By now, you all know about the tussle between the Eagles and Britney at the top of the charts this week–and the universe would fall in on itself if all the photos at the top of Idolator were of Don Henley and Company–so let’s talk about last week’s top two country debuts. First, there’s Carrie Underwood, whose Carnival Ride saw a pretty steep drop in its second week on the charts. The album’s sales figures tumbled 68%, from 527,000 to 170,000, although that only resulted in a two-space chart drop. And then there’s the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss collaboration Raising Sand, which, sure, had a shorter perch from which to fall, but its 28% drop (it fell from No. 2 to No. 6, beating out the Backstreet Boys) seems pretty impressive to me, given the second-week swan dives that have become commonplace on the charts this year. (It’s hard not to wonder how many classic-rock diehards bought the Eagles/Plant-Krauss as a twofer last week.)
Carrie Underwood’s Carnival Ride whooshed out of stores last week, as the American Idol winner’s second album sold 527,000 copies to debut at No. 1 on the SoundScan charts. Carnival Ride is Underwood’s first No. 1 album, and it’s one of three country records to debut in the top three of this week’s chart.
As predicted last Friday, this week’s SoundScan charts were pretty rough, with no album breaking the six-figure sales total mark and only two–Bruce Springsteen’s Magic, off 42% from last week, and Kid Rock’s Rock N’ Roll Jesus, down 55%–breaking 75k. Magic just edged out Kid Rock’s album for the top spot on the chart, although that Waffle House brawl Kid got into over the weekend will surely boost his sales next week. (At least he hopes.)
Kid Rock’s Rock N’ Roll Jesus sold 172,000 copies last week, and that total was enough for the oh-so-classy guy to wrest the top spot from Bruce Springsteen, whose Magic suffered a 60% sales decline and sank to No. 2. Jesus is Kid Rock’s first career No. 1, and its success probably ensures that he’ll be getting into scraps with minor celebrities at award shows before his next album drops too.
Bruce Springsteen’s Magic sold 335,000 copies last week, a total that put the New Jersey singer at No. 1 on the just-released SoundScan charts. The album is Springsteen’s eighth career chart-topper, although the first-week total is substantially less than the 525,000 mark set by The Rising back in 2002.
Rascal Flatts topped this week’s SoundScan chart, with their latest album Still Feels Good selling 547,000 copies; the country-pop outfit’s last album Me & My Gang sold 722,000 copies in its first week a year ago, and this week it actually moved up to No. 38 on the charts, with 18,000 people deciding that they had to own that “Life Is A Highway” cover.
Reba McEntire’s collection of duets, the cleverly titled Reba Duets, debuted at No. 1 on this week’s SoundScan charts, selling 301,000 copies. The album, which features Reba teaming up with the likes of Justin Timberlake and Kelly Clarkson, is somehow McEntire’s first album to top the chart–guess that appearance on Oprah worked. (Countdown to labels clamoring for Oprah Winfrey to start a record club starts now.)
So as we noted yesterday, Kanye West’s Graduation won the SoundScan battle this week, with 957,000 people across the U.S. so inspired to maybe have a hand in crushing the career of 50 Cent that they actually went out to their local music merchants and plunked down money for West’s third album. The high numbers this week for the debuting Graduation, Curtis (691,000 copies sold), and Kenny Chesney’s Just Who I Am: Poets & Pirates (387,000) weren’t, however, enough to rescue the week’s overall sales tallies from the crapper; the 9.16 million albums sold last week is, in fact, down 9% year-to-year.
The High School Musical 2 soundtrack held on to the No. 1 slot on this week’s album-sales charts, dipping 22% to 165,000 units sold; the album was not only the sole record to sell more than 100,000 copies in the last week, it was also the only album to break the 50,000 mark. And to make matters even more frightening, the No. 2 album was Fergie’s The Dutchess, which was off 4% and sold 49,000 copies. Eep!
Surprising probably no one, High School Musical 2 held on at No. 1 for the third straight week, selling 210,000 copies and vaulting past the million-sold mark.