50 Cent Makes It Six Weeks at Number One
50 Cent continues to dominate the chart, moving another 165,000 copies of The Massacre this past week, according to Nielsen SoundScan. These figures are chump change, however, for the Queens hip-hop superstar and signal a possible slow-down after an unchallenged six weeks in the top spot. In second place is R&B singer (and Notorious B.I.G. widow) Faith Evans: Her fourth album, The First Lady, moved 157,000 units to debut way ahead of 2001’s Faithfully, which came in at Number Fourteen.
Last week’s Number Two, Beck’s Guero was bumped to Three, moving 81,000 copies. And the eighteenth edition of the hits compilation series Now That’s What I Call Music! is still going strong, climbing one spot to take Number Four (77,000). Rounding out the Top Five is R&B boy band 112, whose Pleasure & Pain sold 61,000 in its second week.
Blockbuster actor Will Smith’s hip-hop return, Lost & Found, is sticking to the Six spot, with 60,000 copies sold, while Green Day’s American Idiot refuses to leave the Top Ten, hopping up three places to Number Seven (59,000) in its seventh month. Incarcerated Philly rapper Beanie Sigel’s The B. Coming slipped five spots to Number Eight (57,000), while surfer folkie Jack Johnson’s third record, In Between Dreams, fell just two places to Number Ten (55,000).
Beyond Evans, the big debuts this week come from Lisa Marie Presley and gospel singer Donnie McClurkin. Elvis’ daughter’s second album, Now What, the follow-up to 2003’s To Whom It May Concern, came in at Number Nine (56,000); while Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, a live album from McClurkin — also known for his tell-all about living with alcoholism — sold 52,000 copies to debut at Number Twelve.
More modest debuts came from R&B songstress (and former sitcom star) Brandy, whose Best of Brandy sold 26,000 to take Number Twenty-Seven, and Canadian indie rockers Hot Hot Heat, whose fourth album Elevator sold 22,000 copies to land at Thirty-Four.
The big losers this week are the much-hyped New York band the Bravery, whose self-titled debut plummeted thirty-nine places from Number Eighteen to Fifty-Seven in its second week, selling a mere 16,000 copies.
Next week, expect the return of pop diva Mariah Carey to storm the Top Ten, as The Emancipation of Mimi is unleashed with all its high notes. And watch out for Garbage, as the pop rockers release Bleed Like Me, their first album in four years.
This week’s Top Ten: 50 Cent’s The Massacre; Faith Evans’ The First Lady; Beck’s Guero; Now That’s What I Call Music! Volume 18; 112’s Pleasure and Pain; Will Smith’s Lost and Found; Green Day’s American Idiot; Beanie Sigel’s The B. Coming; Lisa Marie Presley’s Now What; Jack Johnson’s In Between Dreams.