Shaggy Shoots to the Top
While Jennifer Lopez’s The Wedding Planner was tops at box offices for the second consecutive week, her sophomore album, J.Lo, didn’t prove to have such sturdy legs. After weeks of nipping at the Beatles’ heels, Shaggy’s Hotshot finally landed at the top of SoundScans’ album chart, exactly six months after its release.
For Shaggy, Hotshot has been the fortunate recipient of a yuletide windfall that is still kicking well into February. For a sense of scale: in its first nineteen weeks of release, pre-Christmas, Hotshot was hovering just below sales of one million. In the seven weeks since, the album has moved more than 1.5 million copies including sales spikes each of the past four weeks; selling 245,678 last week to push it ahead of J.Lo, which took a thirty percent hit to fall to the No. 2 slot.
The remainder of the Top Ten looked quite similar to last week with the Save the Last Dance soundtrack and the Beatles 1 remaining static at No. 3 and No. 4, respectively. Ja Rule’s Rule 3:36 jumped from the No. 10 slot to No. 5, and Ludacris’ Back for the First Time fought it’s way in at No. 8. Leann Rimes’ controversial release, I Need You, no doubt fueled by “Can’t Fight the Moonlight,” left over from the Coyote Ugly soundtrack, debuted at No. 10. The two newcomers finally nudged Creed’s Human Clay out of the Top Ten, while O-Town’s eponymous debut took the week’s biggest fall from a No. 5 debut last week to No. 20.
Rimes aside, it was a miserable week for debuts. The Valentine soundtrack slouched in at No. 101 selling a paltry 12,305 copies, enough though, to top Vitamin C’s More which was the week’s third highest debut at No. 122.
Despite the lack of fresh blood, the week wasn’t entirely a wash. Though only the top four albums cleared the 100,000-units-sold mark (with Ja Rule just missing at 99,935 copies sold), more than half of the albums that composed the Top Fifty showed a sales increase.
Yesterday’s batch of new releases don’t look to make much of an impact on next week’s chart. Rod Stewart’s Human represents the closest thing to a contender, unless legions of Malcolm in the Middle fans flock to record stores.
This week’s Top Ten: Shaggy’s Hotshot (245,678 copies sold); Jennifer Lopez’s J.Lo (179,351); Save the Last Dance (172,714); the Beatles’ 1 (159,427); Ja Rule’s Rule 3:36 (99,935); Dido’s No Angel (87,502); Now That’s What I Call Music! Vol. 5 (86,429); Ludacris’ Back for the First Time (85,446); Dream’s It Was All a Dream (84,547) and Leann Rimes’ I Need You (82,732).