Record Numbers
People still actually buy CDs. HEAVE breaks down the numbers.
This isn't exactly a shock, but Jay-Z commanded the charts this week, selling just shy of 425,000 copies of American Gangster. That moves him into a second-place tie with Elvis for the most number one charting albums with ten, nine shy of the Beatles?record of 19. Though it might seem odd to have Jay-Z and Elvis sharing categories, the truth is that they both represent the power of innovation and entrepreneurship in the music industry. Elvis changed the world when he stole from African American blues artists, combined it with Southern Rockabilly and sold it to a white audience. Jay-Z changed the music word by 1) being the best MC in the last ten years, and 2) expanding hip-hop music to white, suburban markets by proving that it could be a viable market force. Respectively, they both represent the forefront of their musical zeitgeist, so it only makes sense that they would find ways to overlap.
Even though every hates them with Biblical passion, the Eagles managed to hang on to their chart dominance, falling to second place with sales of 359,000 copies of Long Road Out of Eden. Garth Brooks (aka Chris Gaines) was a close third, with 352,000 copies of a new greatest hits album. Chris Brown has got to be happy that his sophomore album, Exclusive sold 294,000 discs, which is just about double what his debut album sold in its first week. Carrie Underwood fell to fifth place behind 121,000 in sales, while Josh Groban jumped from eighth to sixth place with 116,000 copies of Noel.
Other than Jay-Z's record-setting record sales, the big news was Britney Spears, who was hit hard by a 70% decline in sales in the second week of her disc, Blackout. Moving just 87,000 copies, Spears tumbled from second place to seventh place. The numbers don't bode well for Spears?hopes that Blackout would have a long chart-run that pushed into the holiday gift-buying season.
Posted by Ryan Peters on Nov 16, 2007 @ 12:00 am
