Eve Rides to the Top of the Chart
This week, it’s all about Eve. Busting out of the Ruff Ryder rap
family, Eve’s Ruff Ryders’ First Lady, featuring DMX,
Missy Elliott and others, sold 213,000 copies for the week ending
Sept. 19, according to SoundScan, making it the nation’s highest
seller. Last week’s No. 1, the Dixie Chicks’ Fly, dropped
to No. 4. (Look for the trio to rebound next week following their
primetime appearance on the Country Music Association Awards show.)
Eve has already spent much of ’99 on R&B radio, thanks to her
contribution to Ruff Ryders’ Ride or Die Vol. 1, the top
ten single, “What Ya Want.” Eve’s newest from her own album, “Gotta
Man,” is currently No. 26 on Billboard’s Hot R&B singles
chart.
Joining Eve in the top ten with a new release was Ol’ Dirty Bastard
(whatever happened to Big Baby Jesus?) with Nigga Please.
The Wu-Tang Clan member’s second solo album came in at No. 10.
There were two other Top 20 debuts of note. The re-release of the
Beatles 1969 classic, Yellow Submarine, bowed at No. 15,
while country singer Martina McBride’s Emotion arrived at
No. 19.
Meanwhile, from the little-record-that-could category comes Ry
Cooder’s Buena Vista Social Club, which this week turned
two years old and remains firmly entrenched inside the top 100, at
No. 89. At a time when even superstar acts are happy to sell
consistently for twelve months straight (Jay-Z’s one-year-old
blockbuster Hard Knock Life came in at No. 77 last week,
for example), Buena Vista Social Club, featuring old-time
Cuban musicians, has defied the industry odds and emerged as a
word-of-mouth sensation, particularly among CD shoppers over
thirty.
From the top, it was Eve: Ruff Ryders’ First Lady,
followed by the Backstreet Boys’ Millennium (selling
172,000); Christina Aguilera’s Christina Aguilera
(160,000); the Dixie Chicks’ Fly (150,000); Santana’s
Supernatural (146,000); Kid Rock’s Devil Without a
Cause (136,000); Limp Bizkit’s Significant Other
(118,000); Britney Spears’ …Baby One More Time
(117,000); Lou Bega’s Little Bit of Mambo (95,000); and
Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s Nigga Please (93,000).