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 sales from the previous week. The No. 1 album, Metallica’s Death Magnetic, held on despite a 61% drop from the previous sales week, while Ne-Yo’s Year Of The Gentleman only dropped from No. 2 to No. 3 on a 67% loss. And the numbers didn’t get much prettier from there. In fact, the first album on the chart to experience a week-to-week gain was all the way down at No. 46: M.I.A.’s Kala, which had a modest-in-any-other-week 6% bump. So I decided to figure out just how many non-debuting albums gained momentum during a week that was marked by a lot of chaos on the financial front, and a 6.8% week-to-week decline in overall sales, not to mention a 28.8% year-over-year drop. Those albums–which constitute a mere 13.5% of the chart–are listed, with their big-board placements and overall sales, after the jump.
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.
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, a 5% week-to-week drop that was enough to best both Miley Cyrus’ Breakout (102,000 sold) and Sugarland’s Love On The Inside (91,000 sold) for the top spot.
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 the 355,000-sold mark achieved by Hip-Hop Is Dead a year and a half ago. Nas is Nas’ fourth career No. 1.
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 see it.
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 downloaded via legal means. (The band’s 2005 album X & Y also leapt into the digital-albums top 10, moving 6,200 copies; surely Amazon marking it down to $1.99 helped.) Viva La Vida‘s one-week virtual total more than doubles the previous record for one-week digital sales, which was held by Jack Johnson’s Sleep Through The Static; that album shifted 139,000 e-copies in its first week.
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 offices of Universal Music Group.
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 that there’s at least one person out there who bought Indestructible based on its cover alone, because really, that is something to behold.
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 week’s No. 10 album (Death Cab For Cutie’s Narrow Stairs didn’t even sell 10% of that figure, but just shy of the 463,000 first-week total for Mariah Carey’s E=MC2. (I knew he should have brought the ice-cream truck to TRL!)
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 year.
