Staind Rule Grey Chart
Staind sold 221,000 copies of their new album, 14 Shades of
Grey, according to SoundScan, to give the new metal band its
second Number One debut. That’s the good news.
The bad news is the number is down from the 716,000 copies that
Break the Cycle sold in its first week, a mere two years
ago. While Linkin Park’s Meteora (which sold a whopping
810,000 copies in its debut week earlier this year) breathed some
life into new metal/rap metal, sales figures by the likes of
Grey and Marilyn Manson’s The Golden Age of
Grotesque (which plummeted from Number One to Number
Twenty-one on this week’s chart with sales of 45,000) suggest that
kids are spending their money on something else. Also in that
sub-genre, the Deftones managed a strong, but hardly eye-popping,
167,000 tally for their new, self-titled album, which dropped in at
Number Two.
Which doesn’t mean there was any shortage of newcomers. David
Banner put Mississippi rap on the map with his major label debut,
Mississippi: The Album, which sold 76,000 copies and broke
in at Number Nine. Ricky Martin’s Almas del Silencio sold
65,000 copies at Number Twelve. The tally is down from his last two
releases, 1999’s Ricky Martin and 2000’s Sound
Loaded, but as his first Spanish-language album in five years,
it was a tougher sell in the U.S. Solid figures were also posted by
Jo Dee Messina’s Greatest Hits (Number Fourteen, 55,000
copies sold), Weird Al Yankovic’s Poodle Hat (Number
Seventeen, 50,000), DJ Kayslay’s Vol. 1: The Streetsweeper
(Number Twenty-two, 45,000), Powerman 5000’s Transform
(Number Twenty-seven, 39,000), Live’s Birds of Pray
(Number Twenty-eight, 38,900), Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Vicious
Cycle (Number Thirty, 35,000) and Less Than Jake’s
Anthem (Number Forty-five, 25,000).
With newer albums sputtering, the week’s big mover and shaker
was Bon Jovi’s Bounce. The album, released last fall,
didn’t even register in the Top 200 of last week’s chart, but this
week zipped in at Number Fifty-three, with a sales spike from 2,000
copies to 23,000, possibly prompted by Bon Jovi’s recent Command
the Band promotion on VH1, in which fans vie for the opportunity to
be the band’s manager.
But with Memorial Day behind us, the industry needs some
flagship records to usher in summer. This time last year, Eminem’s
The Eminem Show topped the charts with sales of 285,000 .
. . in a single day of release. Exactly two years ago, it was
Staind on top with their robust Cycle tally. Three years
back, it was Eminem (again) with The Marshall Mathers LP
at 1.7 million copies.
This week’s Top Ten: Staind’s 14 Shades of Grey; the
Deftones’ The Deftones; Kelly Clarkson’s
Thankful; Evanescence’s Fallen; 50 Cent’s Get
Rich or Die Tryin’; the Matrix Reloaded soundtrack;
Norah Jones’ Come Away With Me; the Lizzie McGuire
Movie soundtrack; David Banner’s Mississippi: The
Album; and Cher’s The Very Best of Cher.