Dylan’s ‘Together’ tops U.S. pop chart

Bob Dylan is back in a familiar place, landing at the top of the U.S. pop music chart for the fifth time in his career. His Columbia release “Together Through Life” sold 125,000 copies in its first week in stores, according to data provided by Nielsen SoundScan.

The sales are in line with Dylan’s recent past, with one exception. In 2006, his “Modern Times” debuted at the top of the chart with 192,000 copies sold. Sales three years ago benefited from a massive ad campaign for Apple’s iTunes store featuring Dylan, who in one of the commercials performed the album’s “Someday Baby” while sitting on a stool.

Comparing the two albums provides a glimpse at the marketing prowess of Apple and what a difference the retailer’s support can make. Dylan’s digital sales took a dip this time around, which defies industry trends. “Together Through Life” sold 18,000 downloads, whereas “Modern Times” tallied 20,000 in download sales in its first week of release.

The disparity might not seem like much, but it is, considering the brisk growth of the digital album market since 2006. So far this year, digital album sales are at 26.3 million, up from 21.7 million for the same period last year. And sales of digital albums jumped 38% in 2008 over 2007.

Dylan hasn’t exactly been missing in action. But the Super Bowl commercial with the Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am did not give him the same splash the Apple ads did.

His latest sales are in line with first-week tallies of his 2001 “Love and Theft” (134,000 copies) and 1997 “Time Out of Mind,” (102,000 copies) as reported by Billboard. That reinforces what a little dose of Apple commercialism can bring, even for an artist in the fifth decade of his career.

Elsewhere in the charts, Heaven and Hell, a metal project that’s essentially the reunion of the Ronnie James Dio-fronted Black Sabbath, bows at No. 8 with “The Devil You Know” (Rhino), an album that sold 30,000 copies.

Further down, the compilation “Playing for Change: Songs Around the World” enters at No. 10 with 26,000 copies sold. Amazingly, only 1,000 copies of the album were sold at chain retailers. A word-of-mouth-driven Internet success, “Playing for Change” captures about 100 largely unknown musicians from around the world -- and one very well-known one, U2’s Bono -- collaborating on classic songs such as “Stand by Me” and “A Change Is Gonna Come.”

“Playing for Change,” spearheaded by producer/engineer Mark Johnson and released via Hear Music, a partnership between Starbucks and Concord Music Group, spawned videos that began percolating through the Internet last November. A documentary on the making of the record -- included in the release -- will air nationally on PBS in August.

Most of the album’s sales were from the Internet and nontraditional music retailers, including Starbucks.

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todd.martens@latimes.com