Who Charted?: Now That’s What We Call Failing Upward

This week’s No. 1 on the Billboard 200 was Now 24, a compilation full of all the songs we got sick of hearing four months ago; its 213,000-unit sales total was actually a 7% decline from last week, but still enough to grab the top slot from Tim McGraw’s Let It Go, which sold 177,000 copies last week.

Biggest Debuts: Martina McBride’s Waking Up Laughing was the highest debut this week, selling 144,000 copies and entering the chart at No. 3; Hilary Duff came in right behind her, with Dignity selling 140,000 units–more than double the first-week sales total Good Charlotte, featuring her ex Joel Madden, saw last week. Timbaland’s Shock Value entered the charts at No. 5, and its 138,000 copies sold exceeded our readers’ expectations but probably not his. (Damn you, Now!) Also, we were so wrong about the Alan Jackson/George Strait/Jimmy Buffett live album debuting atop the charts–it entered at No. 11.

Biggest Slides: Last week’s No. 3, Young Buck’s Buck The World, tumbled to No. 17 in its second week on the chart.

Charting The Decline: The 10.58 million albums sold this week marked a 15% increase over last week’s total (9.15 million units)–and only a 5.1% decrease from the total albums sold a year ago (11.15 million units). A stat to consider: The entire difference between the two totals could be erased if you took away the first-week sales of last year’s No. 1, Rascal Flatts’ Me and My Gang, which sold 722,000 copies. (Now 21 was No. 2 a year ago, and it moved 322,000 units.)

Nickelback Award For Inexplicable Durability: We’re going to give this to Michael Buble, who, despite being completely out of it and toughing his way through a song from an album that hasn’t been released yet on last week’s American Idol, saw his last album, It’s Time, vault from No. 20 to No. 7 on the Top Pop Catalog Albums chart. Who said there’s such a thing as bad publicity?

‘NOW 24’ Trumps McBride, Duff, Timbaland At No. 1 [Billboard]