I’ll stand by for a sec and let you try to guess who has this week’s #1 album.
Give up? It’s Eminem!! “Recovery” scans another 133,000 units this week and spends it’s 6th non-consecutive week at the top of Billboard’s album chart. “Recovery” also spends it’s 8th consecutive week at the top of Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Album chart. It’s the longest consecutive stay at the top for a rap album in 20 years. Last album to hang around that long? MC Hammer’s “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ’em”. Stop! Hammer time!!
Thought I was gonna go with “U Can’t Touch This”, huh? WRONG. I’m unpredictable!! Crazy!! Moving on…
The rest of the chart is fairly quiet (stop me if you’ve heard this one before). Four albums debut in the Top 10, and I can almost guarantee that they’ll all be out of the Top 20 next week. The “Camp Rock 2” soundtrack starts at #3, rockers Black Label Society start right behind them at #4, country star Blake Shelton starts at #6 (and debuts #1 country, finally dethroning Lady Antebellum after an uninterrupted 6 month run at the top) and newcomer Mike Posner starts at #8.
Movement up the chart? Well, there’s the “Eat Pray Love” soundtrack, which moves up from 39-21 on a 48% increase. Right above them is Mumford & Sons with their “Sigh No More”. Their debut effort’s reaches a new peak of #20 and puts them in serious contention for the Best New Artist Grammy alongside sure bets like Ke$ha and Drake. We should also tip our caps to Usher, who slides across the million-sold mark with “Raymond v. Raymond” this week. Eminem also jumps the 2 million mark with “Recovery”. The next album over the million-sold mark will likely be Drake’s “Thank Me Later”. It currently stands at 970K sold with 24,000 moved this week. It’ll be official platty by the end of August.
Next week, there should be some movement in the Top 10, thanks to new efforts by the likes of Iron Maiden, David Gray and Ray LaMontagne. Ray’s last album debuted at #3, so he just might be a dark horse to unseat Eminem. After that, Em’s days are certainly numbered, as 8/24 brings the release of Katy Perry’s new album as well as a new set from Usher. Then, fall starts and the games officially begin!
Here’s this week’s Top 20:
1) “Recovery” Eminem
2) “The Suburbs” Arcade Fire
3) “Camp Rock 2: Final” Soundtrack
4) “Order of the Black” Black Label Society
5) “My World 2.0” Justin Bieber
6) “All About Tonight” Blake Shelton
7) “Teflon Don” Rick Ross
8) “31 Minutes to Takeoff” Mike Posner
9) “Kidz Bop 18” Kidz Bop Kids
10) “Nightmare” Avenged Sevenfold
11) “Thank Me Later” Drake
12) “Need You Now” Lady Antebellum
13) “The Fame” Lady GaGa
14) “Foundation” Zac Brown Band
15) “”Now That’s What I Call Music 34” Various Artists
16) “Remix” Lady GaGa
17) “Trill O.G.” Bun B.
18) “The E.N.D.” The Black Eyed Peas
19) “Raymond v. Raymond” Usher
20) “Sigh No More” Mumford and Sons
(by the way, I should acknowledge a mistake I made in last week’s column. Train’s “Save Me San Francisco” peaked at #17 earlier in the album’s life, so it’s appearance at #20 on last week’s chart did not represent the album’s highest rank. My bad!)