A country superstar he may be, but the legendary George Strait couldn’t topple Lil Wayne or Adele from their perches at the top of the Billboard album charts this week. His Here For A Good Time makes a pretty respectable debut with 91,000 units sold, but lands at #3 on the list, behind Weezy’s 219,000 (a pretty steep dropoff in The Carter IV‘s second week…blame it on bad word of mouth) and Adele’s 121,000. Adele’s numbers continue to be mind-blowing. […]
Chart Stalker 9/8/11: Weezy Reigns Supreme
Lil Wayne does it again. The pint-sized rapper has just rung up the second-biggest sales week of 2011 so far with his latest effort, Tha Carter IV. Ringing in with 964,000 copies sold, Weezy comes just a hair’s breadth away from matching the first week sales of his chart-topping magnum opus (and last *proper* album), Tha Carter III. How big is this number? Well, if the year was to end today, Wayne would have the fifth biggest selling album of […]
Chart Stalker 8/11/11: Spirit of ’75
Yet another boring week on the Billboard album charts. Adele spends a 12th week at the top of the charts with 21, although she only needed to sell 70,000 albums to do it. Country star Trace Adkins and singer/songwriter type Mat Kearney debut in the Top Five. The biggest news comes from hipster-pop band Foster the People, as their debut album, Torches, jumps into the Top 20 and “Pumped Up Kicks” looks to be one of the year’s surprise hits. […]
Chart Stalker: Gaga Goes for a Mil
Pop star Lady Gaga leads this week’s Billboard album chart with her new album, Born This Way. It moves a jaw dropping 1.1 million units in it’s first week. It’s the biggest first week for any album since 50 Cent’s The Massacre dropped in 2005, and it’s the biggest first week for a female artist ever. Of course, Gaga’s achievement will come with an asterisk, as well over 400,000 copies of that were purchased from amazon.com during a promotion on […]
Chart Stalker! 12/30/10: The Home Stretch!
Taylor Swift hangs on to the top spot for yet another week on the latest Billboard chart. She’s gonna come within a hair of scoring 2010’s top-selling album, but Lady Antebellum and Eminem are standing in her way.
Chart Stalker 11/18/10: SuBo FTW!
Big things happen when you drag pops and grandpa out to the record store. Check out this week’s Billboard album chart, and you’ll find Susan Boyle scoring another big debut. The owner of 2009’s biggest selling album looks to score a huge seller in 2010 with “The Gift”. The collection of new material and holiday classics scans 318,000 units, easily taking the top spot away from Taylor Swift . Not that Taylor’s doing too shabby. “Speak Now” adds another 212,000 copies to […]
Chart Stalker 10/7/10: The Yee-Haw Edition
Guess what type of music people are still buying? Ding Ding Ding!! Country music! Kenny Chesney becomes the second straight country act to debut at #1 on the national Billboard charts. His latest effort, “Hemingway’s Whiskey”, starts with 183,000 units. It replaces Zac Brown Band’s “You Get What You Give” at the top of the chart. The Grammy winning band’s sophomore effort slides two spots to #3 this week. Guess what other type of music people are apparently still buying? […]
Chartstalker 3/10/10: Who the Hell is Taio Cruz?
I’ll get to the albums chart in a minute, but I must first register my surprise at this week’s new #1 single. British newcomer Taio Cruz jumps from #53 to #1 on the Hot 100 with his new single “Break Your Heart”, which features Ludacris (who will now have an impressive three songs in the Top Ten). I’ll admit that even as I write this, I haven’t heard the song yet (bad reporting, I know…but I have the Broken Bells […]