms and as a result moved from No. 48 up to No. 4, selling 130,000 for the week. That’s two Cyrus kids in the digital songs top 10, by the way — Miley’s brother, Trace, is in the band Metro Station, whose “Shake It” currently sits (or shakes) at No. 10.

Next up for the music industry: a return to earth. This week’s most promisingly commercial album releases are new efforts from Motley Crue and Three 6 Mafia, neither of which is likely to sell in the multiple hundreds of thousands right out of the gate. The two-week return to the 1990s-era music-biz gold rush was fun while it lasted…

Many music-biz types were convinced we’d never again see an album sell a million copies in a week. It hadn’t happened since 50 Cent’s The Massacre topped the mark in 2005. Yet Lil Wayne is proof that if you build something fans truly want, even in the depressed market of 2008, they will come. His Tha Carter III (No. 1) exceeded all projections by selling just a hair over 1 million units — particularly impressive considering that the rapper’s previous best sales week was a mere 238,000.

That huge debut left Plies’ Definition of Real looking like small potatoes at No. 2 with 215,000 units — a figure that usually would be more than enough to top the Nielsen Soundscan/Billboard chart. But they weren’t the only new releases worth mentioning. N.E.R.D.’s long-awaited Seeing Sounds debuted at No. 7 with 80,000, followed by Alanis Morissette’s Flavors of Entanglement at No. 8 with 70,000. Critical and festival favorite My Morning Jacket made a first-time appearance in the top 10 of the album chart by selling 49,000 and coming in at No. 9. Other debuts of note included country duo Montgomery Gentry at No. 20 (27,000 copies), Emmylou Harris at No. 22 (also 27,000), the first solo effort from Jakob Dylan at No. 24 (24,000), and the iCarly soundtrack at No. 28 (20,000).

In the singles world, Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” held onto the top spot
on the digital songs chart…and for the first time in their career,
the British foursome also took control of the Hot 100, which combines
sales and airplay. Next week, they’re expected to easily top the album
chart as well. Based on Tuesday’s first day of sales, Viva la Vida, the band’s fourth album, should
sell some 600,000 copies. Though iTunes doesn’t usually release its
sales figures, the online music store took the unusual step of announcing that the album
sold 140,000 on that site just on its first day. That shatters the
iTunes record for sales in an entire week, previously held by Jack Johnson — and there are six days
still left to go. For the hangdog music biz, June really is bustin’ out
all over.