Beatles Make It Eight Weeks at the Top
Although the sales tallies for dancehall reggae star Shaggy’s aptly titled Hotshot continue to increase, he may have lost his last chance at seeing the album hit No. 1 on the SoundScan album chart. Despite a sales increase from 191,154 copies the previous week to 203,704, Shaggy remains entrenched in second place behind the Beatles‘ blockbuster 1, which has now logged eight weeks at No. 1.
Although Shaggy’s forward momentum could see him pull ahead of the Beatles next week (sales of 1 dropped from 260,179 copies to 215,534), he’ll most likely be hard pressed to outsell Jennifer Lopez’s new J.Lo, which was released Tuesday and will make its chart debut next Wednesday. Shaggy still has the hotter single of the moment (“It Wasn’t Me” was at No. 2 last week on Billboard‘s Hot 100, compared to Lopez’s “Love Don’t Cost a Thing” at No. 10), but Lopez has the benefit of a fresh promotional blitz behind her (including the cover of the current Rolling Stone).
The Beatles continued success aside, the biggest news on the new SoundScan chart is the soundtrack to Save the Last Dance, which leapt to No. 3 from No. 11 with sales of 172,101 copies. Elsewhere in the Top 10, Limp Bizkit’s Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water slipped two spots down to No. 7, Dido’s No Angel climbed to No. 8 and Snoop Dogg’s Tha Last Meal dropped out, falling to No. 11.
The week’s highest charting debut was country group Alabama’s When It All Goes South, bowing in at No. 37 with first week sales of 37,807 copies. The soundtrack to HBO’s prison drama series Oz came in second at No. 46 (30,693). No other new albums charted in the top 100, though a number of older titles enjoyed a notable spike in sales. Ja Rule’s Rule 3:36 moved from No. 14 to No. 12, Ludacris’ Back for the First Time from No. 17 to No. 14, Crazy Town’s Gift of Game from No. 23 to No. 16, the Dixie Chicks’ Fly from No. 34 to No. 25 and the soundtrack to Coyote Ugly, blazing from No. 110 back up to No. 39 on the heels of the movie’s recent video and DVD release.
This week’s Top 10: The Beatles’ 1 (215,534 copies sold); Shaggy’s Hotshot (203,704); Save the Last Dance soundtrack (172,101); Now That’s What I Call Music! 5 (112,278); Creed’s Human Clay (102,202); Sade’s Lovers Rock (88,324); Limp Bizkit’s Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (85,825); Dido’s No Angel (82,892); OutKast’s Stankonia (78,334) and Lenny Kravitz’s Greatest Hits (78,235).