Norah Tops 600,000
The trend of Grammy irrelevance seems comfortably past tense, as
the award winners and star performers all enjoyed massive sales
increases after the February 23rd show. The evening’s biggest
winner, Norah Jones and her debut album Come Away With Me,
enjoyed a sales boost of more than 300 percent, up to 621,000,
according to SoundScan, easily cinching the Number One spot on this
week’s album chart. The figure dwarfs Come Away With Me‘s
previous Number One tallies, which barely eked into six figures.
Two newer releases — 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’
and R. Kelly’s Chocolate Factory — were unaffected by
Grammy hoopla and held the Number Two and Three spots, with sales
of 423,000 and 238,000, respectively. For 50 Cent, his major-label
debut is a week shy of 3 million copies, astounding considering it
hasn’t even been in stores for a month. Another hip-hop newcomer,
Freeway, posted the week’s highest debut, selling 132,000 copies of
his first album, Philadelphia Freeway, at Number Five.
The rest of the chart was dominated by Grammy stars. The Dixie
Chicks’ Home, which won a trio of Grammys, held tight at
Number Four, but its sales surged more than 75,000 copies to
202,000. John Mayer’s Room for Squares elbowed its way
into the Top Ten, jumping from Number Seventeen to Number Eight
with sales of 97,000.
Both Eminem and Coldplay, Grammy winners and performers, enjoyed
sales spikes of nearly 20,000 for The Eminem Show and
A Rush of Blood to the Head, which sit at Number Twelve
and Thirteen, respectively, with sales of 63,000 and 62,000. Bruce
Springsteen’s The Rising was a three-time Grammy winner,
despite being shut out of the major categories by Come Away
With Me. Nevertheless, the album was the week’s highest
climber, hurtling from Number 109 to Number Twenty-seven, and
tripling its previous week’s sales up to 36,000. The Foo Fighters
also enjoyed a big leap, pushing up from Number Eighty-seven to
Number Forty-seven, behind sales of 23,000
Next week should see a scramble up top, as Come Away With
Me loses a bit of its Grammy momentum. Get Rich has
been suffering weekly sales decreases, but on a much smaller scale
than a typical release. And new offerings by Fabolous and Lil’ Kim
should also make a play in the Top Ten.
This week’s Top Ten: Norah Jones’ Come Away With Me; 50
Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’; R. Kelly’s Chocolate
Factory; Dixie Chicks’ Home; Freeway’s
Philadelphia Freeway; Grammy Nominees 2003; Kid
Rock’s Cocky; John Mayer’s Room for Squares;
Avril Lavigne’s Let Go; and the Cradle 2 the
Grave soundtrack.