Linkin Stay at Number One
Linkin Park‘s Meteora topped the chart for the second
straight week. But the album sold 264,000 copies, according to
SoundScan, a huge fall from the 810,000 it moved in its debut week.
Week Two drop-offs are usually around fifty-percent, not
sixty-seven.
Still, the quarter million records pushed the album past 1
million total sales and was more than enough to stay ahead of
Number Two, 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’, which sold
175,000.
The Top Ten featured a pair of musically disparate debuts. The
White Stripes’ Elephant fared quite well for an album that
doesn’t exactly lend itself to radio or easy categorization. The
red and white nu-garage duo’s fourth record, and first since
striking a major-label deal, debuted at Number Six with sales of
126,000, just edging the equally image-conscious Cher, who dropped
in at Number Seven with 122,000 copies sold of The Very Best of
Cher.
Pop country crossover Chris Cagle put up the week’s third best
debut with his new self-titled album, which arrived at Number
Fifteen with sales of 42,000. And the monstrous contract Virgin
offered to Robbie Williams might have better been invested in
bribing American music fans into giving the British pop phenom a
chance. Williams’ latest, Escapology, sold 21,000 copies
to come in at Number Forty-three.
Music of a spiritual bent continues to fare well during the
current global climate. The week’s big mover was Bishop T. Jakes’
Wing and a Prayer, which climed from Number 175 to Number
Sixty-three with sales of 16,000 (six places behind the gospel
compilation Wow Worship).
This week’s Top Ten: Linkin Park’s Meteora; 50 Cent’s
Get Rich or Die Tryin’; Now That’s What I Call Music!
12; Celine Dion’s One Heart; Norah Jones’ Come
Away With Me; the White Stripes’ Elephant; Cher’s
The Very Best of Cher; the Chicago soundtrack;
Evanescence’s Fallen; and R. Kelly’s Chocolate
Factory.