We were all set to christen Now 24, which collects slightly moldy top-40 fodder like “Fergalicious,” “How To Save A Life,” and “My Love,” with this week’s No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and then we realized that we’d forgotten about the power of Tim McGraw. The son of former Mets reliever Tug–and spouse of Faith Hill–took the top spot on this week’s chart, with Let It Go selling 325,000 copies in its first week.

Biggest Debuts: The top 10 was chock-full of first-time charters, with Now 24 (230,000 sales) bowing at No. 2, Young Buck’s Buck The World (140,000 sales) coming in right behind it at No. 3, Mims’ Music Is My Savior entering at No. 4, Good Charlotte’s Good Morning Revival debuting at No. 7, Elton John’s umpteenth greatest-hits collection nabbing the No. 9 slot, and Jennifer Lopez’s Spanish-language album rounding out the top 10. Redman and Lil’ Flip also had top 20 debuts, while Mika’s Life In Cartoon Motion bowed at No. 29.

Biggest Slides: Modest Mouse’s We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank, last week’s No. 1, dropped to No. 11. (N.B.: It was really hard to avoid making a nautically themed play on words here.

Charting The Decline: The top three albums on this week’s chart all sold more than 100,000 copies, and overall, sales were up 4.7% from last week’s total. But they’re still off from last year–this week’s total albums sold added up to 9.13 million units, which is off 15.4% from this time in 2006. Last year’s No. 1 was T.I.’s King, which debuted with 522,000 albums sold.

Nickelback Award For Inexplicable Durability: Gwen Stefani’s The Sweet Escape was buoyed by her appearance on American Idol last week, despite the fact that her performance of the title track reminded us more of a baby seal belching than a woman warbling. Um … isn’t it a singing competition?

McGraw Leads Seven Top 10 Debuts Onto Billboard 200 [Billboard]