Record Numbers
People still buy albums, and HEAVE breaks down the weekly numbers.
Earlier this week Oprah announced that she would campaign for Barrack Obama in the Iowa primaries. That set off pundits coast to coast, who wondered whether Oprah's endorsement would help or hurt everyone's favorite junior senator. Anyone who still feels like they need an answer to that brain-buster needs look no further than this week's album charts, where Josh Groban's Christmas album, Noel, took the number one spot for the first time since it was released seven weeks ago. How did Groban accomplish this feat? Was it black magic? Did he buy 200,000 copies of the album to give to friends for the holidays? Is he some sort of witch that managed to live through the Salem years?
Oh, no, that's right-he was a guest on Oprah's show last week, which helped his sales sky rocket 81% as he moved 405,000 discs. So, once and for all, let's get this straight for all those doubting Thomas' out there: Oprah is like King-freaking-Midas. She could promote Mein Kampf on her show and it would easily move to the top of the "New York Times" Best Seller list. Not that I'm comparing Josh Groban to Adolf Hitler or anything.
Alicia keys fell only one spot from last week to number two, selling a still-impressive 349,000 copies of As I Am. Look for Keys numbers to remain strong throughout the next four weeks as people shop for gifts. Now 26 held strong from last week at number three with 234,000 units, as did Garth Brooks who dropped only 6% while selling 192,000 copies of The Ultimate Hits. To everyone's dismay, The Eagles are still doing well on the charts. Anyone who watched the Bears game on CBS last Sunday knows that Greg Gumble loves the Eagles. We know this because he nearly wet his pants talking about the band's Sunday-evening interview on "60 Minutes." Do you hear that, America? Greg Gumble likes the Eagles. Stop buying 184,000 copies of Long Road Out of Eden. It sucks, and owning it puts you that much closer to being a fan of Greg Gumble.
The "High School Musical 2" soundtrack jumped from fourteen to six on the charts, selling a whopping 183,000 copies. That puts the disc ahead of Chris Daughtry as the number-one selling album of the year. Props, Zac Efron.
The rest of the top ten was rounded out by Carrie Underwood, Celine Dion, Chris Brown and Jordan Sparks. Sparks, the most recent "American Idol" winner (I think) debuted with only 119,000 in sales. That's the lowest week one sales for any Idol winner to date.
Posted by Ryan Peters on Nov 29, 2007 @ 12:00 am
