50 Cent Holds Off Beck on the Chart
Surprise, surprise: 50 Cent‘s still at Number One, as The Massacre continues to move big numbers to top the chart. The Queens hardcore rapper sold 211,000 copies of his sophomore effort in its fifth week, bringing him to a whopping total of 2.8 million. Next up is the return of genre-hopping artist Beck, whose eighth album Guero moved 162,000 units to take second place. This is nearly twice as strong a debut as that of 2002’s Sea Change, which sold 90,000 to open at Number Eight.
At Number Three is the third record by Beanie Sigel, The B. Coming. Although currently serving a year-long prison sentence on a federal gun charge, the Philly rapper still managed to move 131,000 copies of the CD for a higher debut than 2001’s The Reason, which landed at Number Five. And R&B boy band (and former P. Diddy Bad Boy recruits) 112 came in at Number Four with their fifth album, Pleasure and Pain, selling 117,000 copies.
The other big debuts this week are slightly more embarrassing: Funny-rapper-turned-actor Will Smith makes his hip-hop comeback with Lost and Found, with his blockbuster Hollywood status bringing the CD in at Number Six (98,000). And country jokester — and proud “redneck” — Larry the Cable Guy rides his popularity on Jeff Foxworthy’s Country Countdown radio show to success: His most recent comedy CD (and major-label debut), The Right to Bare Arms, comes in at Number Seven (92,000). Meanwhile, the self-titled debut from hyped-to-death New York rockers the Bravery did respectably, cracking the Top Twenty in its first week (Eighteen, 34,000).
The big losers this week include hard rockers Queens of the Stone Age, whose much-anticipated fourth album, Lullabies to Paralyze, already slid from Number Five to Seventeen (37,000) in its second week. Also fallen from the Top Ten in just one week are pop rockers Lifehouse: Their self-titled third album plummeted from Number Ten to Twenty-Eight (27,000). Pop diva Jennifer Lopez’s latest effort, Rebirth, continued its plunge — from Number Twelve to Twenty (33,000) — in only its fifth week. And Nashville star Trace Adkins’ Songs About Me and Missy Elliott protege Tweet’s It’s Me Again both fell from the teens all the way to Number Thirty-Six (23,000) and Number Thirty-Seven (22,000), respectively.
Next week, expect a good showing from R&B crooner (and Notorious B.I.G. widow) Faith Evans, who returns with The First Lady. And save a spot in the Top Twenty for Canadian rockers Hot Hot Heat and their much-hyped fourth album, Elevator. But no one’s going to touch 50.
This week’s Top Ten: 50 Cent’s The Massacre; Beck’s Guero; Beanie Sigel’s The B. Coming; 112’s Pleasure and Pain; Now That’s What I Call Music! Volume 18; Will Smith’s Lost and Found; Larry the Cable Guy’s The Right to Bare Arms; Jack Johnson’s In Between Dreams; Frankie J’s One; Green Day’s American Idiot.