Archive for the ‘Who Charted’ Category

Who Charted?: The Bald Dude Wins By A Hair

Maura
January 24th, 2007 // 3 Comments

daughtry.jpgChris Daughtry, the American Idol runner-up with the shaved head and the Ed Kowalczyk obsession, rose to the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 this week. Daughtry’s self-titled full-length beat out the No 2. album, the Dreamgirls soundtrack, by about 160 units; it sold an estimated 65,000 copies.

Biggest Debuts: Diana Ross’ cash-in cover-song collection, I Love You, sold 21,000 copies and entered the chart at No. 32. And despite tons of press and blogger love, the America-meets-hipsters “comeback” record, Here & Now, entered at No. 52 (14,000 copies).

Biggest Slides: Even though Daughtry and Dreamgirls rode sales surges into the top two slots on the chart, overall, the sales picture looked pretty bleak; album sales this week totaled 8.09 million units, a whopping 14.7% decline from this time last year (9.48 million albums). Perhaps it can be chalked up in part to a weak roster of debuting albums–however, if the numbers are as grim in two weeks, which is when Norah Jones’ sales totals will be tallied by the charts, expect a lot of panicking.

Nickelback Award For Inexplicable Durability: Sure, its staying power is attributable to the soft CD-sale market, but this week’s chart recaps note that Daughtry’s album has never left the top 11 of the Billboard 200 since its release in November. Take that, Chad Kroeger.

‘Idol’ Worship: Daughtry Takes No. 1 [Billboard.biz]

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Who Charted?: “Dreamgirls” Still On Top As Record-Buying Populace Slumbers

Maura
January 17th, 2007 // 8 Comments

dream.jpgThe Dreamgirls soundtrack spent its second week at the top of the Billboard 200, but all was not well for the music business, sales-wise; the album’s sales dipped 9% and topped out at 60,000 copies. Yes, it was another week of down-is-up mobility on the charts, as overall sales were down 14% from last week.

Biggest Debuts: Get ready to hear a lot about the next Disney Channel movie, Jump In!; it’s a vehicle for a High School Musical alum, and it’s about an amateur boxer who finds a passion for jumping rope after falling for a girl who’s into Double Dutch. (Which sounds kind of great, really.) While its soundtrack entered the chart at No. 5 instead of No. 1–probably because Jump isn’t a musical, and its accompanying album is merely a tie-in compilation–we foresee this hanging around the top 10 for a while, especially if the bar for entry remains so low.

Biggest Slides: Every non-debuting album in the top 10 this week took a sales hit; both Now 23 and Young Jeezy’s The Inspiration were off 21%, while sales of the Beatles’ Love declined by 17%.

Nickelback Award For Inexplicable Durability: Good old Nickelback: They vaulted back into the top 10 despite a 9% sales dip (35,000 copies). All we can say is this: At least it’s not Hinder.

The Dreams Continue at No. 1 [Billboard.biz]

Who Charted?: “Dreamgirls” Tops A Nightmarish Sales Week

Maura
January 10th, 2007 // 4 Comments

dream.jpgThe first week of the year was a soft one on the charts, with most albums seeing overall declines in album sales. At the top of this week’s Billboard 200 heap was the Dreamgirls soundtrack, which sold 66,000 copies–the lowest sales total for a No. 1 album in the entire Soundscan era, which dates back to 1991.

Biggest Debuts: Carly Simon’s Into White, which was promoted on QVC, entered the chart at No. 15 with 40,000 units sold. To get to the next chart debut, you have to go all the way down to No. 72 and find Elvis Presley–his umpteenth hits collection, The Essential Elvis Presley, sold 13,000 copies.

Biggest Slides: It’s hard to find an album that didn’t take a sales hit this week, but Omarion’s 21–last week’s No. 1 album–had a bigger chart plunge than any other album in the top 20, dropping from the top spot to No. 10.

