Indie rock band Vampire Weekend on Wednesday grabbed the top spot on the weekly Billboard 200 album chart, besting new albums from country legend George Strait and pop singer Demi Lovato.

"Modern Vampires of the City" sold 134,000 copies in its first week, according to figures compiled by Nielsen SoundScan, and became the second album to debut at the top of the weekly Billboard 200 for the New York-based rockers.

It was also the first independently distributed album to debut at No. 1 on the chart since country singer Jason Aldean's "Night Train" in November last year.

Strait's "Love Is Everything," his 27th studio album, sold 120,000 units and entered the chart at No. 2 while Lovato's "Demi" album sold 110,000 units and landed at No. 3.

Last week's top album, "Golden" by country trio Lady Antebellum, fell to No. 5 this week while the soundtrack to the "The Great Gatsby" film dropped from No. 4 from No. 2.

On Billboard's Digital Songs chart, which measures digital single track download sales, rapper-producer duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis's "Can't Hold Us" held steady at No. 1 with 231,000 downloads.

Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" featuring rapper T.I. and singer Pharrell Williams came in at No. 2 and Pink's "Just Give Me a Reason" featuring FUN. frontman Nate Ruess rounded out the top 3 on the Digital Songs chart.

Total album sales this year stands at 111.4 million, a 5 per cent decline over the same period last year.

Digital song downloads have totaled 531.2 million so far in 2013, off 3 per cent in the same period last year.