NEW YORK: The Ultimate Collection, a 10-CD Garth Brooks collection, has sold 134K copies in its first week in the US and ranks as the No. 1 best-seller on Buzz Angle - but it won't appear this week on the Billboard chart because it doesn't comply with the trade publication's rule book. on pricing.

Competing chart data firm Buzz Angle has The Ultimate Collection posted as the No. 1 best-seller in the US, but Billboard is on record as saying The Ultimate Collection is not on its charts this week, as its price -- $29.99 -- falls below the minimum required price to chart ($3.49 for a single disc, or $3.49 times the amount of discs in a multi-disc box set, in the title’s first four weeks of release).

The sizeable career-spanning box includes nine discs of material from Brooks’ hits-filled catalogue, along with the new studio album Gunslinger. Gunslinger will be released as its own standalone album on Nov. 25, to all physical retailers in Canada and the US as well as a digital and streaming edition through Amazon.

In Canada, the collection is only available through Amazon which, as of this morning, has two editions on offer -  priced at C$63.17 or $33.17 - over the list price US customers are paying at discount retailer Target that has the exclusive on the hefty-sized set.

In an age when music sales are falling fast, Billboard's rigid rule that ignores a 10-CD set that sells 134,000 copies and generates $4.3 million in a single week is a rule that distorts what the chart is intended to report on: namely gauge the most popular music of the week.