Nickelback Award For Inexplicable Durability: Rascal Flatts’ Me And My Gang, which racked up nearly 3.5 million sales last year, shot back into the top 20 this week. Sure, it had a sales decline of 29%, but the high chart position indicates that there’s still a demand for their smoothed-out honky-tonk music–and shoot, Gang doesn’t even have the “Life Is A Highway” cover that took home two Peoples’ Choice Awards last night.

And We’re Telling You: ‘Dreamgirls’ Sings Way To Top [Billboard]

Who Charted?: Omarion Pulls Out A Win In A Slow Sales Week

Maura
January 4th, 2007 // 2 Comments

omarion.jpgIn a lackluster week for album sales–that thud you heard was album-sales tallies dropping by 55%–former B2K heartthrob Omarion came away with the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 after moving 119,000 copies of his second solo album, 21.

Biggest Debuts: The only other album to debut in top 50 this week was Switchfoot’s Oh! Gravity, which sold 63,000 copies and entered the chart at No. 18.

Biggest Slides: Both the Hannah Montana soundtrack and NOW 23, which had a stranglehold on the upper reaches of the chart during the run-up to Christmas, took hits, with Hannah sliding to the No. 10 spot because of a 77% drop (78,000 copies) and NOW falling to No. 6 after a 71.5% tumble (89,000). Meanwhile, Akon’s Konvicted nabbed the No. 2 slot on the chart despite a sales decline of 50% (112,000 copies).

Nickelback Award For Inexplicable Durability: Jared Leto’s rock and roll vehicle, 30 Seconds To Mars, re-entered the top 40 with their album, A Beautiful Lie, even though overall sales of the record were down. Really, we’re just putting 30 Seconds To Mars here because Leto hasn’t gone on an anti-blog tirade lately, and he’s due for one soon, no?

Omarion Leads Post-Christmas Album Chart [Billboard]

Who Charted?: Hip-Hop May Not Be Dead, But “Hannah” Is Lurking Right Behind Nas

Maura
December 27th, 2006 // Leave a Comment

hhid.jpgNas’ Hip-Hop Is Dead took the top spot on the Billboard 200 this week, selling 355,000 copies; the album is his third career No. 1. Hip-Hop Is Dead barely edged out the never-say-die Hannah Montana soundtrack, which sold 349,000 copies, for the top spot.

Biggest Debuts: With the meager roster of new releases last week, the only other album to debut in the top 10 was Bow Wow’s The Price Of Fame; it sold 262,000 copies and landed at No. 6.

Biggest Slides Gains: There wasn’t a single album in the top 10 that took a dive from last week’s tallies, thanks in part, no doubt, to the rush of last-minute holiday shopping. Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex/LoveSounds nearly doubled its sales tally from the previous week, vaulting to No. 9 after a 98% sales gain. We’re sure that the every-five-minutes airplay that “My Love” has been getting for the past few weeks (honestly, we heard it more than any Christmas song over the holiday weekend) helped. Another beneficiary of gift-list gaps was the Beatles mash-up collection Love, which saw a 58% sales increase and rose to No. 5.

Nickelback Award For Inexplicable Durability: We might ban Chris Daughtry (up 38% over last week) from this category, because clearly he’s tapping into the bombast-loving market of people who have worn out their “Lips Of An Angel” ringtones, but we just have to say one thing–we’re betting the bald Ed Kowalczyk fan is really glad that he didn’t win American Idol this year, what with silver-haired Idol winner Taylor Hicks tumbling out of the top 10 after his No. 2 debut last week.

Nas Scores Third No. 1 Album With ‘Hip-Hop Is Dead’ [Billboard]

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Who Charted?: Young Jeezy Puts The Top Spot On Ice

Maura
December 20th, 2006 // 3 Comments

yj.jpgYoung Jeezy’s The Inspiration won this week’s battle for Billboard 200 bragging rights; the Atlantan’s set sold 352,000 copies last week, which was enough to land him the top spot on the albums chart. Right behind Jeezy was gray-haired American Idol Taylor Hicks, whose self-titled collection of synthetic soul moved 298,000 copies.

