Monsters of Folk debuts at No. 15

Those Monsters know how to chart records.

The indie super group of M. Ward, Jim James, Mike Mogis and Conor Oberst sold nearly 35,000 records in its first week, enough to hit 15 on the Billboard charts.

A pretty good debut, doing better than Oberst's solo records, but not nearly as good as his Bright Eyes albums.

"Outer South," out in May, it did more than 19,000 copies (14,361 physical and 4,823 digital) in its first week. Oberst's self-titled solo release with Merge sold 28,918 copies in late 2008, charting at No. 15. Bright Eyes hit No. 4 on Billboard in 2007, selling 58,000 copies of "Cassadaga." In 2005, "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" debuted at No. 10, selling 56,000 copies.

It should be noted that these are all debut week numbers. "Wide Awake" has gone on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies.

I wouldn't have expected this release to do as well as Bright Eyes, to be honest. For the casual music fan who has heard of Bright Eyes, it's probably not as apparent that these are the same dudes.

Once the music gets out there (both on the road and on the radio) I bet this thing will sell a lot more records.

We shall see.