Three debuts at top mask sales slide
Bon Jovi scores its best SoundScan-era sales week by amassing 292,000 sales of Lost Highway to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart. The next two places on the chart are also occupied by new albums achieving sales peaks: The White Stripes' Icky Thump comes in at No. 2 with 223,000 and Brad Paisley claims No. 3 with 197,000 sales of 5th Gear, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Rounding out the top 10 are chart holdovers from Toby Keith, Paul McCartney, Linkin Park, Amy Winehouse, Maroon 5, Fabolous and T-Pain. All suffered sales declines of at least 15%, and album sales for the week, despite the top 3 debuts, were off 7% from the previous week.
Many more chart facts for dedicated chart-fact fans follow.
> The annotated top 10:
1-NEW Bon Jovi (292,000): First No. 1 in 19 years. How time flies ...
2-NEW White Stripes (223,000): First No. 2 in their career (last album debuted at 3).
3-NEW Brad Paisley (197,000): Eminently deserving. Country's reigning all-purpose threat (songwriting, performing, guitar-playing, wit, creativity).
4-1 last week Toby Keith (73,000; 278,000 total): Drops a fairly alarming 64% in its second week -- the percentage seems high for a country superstar. Next week could be crucial.
5-3 Paul McCartney (64,000; 332,000 total): Down 40%, but that Larry King appearance last night -- bland as it was, though not through any fault of Paul, who was rather impish, actually -- might help next week.
6-6 Linkin Park (63,000; 1.19 million total): Sideways chart move conceals 23% sales drop, which didn't hurt in a week of falling sales.
7-10 Amy Winehouse (62,000; 696,000 total): Great chart jump, but it actually fell 15% in sales.
8-4 Maroon 5 (62,000; 864,000 total): Off 29% but just a few weeks away from a million.
9-2 Fabolous (59,000; 218,000 total): Typical second-week rap-album drop of 63%, despite a monster hit single.
10-5 T-Pain (56,000; 310,000 total): Drops 31% in its third week; may be headed out of top 10 despite monster hit single and a hot new one to boot.
> This week's top 10 dropouts:
12-7 Rihanna (51,000; 295,000 total): So much for the top 10 fixture I felt sure this would be -- a 57% drop takes care of that. May return, though, on the strength of multiple hits.
23-8 DJ Khaled (30,000; 109,000 total): Second-week drop of 62% for this rap album.
27-9 Traveling Wilburys (28,000; 105,000 total): Down 64%; one of those classic cases of fans snapping it up in the first week.
> More debuts in the top 50:
11-NEW Shop Boyz/Rockstar Mentality (52,000): Rappers just miss top 10 despite monster single.
14-NEW Lifehouse/Who We Are (49,000): Although many people seem to be confused by the title's identity question, the fans respond.
26-NEW Huey/Notebook Paper (29,000): Pops and locks in a decent debut; the drop part will come next week.
29-NEW Chrisette Michele/I Am (27,000): Highly touted new R&B singer starts off OK.
30-NEW Mandy Moore/Wild Hope (25,000): Not bad for a pop album unsupported by airplay so far.
> Top track and single of the week:
Rihanna's Umbrella continues to cast a long shadow over the rest of the digital songs chart, remaining at No. 1 with 159,000 new downloads for a total of 1.08 million. By contrast, Mandisa's Only the World captures the top spot on the singles chart for the third week despite a 26% drop in sales ... from 1,900 to 1,400.
> Industry health report:
Album sales this week: 8.9 million
Last week: 9.6 million
Deficit: 7%
This week last year: 9.4 million
Deficit: 5% (gap between 2006 and 2007 seems to be narrowing a bit)
Year to date: 221.0 million
Last year to date: 261.0 million
Deficit: 15% (also shrinking slightly)
Digital tracks this week: 15.9 million
Last week: 15.5 million
Increase: 2%
This week last year: 11.0 million
Increase: 44%
Year to date: 401.7 million
Last year to date: 269.8 million
Increase: 49%