Ne-Yo Hangs His Hat At The Top Of The Charts

Because Of You, the second album by R & B singer-songwriter Ne-Yo, sold 251,000 copies to debut at No. 1 on this week’s Billboard 200. Because is Ne-Yo’s second chart-topping album in a little more than a year; In My Own Words, his first album, entered the chart at its peak in February 2006. At No. 2 was Canadian crooner Michael Bublé, whose Call Me Irresponsible moved 199,000 units in its first week on store shelves.

Biggest Debuts: This week’s top 20 was full of first-timers; prog stalwarts Rush entered at No. 3, selling 93,000 copies of its latest release, Snakes & Arrows; Tori Amos’ American Doll Posse debuted at No. 5, selling 54,000 units, or about 11,000 for each of her “personalities” on the record. Right behind Tori was Nashville Star alum Miranda Lambert, whose Crazy Ex-Girlfriend sold 53,000 copies. Also debuting high were country singer Blake Shelton (No. 8, 48,000 copies sold) and indie crush object Feist (No. 16, 31,000 units).

Charting The Decline: This week’s totals represented an almost 10% uptick from last week’s abysmal numbers, no doubt thanks to the high number of albums that were just being unleashed on the public. But what we’re wondering is this: What happened to High School Musical? This week, the soundtrack to its tour and the first solo album from alum Corbin Bleu both missed the top 25. Will the sales of those two albums build like the movie’s soundtrack–which entered the Billboard 200 at No. 145 before eventually reaching triple-platinum status–did?

Nickelback Award For Inexplicable Durability: Now that Akon’s been chased from the top 10 by the outraged wing of the blogosphere, we can go back to giving this award to Daughtry, whose album inched up 3% in sales totals this week despite slipping to No. 7 (from No. 5).

Ne-Yo Scores Second No. 1 In Debut-Heavy Week [Billboard]