NIN Slay Competition
Nine Inch Nails‘ fourth album, With Teeth, took the top spot this week, selling 272,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. This is the industrial rock vets’ first album in six years and second Number One. And pop diva Mariah Carey’s comeback, The Emancipation of Mimi, is still holding strong in its fourth week, selling 197,000 copies to take Number Two.
Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas’ solo debut, …Something to Be, continued to sell, moving up one place to Number Three (125,000); and blockbuster rapper 50 Cent’s The Massacre climbed two spots to Number Four (104,000) in its tenth week. Rounding out the Top Five is last week’s winner, Bruce Springsteen’s acoustic Devils and Dust, which fell four spots in its second week (102,000).
There are two surprise Top Ten debuts this week: Composer John Williams’ soundtrack to the latest installment in the Star Wars saga, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, moved 96,000 units on the strength of the mega-movie’s pending release to land at Number Six. And at Number Nine are Chicago rockers Fall Out Boy, whose fourth album, From Under the Cork Tree, sold a solid 68,000 copies.
Refusing to quit is No Doubt frontwoman Gwen Stefani’s solo debut, Love, Angel, Music, Baby, which climbed three spots to take Number Seven (79,000) after more than five months in stores. And Who Is Mike Jones?, the debut from the Houston rapper of the same name, held onto the Top Ten, dropping two places to Number Ten (65,000) in its third week.
Limp Bizkit’s seven-song EP, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1), managed to sell 37,000 copies to land at Number Twenty-Four with absolutely no promotion (the band is presumably still holed up in Prague recording the proper follow-up to 2003’s Results May Vary). While indie darling Ryan Adams’ Cold Roses, the first of three albums he’ll release this year, opened at a tepid Twenty-Six (34,000).
Fallen from grace this week are Ludacris protege Bobby Valentino’s self-titled debut, which dropped eight spots to Number Eleven (63,000); and country-pop gal Jo Dee Messina’s latest, Delicious Surprise, which fell nine places to Sixteen (48,000). A much bigger disappointment was dance/R&B songstress Amerie’s Touch, which plummeted from Number Five to Number Nineteen in its second week (46,000). And singer-songwriter Ben Folds’ latest, Songs for Silverman, dropped like a rock, from Thirteen to Forty-Six (22,000).
Next week expect a strong showing from Dave Matthews Band’s first studio album in three years, Stand Up. And Weezer will have a chance to show their pop chops, with their much-delayed fifth album, Make Believe.
This week’s Top Ten: Nine Inch Nails’ With Teeth; Mariah Carey’s The Emancipation of Mimi; Rob Thomas’ …Something to Be; 50 Cent’s The Massacre; Bruce Springsteen’s Devils and Dust; John Williams’ Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith — Original Motion Picture Soundtrack; Gwen Stefani’s Love, Angel, Music, Baby; Il Divo’s Il Divo; Fall Out Boy’s From Under the Cork Tree; Mike Jones’ Who Is Mike Jones?.