On the Charts: No One Can Dethrone Taylor Swift’s “Fearless”
The Big News: Rolling Stone cover girl Taylor Swift stayed cemented atop the charts, selling another 62,000 copies of Fearless and leading another week of slow overall sales. Swift has topped the charts for all but two weeks in 2009, with Bruce Springsteen and the Fray each making cameos at Number One before Swift reclaimed her territory. The Gap Band’s Charlie Wilson and his Uncle Charlie grabbed the Number Two spot in its debut week, thanks to guest appearances by Snoop Dogg, T-Pain and Jamie Foxx. The usual suspects populated the rest of the top five, with the Fray’s self-titled, Nickelback’s Dark Horse and Beyoncé’s I Am… Sasha Fierce filling out the last three spots.
Debuts: Besides Wilson, the week’s other big debut was Morrissey’s Years of Refusal at 11. His indie rock spawn also had a good showing on the charts as M. Ward’s Hold Time entered at 31, the National-curated Dark Was the Night benefit compilation placed 49th and Beirut’s March of the Zapotec EP came in at 87. Further down the chart, Breaking artist N.A.S.A. finished in 179th place with Spirit of Apollo.
Last Week’s Heroes: The post-Grammy bump wore off of Robert Plant & Alison Krauss’ Raising Sand as the LP fell from two to nine thanks to a 58 percent sales decrease. Lily Allen’s It’s Not Me It’s You also fell from five to 11. One album to watch for next week is the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack. Fresh off its dominating Oscar performance, including a sweep of the music categories, the soundtrack rose from 48 last week to 22 this week thanks to just one day of post-Oscar sales. Given six more days on that sales pace, Slumdog seems a lock to enter the Top Five.