It was a long road back but it appears, at least for the moment, that Metallica has regained its crown as America's preeminent head-bangers. Death Magnetic has debuted at #1 on the Billboard album charts, moving 490,000 copies.
Continue reading "Metallica Back On Top with Death Magnetic" »
The Billboard 200 isn't making a whole lot of sense this week. John Mellencamp's Life Death Love and Freedom (pictured), a dour, depressing and completely non-commercial release from a 53-year-old artist managed to crack the top 10 (this is good), bowing at #7 with 56,000 copies moved, while O.A.R.s thoroughly awful All Sides spawned the band's biggest sales week ever, debuting at #13 with 33,000 units (this is bad).
Then we have the big boys - For all the hoopla around Nas' new disc, the self-titled set only moved 187,000 copies - enough to grab the top spot, but only half the number moved by the rapper's previous LP, 2006's Hip Hop is Dead. And just as I suspected, Kid Rock continues to con his way up the charts, as Rock and Roll Jesus sees a 20% sales increase at #6.
Holy Crap! Paul Westerberg's 49:00 might be 5:05 shorter than advertised, but a wee bit of false advertising wasn't enough to keep the collection from hitting #1 on Amazon's mp3 album chart!
Yes yes, I know this is essentially a free album we're talking about here, so it shouldn't be THAT hard to move the needle. But if this is the closest we'll ever get to a Westerberg chart topper (and let's be honest - it is), I'll take it gladly.
Gassing up that hippie van might be too expensive for a cross country trek this summer, but at least putting "Truckin'" on repeat will cost less than a Venti at Starbucks. (via Coolfer)
Two elder statesmen of rock and roll had a resurgence on the Billboard charts this week, one expect (R.E.M.'s much-hyped return to rock Accelerate debuts at #2 with 115,000 copies moved), the other a pleasant surprise (Van Morrison's Keep It Simple reached #10, the highest chart position in his legendary career) - Score one for the old dudes.
Before all the (us?) geezers start celebrating the week when they taught those whipper snappers a thing or two about good music, it must be noted that this anomaly has as much to do with the sorry state of physical sales as it does album quality (which for the record, is very high in both cases). All respect to the aging hipsters out there - Even in 2008, while the kids are downloading singles to their iPhones, lots of Dads are still rocking out on their trusty discmen.
Yet another week of soft sales allowed former chart powerhouse Janet Jackson to climb to the top of Mt. Billboard for the 6th time, after two consecutive second-place bows. The numbers for Discipline weren't overwhelming (181,000 copies moved), but it was enough to end Jack Johnson's three-week reign at the top, as his Sleep Through the Static LP falls to #3.
The only other SS-friendly debut came from Goldfrapp's excellent new disc Seventh Tree, which debuted at #48 with 15,000 copies moved.
Josh Groban almost single-handedly pulled off a Christmas miracle, driving album sales someplace we rarely see these days: Up.
His Holiday-themed disc Noel, after logging a fourth week at #1 (a record for Christmas discs) with a 15% sales surge to 669,000 copies, becomes the top selling album overall in 2007. At 2.7 million that's a pretty paltry number in any other year, but hey, we'll take what we can get at this point.
Sales were up a whopping 24.4% from last week, but still down 23.1% from the same week last year. Wow.
Read the top 10 after the jump.
Continue reading "Groban Tops Billboard for 4th Straight Week" »
After hanging out in the top 10 for a while, Josh Groban has suddenly become a late-year juggernaut, with his holiday-themed Noel disc (one of 26 currently in the Billboard 200) moving 539,000 copies in its 8th week of release. With few notable new releases to speak of, holiday shoppers flocked to reliable sellers like Groban, The Eagles (a 70% increase to 313,000 copies), Alicia Keys (257,000) and Garth Brooks (112,00).
The week's top newcomer is is rapper Pitbull's The Boatlift at No. 50 with 22,000. Yup, that's it.
Despite the big move by Groban, overall sales were still down 16.9% from the same week last year (14.75 million) and 12.1% from last week's total.
Read the full top 10 after the jump.
Forget the fallout from that school abuse scandal - Oprah’s grip on American consumers remains as strong as ever. After a surprise appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Josh Groban’s innocuous set of holiday tunes, Noel, takes over the top spot on Billboard this week. This marks the first holiday set to reach #1 since, shudder, Kenny G’s Miracles back in 1994.
The rest of the upper-tier was filled with expected seasonal blockbusters like Garth Brooks’ The Ultimate Hits (#4, 192,000) and The Eagles’ Long Road Out of Eden (#5, 184,000). In even more depressing news, High School Musical 2 jumped back up the charts to #6 with 183,000 units moved, making it the highest selling disc of 2007. The previous champ: Chris Daughtry!
OK, we need to sit down – Feeling a little lightheaded. Keep reading for the full top 10.
With 425,000 copies of American Gangster sold, Jay-Z scored his 10th #1 album, tying him with Elvis Presley for second on the all-time list. He now trails only The Beatles (19) for the top spot.
Elsewhere on Billboard: The Eagles fell to #2, while still moving an impressive 359,000 units via their unholy union with Walmart. Another fan of cutting out the little guy, Garth Brooks, came in at #3 with The Ultimate Hits (352,000) while Angel’s and Airwaves’ Cure-loving I-Empire scored a #9 debut with 66,000 copies sold. See below for this week’s top 10.
Continue reading "Jay-Z Scores 10th #1 with American Gangster" »
Minus the Bear - Planet of Ice: While it doesn't break any new ground, this would qualify as the band's "serious" record
Tegan and Sara - The Con: The Quin sisters employing the sharp production skills of Chris Wala (Death Cab for Cutie)
Fountains of Wayne - Traffic and Weather: So-so tunes, but still infuses mundane snapshots of life with wit to spare
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