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So the question on everyone’s mind was “Could Arcade Fire’s new album throw Eminem off the #1 spot on the album charts?” Early indications were good, given that The Suburbs was the #1 download in 17 countries within 24 hours of its release last Tuesday.

The answer is “yes.”

The Suburbs pushed Em away by selling about 31,000 copies to Canadians. This beats Neon Bible’s first-week total by about a thousand units and makes Arcade Fire the fourth Canadian act to debut at #1 this year (the others were Drake, Broken Social Scene and the Biebster.)

Eminem gets bumped to #2—but he still sold a little more than 20,000 copies of Recovery. Avenged Sevenfold’s Nightmare drops to #3 with the Biebster holding down #4.

Great news, right? Sort of. Overall album sales are down 2% from last week but down about 1% from the same week last year. That’s the smallest decrease in almost two months. Still, sales lag 12% behind last year.

It’s much the same story in America with the Arcade Fire selling about 156,000 copies, which is good enough for the #1 slot. They just beat out Eminem, who drops to #2 with 152,000-ish sales of Recovery. Avenged Sevenfold is in third spot, selling about 45,000 copies of Nightmare.

There are now three CanCan albums in the US top ten: Arcade Fire, the Biebster (#7) and Drake (#8). Taken together, they account for just over 26% of the sales in that top ten.

Source: Nielsen SoundScan