Herbie Hancock Still Has A Lot To Smile About
Jack Johnson topped the sales charts last week, selling 180,000 copies of Sleep Through The Static, but the rest of the top sellers had Grammys written all over them, with Herbie Hancock’s Album Of The Year winner River: The Joni Letters skyrocketing from No. 159 to No. 5 and nearly doubling its total sales in the space of seven days. (It sold 54,000 copies and has moved 114,000 to date.) People were so overtaken by Grammy fever, the dumb compilation of Grammy-nominated songs even saw a 40% sales gain!
Biggest Debuts: The new, self-titled, Max Martin-collaborating album by Simple Plan came in at No. 14, selling 39,000 copies; the next new entry on the chart is Wow Gospel 2008, which came in at No. 34 (28,000 sales).
Notable Jumps: All over the chart, Grammy-assisted boosts were visible, from Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black (No. 2, 115,000 sales/+368%) to Alicia Keys’ As I Am (No. 3, 109,000 sales/+38%) to John Legend’s Live From Philadelphia (No. 12, 40,000 sales/+209%) to the Foo Fighters’ Echoes Silence Patience And Grace (No. 22, 33,000 sold/+160+). Even Feist’s wan performance of “1-2-3-4” helped The Reminder get a 70% sales uptick. And Celine Dion’s Taking Chances experienced a CBS-aided renaissance of its own, with the singer’s Friday night special no doubt adding to her 141% sales boost.
Dropping Off: While sales last week were up 16.1% from the week before, they were down 11.6% from this time last year, according to Billboard.
Nickelback Award For Inexplicable Durability: People are still buying the Alvin & The Chipmunks soundtrack, which experienced another 20% sales gain last week. We can only take comfort that the high number of Grammy-assisted chart vaults led to the album taking a backwards bullet and falling from No. 19 to No. 26.
The week’s top 20, with sales totals in parentheses: 1. Jack Johnson, Sleep Through The Static (180,000) 2. Amy Winehouse, Back To Black (115,000) 3. Alicia Keys, As I Am (109,000) 4. 2008 Grammy Nominees (72,000) 5. Herbie Hancock, River: The Joni Letters (54,000) 6. Juno soundtrack (53,000) 7. Taylor Swift (52,000) 8. Sheryl Crow, Detours (52,000) 9. Mary J. Blige, Growing Pains (49,000) 10. Step Up 2: The Streets soundtrack (45,000) 11. Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus (43,000) 12. John Legend, Live From Philadelphia (40,000) 13. Chris Brown, Exclusive (40,000) 14. Simple Plan (39,000) 15. Daughtry (38,000) 16. Eagles, Long Road Out Of Eden (38,000) 17. Lenny Kravitz, It Is Time For A Love Revolution (38,000) 18. Keyshia Cole, Just Like You (35,000) 19. Garth Brooks, Ultimate Hits (35,000) 20. k.d. lang, Watershed (35,000)
