Sade Debuts Strong After Ten Years of Absence

Nearly 10 years after the group's last studio effort, Sade is back with Soldier of Love, blasting in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart with 502,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Soldier of Love gives Sade its first No. 1 debut and its best sales week since SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991. On top of that, it's the best sales week for an album by a group since AC/DC's Black Ice bulldozed into the chart at No. 1 on the chart dated Nov. 8, 2008, with 784,000.

Soldier is Sade's second No. 1 album. Its first, Promise, spent two weeks at the top of the chart in 1986. The new album is also the first studio effort from the band -- led by vocalist Sade Adu -- since Lovers Rock was released in November of 2000. That set debuted and peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 with 370,000 sold in its first week. Since its release, Lovers Rock has sold 3.9 million in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan.