Who Charted: Common Finds The Top Spot

who charted

Common Finds The Top Spot

Buoyed by the power of his super-psychedelic hoodie, no doubt, Common debuted at No. 1 on this week's Billboard 200. His Kanye West-produced album Finding Forever sold 155,000 copies in its first week on store shelves in the U.S., a total that was high enough to give the Chicago rapper the first No. 1 album of his career.

Biggest Debuts: Korn's cleverly untitled Untitled sold 123,000 copies and debuted at No. 2; Sean Kingston's self-titled debut album sold 75,000 copies and entered the chart at No. 6, while the better-than-Fergie summer single "Beautiful Girls" sold 235,000 copies in its second week of being available. (No doubt the execs at Epic Records are getting suicidal, suicidal over the fact that Kingston wasn't born seven years earlier.) Right behind Kingston was the latest installment from the Kidz Bop Kidz; Kidz Bop 12 sold 71,000 copies.

Notable Jumps: Michael Bublé's Call Me Irresponsible was the only new entry in this week's top 20, ticking up to No. 20 from No. 27.

Dropping Off: Sum 41, last week's No. 7 album, dropped all the way to No. 34; its units-sold total fell from 45,000 to 19,000.

Nickelback Award For Inexplicable Durability: Not to pick on oldish-timey alt-rock acts that still have fanbases, but how on earth do people take these guys seriously at all? What, they're only angry about their lives and the entire existence of everything in the world when they're on stage, but when they're making press appearances, the world is hunky-dory? Why, it's enough to make me ... write an angry song about it! Yeah!

Common Scores First No. 1 On Billboard 200 [Billboard]

4:39 PM on Wed Aug 8 2007
By mjohnston
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6 comments

Comments

by fishnotfried at 04:49 PM on 08/08/07
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I wonder how many of those 155,000 Common CDs were sold at Starbucks?
by The Van Buren Boys at 04:51 PM on 08/08/07
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As long as there are young unimaginative angry males, Korn will always have a fan base. I can't understand it though. Seriously, how long can you stay mad at the kid who used to beat you up in high school. You're an adult now, get over it.
by Big Tuna at 05:02 PM on 08/08/07
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Judging by that hood, it seems the force may be strong with him
by The HZA. at 05:34 PM on 08/08/07
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Common made it because of Jedi mind tricks.
by Al aka El Negro Magnifico at 02:21 AM on 08/09/07
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Props to him. I'm loving the album.
by MrStarhead at 04:03 PM on 08/09/07
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I have a theory about all these bands that keep cropping up in the Nickelback Award slot. If you actually look at the touring schedules for a lot of these Papa Roach / Hinder / Three Days Grace / Finger Eleven-type bands, they're not playing the big metropolises that much. They stick to places like Flint, Mich. and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Abilene, Texas... what they used to call "tertiary" markets back in the day. What's true of these types of cities? They're almost always the last in line to get on board with trends. Drive to Lawton, Oklahoma right now, and you can see 10 people with mullets and lesser-known hair-band t-shirts in a 30 minute walk through the mall.

So the theory's this: people who are actually fans of these aggro mook-rock bands haven't gotten into downloading yet. If these guys have the choice between an iPod and a couple of ultimate fighting pay-per-views, they're gonna choose the ultimate fighting. They'd rather go to a bar or a taping of WWE Raw than spend time trying to find the new Nickelback album on a file-sharing service.

I think these types of markets are about all the music industry has left. So I would think we're going to see more of these type of bands in the future, not less, because the record companies can actually make money off these bands.