Vampire Weekend Plants a Flag at No. 1 for Independent Labels

The jaunty New York City band Vampire Weekend has this week's No. 1 album, with 124,000 copies sold of its new album, Contra, during the week ending January 17. The preppy quartet's Contra, which came out January 12, not only evicted the bad-girl pop star Ke$ha from the top spot, it also fended off viral-video sensation Susan Boyle, whose album I Dreamed A Dream is one of the two contenders for next week's No. 1 spot. More importantly for the industry, it signals more public appetite for an independent artist and label without direct links to giant media corporations.