Green Day Stay on Top of the Chart
Somebody forgot to tell Green Day that their blockbuster sales days are over. The California punk trio, which first topped the charts a decade ago with the eventual 10-million-selling Dookie, sold more than 100,000 copies of American Idiot this past week, according to Nielsen SoundScan, to remain atop the nation’s album chart. This is the third — and second straight — week the band’s “punk rock opera” has topped the chart, and it’s the first Green Day album to hit Number One since Dookie.
Below Eminem, who again claimed the Number Two slot this week by selling 84,000 copies of Encore, the rest of the Top Ten is a shuffling act from the week before, with the women rising up and the men falling down. Shania Twain leaped from Number Seven to Three, moving 74,000 copies of her Greatest Hits CD, and Kelly Clarkson climbed from Ten to Six with Breakaway (60,000), just in time for the opening of American Idol‘s new season. Meanwhile, Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz slid from Three to Five with Crunk Juice (70,000), and Ludacris fell from Five to Nine with Red Light District.
Aside from a couple of movie soundtracks — Coach Carter (Number Thirty-One) and Elektra: The Album (Number Sixty-Two) — the week’s highest chart debut comes in at Number 137 in the form of a former sales titan: Donny Osmond. The teen idol turned talk-show host moved 7,000 copies of What I Meant to Say, his fifty-fourth album.
Next week, Green Day’s Number One run may end at the hands of a more sizeable debut, as much-hyped G-Unit rapper the Game’s The Documentary hits the chart.
This week’s Top Ten: Green Day’s American Idiot; Eminem’s Encore; Shania Twain’s Greatest Hits; John Legend’s Get Lifted; Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz’ Crunk Juice; Kelly Clarkson’s Breakaway; Usher’s Confessions; Jay-Z and Linkin Park’s Collision Course; Ludacris’ The Red Light District; Now That’s What I Call Music! 17.