Biggest Debuts: Mary J. Blige’s greatest-hits collection bowed at No. 9, with 171,000 copies sold, while Fantasia’s self-titled album–her first since she left the American Idol management camp–entered the chart at No. 19, selling 133,000 copies.

Biggest Slides: All of the non-debuting albums in this week’s top 10 experienced sales gains, but last week’s top three albums tumbled out of the top 10–Ciara’s Ha, Ha, Eminem, I’m Still Ahead Of You dipped to No. 11 on a 51.5% drop, Eminem’s Another Glass of Whine fell to No. 13 with a 51% sales decline, and Gwen Stefani’s Extended Commercial For My Clothing Line sank to No. 14.

Nickelback Award For Inexplicable Durability: The retread collection Now 23–featuring such hits of yestermonth as “SexyBack” and “A Public Affair”–sat pretty at No. 4, selling 235,000 copies. Are there that many people out there who have no idea what to get for their office party’s holiday grab bag? Or are there some listeners who actually aren’t sick of “London Bridge” by this point? Really, we’re stumped.

Young Jeezy, Hicks Enter Atop The Billboard 200 [Billboard]

Who Charted?: Eminem’s Next Album To Be Filled With Ciara Diss Songs

Maura
December 13th, 2006 // 1 Comment

ciara.jpgThe holiday-shopping season in full steam, and album sales were up about 28% this week; Ciara’s Evolution benefited, selling 338,000 copies and debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. The debut marks Ciara’s first-ever No. 1 record, and her sales tally nearly tripled that of her debut album’s first week on the charts.

Biggest Debuts: Eminem’s compilation album The Re-Up debuted at No. 2, selling 309,000 copies and ensuring that the ever-beleaguered rapper would at least have something to complain about on his next record; Gwen Stefani’s collection of odes to the Gwen Stefani brand, The Sweet Escape, came in at No. 3, selling 243,000 copies.

Biggest Slides: Maybe Lefsetz was right; Jay-Z’s Kingdom Come was the only album in the top 25 to experience a sales decrease this week, dropping from No. 6 to No. 15 after a 27% sales dip. It wasn’t the most embarrassing decline, though: That honor would go to last week’s No. 1, Incubus, whose Light Grenades tumbled all the way to No. 37, setting a record for a post-top-spot drop in the process.

Nickelback Award For Inexplicable Durability: We could give this award to Chris Daughtry, whose Daughtry hung tough and sold about the same amount it did last week, but if we want to get really inexplicable, there’s always the saccharine-sweet pop-opera group Il Divo, whose Siempre benefited from an Oprah appearance with a whopping 128% sales gain. We know, we know, they’re a Simon Cowell-engineered juggernaut, but come on: have you heard their overwrought Italian-language cover of “Without You”? It makes us pine for the subtle vocal stylings of Clay Aiken.

Ciara, Eminem, Stefani Overtake The Billboard 200 [Billboard]

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Who Charted?: Incubus Takes Top Spot, Jay Takes A Tumble

Maura
December 6th, 2006 // 4 Comments

incubus.jpgWe had a hunch that nu-metal survivors Incubus would have a solid debut this week, but we honestly didn’t think their album would slide into the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200. But hey, there’s Light Grenades, their fifth album, sitting pretty in the chart’s top spot, with 165,000 copies sold. That’s about half the first-week total of the band’s last album, 2004′s A Crow Left Of The Murder, but maybe once people actually hear that Incubus has a new record out, they’ll head to the shops.

Biggest Debuts: With last week’s light release schedule, the only other debuts of note came from Clipse, whose Hell Hath No Fury sold 78,000 copies and landed at No. 14, and the Ying Yang Twins, who sold 36,000 copies of Chemically Imbalanced to enter the charts at No. 40.

