Unsurprisingly, Jay-Z’s Blueprint 3 debuted atop today’s Billboard 200, thanks to sales of 476,000 copies in the time that elapsed between its release last Tuesday and Sunday night. But how did Jay’s first-week numbers fare in the more rarefied arena of No. 1 debuts? I crunched a few numbers to figure out just how all… More »
A blogger at Yahoo! has a list claiming to count down the world’s 20 biggest-selling singles released after 2000, all of which have topped the five-million-sold mark around the globe. The surprising thing about the list, aside from Shakira’s dominance (songs by the hip-shaking Colombian singer take up 20% of the list), is how many… More »
I haven’t reported much on the album charts lately, because, frankly, “another sucky week of sucky sales” isn’t really news, and really there needs to be a move toward a better way of gauging popular interest in music, if only because actually going out to buy an album is an experience that fewer and fewer… More »
Taylor Swift’s Fearless moved back into the top spot on the album charts this week, thanks to a 29% sales gain that brought the album’s one-week sales totals just shy of the 250,000-sold mark. And the eagle-eyed folks at the trade mag Hits, who have access to one-day sales figures from various retailers around the… More »
Sure, Black Friday was a disappointing day for artists who had new releases out, but a little bit of digging into SoundScan shows that the numbers weren’t all bad. Taylor Swift, for example, had quite the banner week; her new album Fearless experienced a rare third-week upswing, one that was so dramatic, she nabbed the… More »
If anyone in the music business was hoping that the one-two punch of a holiday weekend and big-name releases would magically convince people to pay for music one last time, they may want to pour themselves a stiff drink, or at least spike their morning latte: Billboard is reporting that the No. 1 album, Kanye… More »
This week’s No. 1 album: The soundtrack to the forthcoming vampire movie that I am apparently too unfeeling to understand Twilight, which sold 165,000 copies in its debut week on store shelves. The soundtrack, which features a couple of new songs by Paramore as well as tracks by Muse, Linkin Park, and Iron & Wine,… More »
This week’s No. 1 album is Kenny Chesney’s bummed-out Lucky Old Sun, which sold 176,000 copies in its first week on shelves–not a bad number by current standards, although slightly off from his 387,000-copy first week total of last fall’s Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates. But as it turns out, the official release… More »
While reading over this week’s SoundScan, I noticed–among the thicket of debuts that included Disney’s “new Miley Cyrus” Demi Lovato, Kings Of Leon, TV On The Radio (No. 12!), and the Pussycat Dolls (who just managed to squeak into the top five)–that not many full-lengths that had been out for a while were gaining in… More »
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… More »
Hands up, those of you who thought that the soundtrack to the big-screen adaptation of Mamma Mia!, starring Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, and Amanda Seyfried as people who just bust out into Abba songs at seemingly random intervals, would be this week’s top album. Anyone? No? Well, bully on you; the collection sold 131,000 copies,… More »
Nas’ new album, which was stripped of its epithetastic title in the months leading up to its release, took the No. 1 spot on this week’s album charts, selling 187,000 copies in its first week out. The album, which leaked earlier this month, had a first-week total that was a little more than half of… More »
For another week, Lil Wayne and Coldplay make up the album charts’ 1-2 punch, with Tha Carter III taking the top spot (125,000 copies sold) and Coldplay serving as Wayne’s best men (113,000 sold). According to Hits, Nas’ untitled album is set to break this log jam next week, but I’ll believe it when I… More »
Coldplay’s Viva La Vida, Or Death And All His Friends sold 721,000 copies in its first week on store shelves, a tally that easily propelled them to No. 1 on this week’s album charts. And the band’s iTunes-forward sales strategy paid off online as well, with a whopping 288,000 virtual copies of the album being… More »
As previously noted, Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III blew into the No. 1 spot on this week’s album charts thanks to a sales total that just broke the million mark–a feat that isn’t all surprising given last week’s early-bird chart debut, but is still probably causing some chilling-since-2005 Champagne corks to get popped in the… More »
Disturbed’s Indestructible took this week’s top spot on the album charts, selling 253,000 copes in its first week and coming out atop a heap of debuts that included the latest Now cash-in comp, Weezer’s latest attempt to get money from the nerds who read Digg, and Jewel’s play for the country crowd. I just hope… More »
Usher’s Here I Stand was widely expected to take the top spot on this week’s albums chart, and it did. But its seemingly endless promotional blitz, which stretched from Dancing With The Stars to the morning shows and back to crazytown, resulted in 443,000 sales–a respectable total when you think about the fact that this… More »
Last week, Death Cab For Cutie’s Narrow Stairs was the only album to break the six-figures-sold mark, moving 144,000 copies and topping the SoundScan charts for the week. Some 55,000 of those sales came through digital outlets, enough for Stairs to top this week’s digital-albums chart and make it the 16th-highest-selling digital album of the… More »
The Rick Rubin-produced Neil Diamond album Home Before Dark took the top spot on this week’s album chart, selling 146,000 copies and easily outpacing its competition. Home is somehow the first No. 1 album of Diamond’s career, which is probably more a testament to the wacky way the album charts were calibrated back in the… More »
