Snoop, Armageddon Dominate Again
Rapper Snoop Dogg (he’s dropped the “Doggy” part)
hangs on to the No. 1 album in the country for the week ending
August 16.
Snoop’s Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told, sold
246,000 copies its second week in stores, according to
SoundScan. In a rare bout of chart stability, the
top three records this week (Snoop’s, the soundtrack to
Armageddon, and the latest by the Beastie Boys) are the
same as last week’s.
The week’s highest debut belongs to hip-hop DJ
Funkmaster Flex and his Mix Tape Volume III: The Final
Chapter, which comes in at No. 4. Other new, high-flying
releases include the Jimmy Jam and Terry
Lewis-produced R&B soundtrack to How Stella Got
Her Groove Back (No. 10), country singer Vince
Gill‘s The Key (No. 11), rapper
E-40‘sElement of Surprise (No. 13), and
Kelly Price‘s Soul Of AWoman (No. 15.)
Price’s current single, “Friend of Mine,” has been theNo. 1 song on
R&B radio for the last month.
Down a bit further, alternative rock queen Liz
Phair returns with her first album in four years,
whitechocolatespaceegg, which debuts at No. 35 this week,
a respectable showing. The question is where the record will land
in coming weeks after hardcore fans have picked up their copies?
The problem is that, to date, radio programmers have not taken to
Phair’s new single, “Polyester Bride.”
Meanwhile this week the Barenaked Ladies become
the first rock band this year to debut in the top ten and then stay
there for six or more weeks. Pearl Jam didn’t do
it, the Dave Matthews Band didn’t do it and
neither did the Smashing Pumpkins. And considering
sales for BNL’s Stunt continue to rise, the band should
easily surpass the two-month mark safely within the top ten. Not
bad for a band that in the past was lucky to break the top 100.
Credit the BNL’s hit single “One Week,” headlining slot on the
HORDE tour, and old-fashioned word-of-mouth praise for the band’s
rise to the top.
From the top it was Snoop Dogg’s Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not
To BeTold, followed by the soundtrack to Armageddon
(selling 186,000copies); the Beastie Boys’ Hello Nasty
(183,000); Funkmaster’sMix Tape (122,000); the Barenaked
Ladies’ Stunt (119,000);‘N Sync (109,000); the
soundtrack to Dr. Dolittle (106,000);the soundtrack to
City of Angels (95,000); The BackstreetBoys
(94,000); and the soundtrack to How Stella Got Her
GrooveBack (91,000).