Clapton, Imbruglia Storm The Top Ten
It’s a classic tale of old meets new unfolding in the top ten this
week, with rejuvenated veteran Eric Clapton and
sparkling newcomer Natalie Imbruglia swooping in
with hotshot performances for the week ending March 15, according
to SoundScan.
For Clapton, no stranger to the charts, Pilgrim‘s debut
at No. 4 (selling 168,258 copies) is his first top ten performance
since 1994’s From the Cradle, which entered at No. 1. But
the real surprise this week is actress turned pop star Imbruglia,
who comes to these shores from Australia by way of London. Her
Left of the Middle enters the fray at No. 10, selling
84,257 copies. Of course, it’ll be a difficult climb to the top
with the slots one, two, and three holding steady with the
indomitable Titanic soundtrack, Madonna’s
Ray of Light and Celine Dion’s Let’s
Talk About Love, respectively.
Top down it was: Titanic (448,000 copies); Ray of
Light (225,000); Let’s Talk About Love (199,000);
Pilgrim; Savage Garden (116,000); K-Ci
& Jo Jo’s Love Always (106,000); the
Wedding Singer soundtrack (94,000); Backstreet Boys
(90,000);Scarface’s My Homies (88,000)
and Left of the Middle.
Elsewhere in the top 200, Grammy winners and nominees lost a
step or two after their post-ceremony bumps, with artists like
Bob Dylan, Sarah McLachlan, Paula Cole and
Erykah Badu experiencing noticeable slides. Other
noteworthy debuts included Killah Priest’s
Heavy Mental, which kicked in at No. 24, and the
Mavericks’ Trampoline, with a strong
first showing at No. 97. Way down in the mid-hundreds, British
techno duo Mono continued their measured climb
through the ranks. Might want to keep an eye on that one …