Luke Bryan, Jimi Hendrix Debut at Top 2 Spots on Billboard 200 Chart: Country Singer Beats Hendrix for No. 1

Luke Bryan & the late Jimi Hendrix debut at the top two spots on the "Billboard 200" chart that was released yesterday. It features the week's top-selling albums across all genres, ranked by sales data as compiled by Nielsen SoundScan.

Rising country singer Luke Bryan has scored his first No. 1 album on the chart with "Spring Break ... Here to Party," a collection that sold nearly 150,000 copies during its first week. He beat out the "guitar hero" Jimi Hendrix, who took No. 2 for "People, Hell and Angels," a posthumous collection of previously unreleased studio recordings that sold 72,000 copies, reports LA Times.

Bryan's compilation album "Spring Break...Here to Party," sold more copies than the 36-year-old's 2011 country album "Tailgates & Tanlines," which peaked at No. 2 and sold 145,000 units during its first week out of the gate, according to Reuters. This marks his best selling week ever with Bryan's new CD compiling four digital-only EP releases he put out over the last four years, plus a couple of new tracks.

The country singer, whose songs are mostly about beers, girls, and parties, has become the star of spring break this year with his major record sales and his first solo tour that kicks off today. He is currently on the "Dirt Road Diaries" tour, beginning in Orange Beach, Alabama and booked through October 26, 2013 with its last stop in West Palm Beach, Florida, states the Examiner.

Ranking in under Luke Bryan at the second spot on the charts is the late Jimi Hendrix, who died at the age of 27 in 1970, states Reuters.

His posthumous album contains 12 previously unreleased recordings that the guitarist worked on from 1968 to 1970. This is Hendrix's highest charting album since "Electric Ladyland" went to No. 1 in 1968. "People, Hell and Angels" outsold 2010's "Valleys of Neptune," which also presented Hendrix studio recordings that had not surfaced in official form before. It sold 94,000 copies during its first week and peaked at No. 4.

Clearly Hendrix still has a solid fan base who are still yearning to hear more from the guitarist who died too soon.

Billboard notes that the last time a posthumously released album did as well as the new Hendrix album was in 2009, when Michael Jackson's "This Is It" went to No. 1 in November of that year.

The remainder of the Billboard 200 Top 10 was filled out with familiar pop and rock figures, including Bruno Mars at No.3 with "Unorthodox Jukebox"; British folk rock band Mumford & Sons slipping to No.4 with "Babel"; and the debut album "The Heist" from rappers Macklemore & Ryan Lewis at No.5, reports Reuters.