Biggest Slides: Kingdom Come by Jay-Z took an 80% sales hit, and its 140,000-sale tally prompted industry gadfly Bob Lefsetz to term the record “a FUCKING DISASTER!” We’ll wait another week or so to see if the, erm, excitable Lefsetz’s predictions are borne out–if Jay falls out of the top 10 next week, we’d say it’s time for the suits at Def Jam to start sweating.

Nickelback Award For Inexplicable Durability: How long have all-Christmas format radio stations been pumping out the Yuletide tunes? Long enough to stoke the holiday spirit in people, we’re guessing, since Now That’s What I Call Christmas 3–a two-disc set that collects 36 of that format’s staples, including oldies like “The Chipmunk Song” and new entries to the genre by the likes of Celine Dion and Jessica Simpson–shot up 31%, enough to land it in the top 10, and enough to ensure that your local used-CD shop will be fully stocked with it on Dec. 26.

Incubus Ignites No. 1 On The Billboard 200 [Billboard]

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Who Charted?: Jay-Z Crowns Himself King Of The Charts (This Week)

Maura
November 29th, 2006 // 1 Comment

Jay-Z’s Kingdom Come entered the Billboard 200 in the top spot this week, with the post-retirement opus moving 680,000 copies in the United States. The tally resulted in the Def Jam president’s highest single-sales week ever, and his ninth No. 1 album. Jay’s ladyfriend Beyonce vaulted back into the top 10 as well–B’Day experienced a 154% sales gain and hit No. 6, no doubt because of the better-with-each-listen “Irreplaceable” becoming more and more omnipresent.

Biggest Debuts: The second-biggest debut behind Jay came from bald American Idol runner-up Chris Daughtry, who we’ll get to in a minute. The Beatles’ cut-and-paste collection Love came in at No. 4, selling 272,000 copies; Snoop Dogg’s Blue Carpet Treatment entered at No. 5 with 264,000 sales; and Tupac’s latest collection of posthumous songs sold 159,000 copies to debut at No. 9.

Biggest Slides: He may have the top two slots on Billboard‘s singles chart, but Akon’s Konvicted was the only album in the top 10 to experience a sales dip, dropping 42%.

Nickelback Award For Inexplicable Durability: We’re going to give this to Daughtry, who, despite being the fourth runner-up on American Idol, sold a whopping 304,000 copies of his self-titled debut album–the best single-week tally for an Idol contestant in 2006–to enter the chart at No. 2. And considering the number of reviews we read that compared him to the multiplatinum Canadian yarlers, he’ll probably be thrilled to find out that he nabbed this particular accolade. Take that, Taylor Hicks.

Jay-Z Reclaims His ‘Kingdom’ With No. 1 Debut [Billboard]

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Who Charted?: The Game Is In It To Win It

Maura
November 22nd, 2006 // 2 Comments

drgame_rev.jpgThe one-man self-promotion company known as The Game got what he wanted this week–a No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200. The West Coast MC’s second full-length, Doctor’s Advocate, sold 358,000 copies last week, and it nabbed the No. 1 spot on the Top Hip-Hop Albums chart as well.

Biggest Debuts: Akon came in at No. 2, selling 284,000 copies of Konvicted. The other two debuts came from Tenacious D, whose We’ll Milk This Joke Until It Runs Completely Dry entered the chart at No. 8, and Blink-182 offshoot +44, whose No, Really, We Hate Math rounded out the top 10 with 66,000 copies sold.

Biggest Slides: Country buyers took a back seat this week, with Keith Urban’s first album of post-Kidman marriage songs, Love, Pain, and the whole crazy thing, taking a 62% dive and Sugarland’s Enjoy The Ride suffering a 61% sales drop.

Nickelback Award For Inexplicable Durability: If, during this weekend full of pushing and shoving in front of your local CD retailer’s Kingdom Come display, you’d like to find another reason to feel bad about your fellow man, just remember this: There were 27,000 people who bought Staind’s greatest-hits collection last week. Happy shopping!

The Game Wins No. 1 On The Billboard 200 [Billboard]

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