No One Can Keep Alicia Keys From The Top Spot

noah | November 21, 2007 4:30 am
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Apparently, the racks at that Long Island Target last week weren’t the only ones to be cleaned out of Alicia Keys’ As I Am; the piano-plonking singer’s latest album debuted at No. 1 after selling 742,000 copies last week. That’s more than three times the one-week sales total of the No. 2 album, Josh Groban’s Noel, which sold 223,000 copies. And he was even on Oprah!

Biggest Debuts: Celine Dion, another Oprah spotlightee, entered the chart at No. 3 with Taking Chances, which sold 214,000 copies in its first week on store shelves. Which was a much lower number than I was expecting, I have to say. Meanwhile, Led Zeppelin’s latest cash-in comp, Mothership, entered at No. 7 with 136,000 sold. Dane Cook (No. 11), the Killers (No. 12), George Strait (No. 13), and James Taylor (No. 17) also had top 20 entrants.

Notable Jumps: It’s getting to be the most wonderful time of the year, if your idea of “wonderful” is “piped in holiday music everywhere.” In addition to Groban’s 93% sales gain, the latest album by holiday stalwarts Mannheim Steamroller, Christmas Song, leaps into the top 20 from No. 28. And it should be noted that all 10 of the albums in the top 10 had six-figure sales totals, with total album sales being up 17.9% from last week, if down 6.2% from a year ago.

Dropping Off: Jay-Z’s American Gangster dropped from the top position on a 70% sales decrease (131,000); Chris Brown’s Exclusive fell from No. 4 to No. 10, selling 63% fewer copies than last week (110,000).

Nickelback Award For Inexplicable Durability: I will forever despise Dane Cook for sullying the baseball playoffs with those stupid “There’s only one Octoooooober” commercials, so he gets this award this week. Especially since he’s one of the few artists putting out albums right now whose first-week sales total was actually higher than the one enjoyed by his previous outing (Live At Madison Square Garden sold 90,000 copies, 4,000 more than the first-week total of his last album). How do people think that dude is entertaining at all? Blech.

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