Billboard has made it official: Justin Timberlake's new album, The 20/20 Experience will debut at #1 on the albums chart released Wednesday (3/26). In all honesty, we knew that would happen, but what we were really waiting to see is if Justin could do the unthinkable in this day and age.

Sell 1 million records in the first week.

Unfortunately, JT fell just shy of the 1 million mark, but had an impressive first week showing with over 968,000 copies sold. Back in October 2012, Taylor Swift moved 1.2 million copies of her album Red, giving her the highest first-week numbers in a decade.

Many thought that Timberlake, dropping his first album since 2006, could dethrone Taylor, but even though he fell short, his numbers were pretty damn impressive. According to Nielsen SoundScan, Justin's 968,000 units was the 19th-largest week for an album since the company started tracking sales back in 1991.

I don't know if you agree or not, but what else could Justin have done? He was EVERYWHERE. (literally)

He's not really doing anything wrong and, in fact, has done everything right," Caulfield said of the media blitz around the album. He's been very careful in the kind of promotion he's done for the album, and it's paid off.

-Keith Caulfield, associate director of charts/retail for Billboard Magazine

For what it's worth, the holder of the top spot when it comes to all-time best-selling week is a group from JT's past life. 'NSYNC dropped No Strings Attached back on April 8 , 2000 and sold 2.42 million in the first week. He will also have another chance to climb the charts when Volume 2 of The 20/20 Experience is released.

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