On first glance, the top four occupants of this week's album chart—Mariah Carey's
E=MC2 (182,000 copies); Leona Lewis'
Spirit (96,000);
Flight Of The Conchords (52,000); and Ashlee Simpson's
Bittersweet World (47,000)—are a testament to the importance of television in promoting albums; all four artists had their albums co-promoted on various chat and game shows last week (and, in the case of the mumble-funny Kiwis in
Flight, their own HBO series). On second look, their sales totals are further evidence that the bar for a "successful" album is even lower these days, particularly if you count the sales of the No. 5 album, Atmosphere's
When Life Gives You Lemons You Paint That Shit Gold, which sold 36,000 copies last week. When life gives you lemons, indeed.
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Idolator
When I saw the SoundScan charts this morning, I felt kind of bad for Slipknot. The masked metallers haven't been having the best string of luck recently, and now their album All Hope Is Gone was narrowly beaten out for the top spot on the album tally by LAX, the new album from tormented name-dropper the Game. How small of a margin did they lose by, you ask? Try 13 sales. Well, apaprently I wasn't the only one who felt bad about this: Slipknot, upon seeing this statistic, gathered up its brooding rage and did what any red-blooded American would do: They demanded a recount from the SoundScan folks. You can probably guess what happened next.
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