On the Charts: Nickelback Can’t Catch Taylor Swift as Sales Continue Slump
The Big News: If you thought last week’s sales were slow, check out these numbers. Taylor Swift sold 72,000 copies of Fearless — 17,000 less than last week — to take Number One. Nickelback’s Dark Horse jumped from five to Number Two, followed by Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreak, Beyoncé’s I Am … Sasha Fierce and the Twilight soundtrack. Only three albums sold more than 50,000 copies, and the Number 10 disc, Akon’s Freedom didn’t crack 27,000. That, in a word, is bleak — and might explain the closing of Virgin Megastore’s massive Times Square location.
Debuts: Evidently recessions make people want to groove more: the only new LPs to hit the Top 50 were dance compilations — Total Club Hits came in at 16 and Ultra Dance 10 hit Number 41. Glasgow rockers Glasvegas (more on them later today in the Breaking Blog) entered at 126 and Rolling Stone favorites Blitzen Trapper hit the chart once again with 2,600 copies of Furr — enough to reach Number 189. And it’s not a debut, but it certainly made us smile: onetime American Idol hopeful Kellie Pickler rounds out the Top 200 in last place with her self-titled disc, just in time for the premiere of the show’s new season!
Last Week’s Heroes: The Top Five reshuffled, but nobody came or went, and the six, seven and eight spots remained the same: Britney Spears followed by Keyshia Cole and Jamie Foxx. It’s unlikely the chart will get a jolt until Bruce Springsteen’s new album hits stores (unless Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion moves big numbers based on its huge blog buzz).