Santana Bumps Faith
It has a long way to go to match the 14 million copies that Supernatural has sold over the past three years, but Santana‘s new album, Shaman, jumped out to a strong start with 299,000 copies sold in its first week, according to SoundScan, to debut at Number One.
Competition wasn’t particularly stiff for Carlos and Co., as last week’s chart-topper, Faith Hill‘s Cry, suffered a sales hit of more than fifty-percent, from 472,000 to 195,000, but only fell to Number Two. The Foo Fighters’ One by One and Rod Stewart’s It Had to Be You . . . The Great American Songbook splashed onto the charts at Numbers Three and Four, respectively, with sales of 122,000 and 115,000.
There were plenty of other debuts trying to warm up the fall season. Destiny’s Child’s Kelly Rowland, the second member of the group to issue a solo record, had her debut, Simply Deep, debut at Number Twelve with sales of 77,000. Michael W. Smith’s Worship Again (Number Fourteen, 58,000 copies sold), 3LW’s Girl Can Mack (Number Fifteen, 53,000), Field Mob’s From the Roota to tha Toota (Number Thirty-three, 28,000) and Scarface’s Greatest Hits (Number Forty, 24,000) all made strong entries.
The rest of the Top 100 is rather uninspiring, but some more varied music lurks just below. In Retroland, the Donnas’ three-chord punk-pop on Spend the Night jumped in at Number 140 with sales of 7,900, edging the classic rock-tinged New Earth Mud by Black Crowe-on-a-break Chris Robinson, by twenty-five copies. And testament to the continued power of MTV’s Total Request Live, Paul Oakenfold’s Bunkka (released in June) has been buoyed by the single “Starry Eyed Surprise.” In the past two weeks, Bunkka raced from an unranked record to Number 134, with sales of 8,000 last week. And the 7,000 people who first caught on to Pavement’s Slanted and Enchanted a decade ago rushed out to buy a special reissue of the record, featuring a bonus CD. The tally was sufficient to drop the album in at Number 152.
The slew of new releases invading the charts will continue next week. Releases by Christina Aguilera, Nirvana and the Eminem-helmed soundtrack to 8 Mile all arrived on record store shelves this week.
This week’s Top Ten: Santana’s Shaman; Faith Hill’s Cry; the Foo Fighters’ One by One; Rod Stewart’s It Had to Be You . . . The Great American Songbook; Elvis Presley’s 30 #1 Hits; the Dixie Chicks’ Home; Eminem’s The Eminem Show; Avril Lavigne’s Let Go; the Rolling Stones’ Forty Licks; and Nelly’s Nellyville.