Re: MJ #1 This Week In US, Set To Be #1 Next Week As Well
Week Ending July 26, 2009: The Phantom #1 Is Back On Top
Posted Wed Jul 29, 2009 11:24am PDT by Paul Grein in Chart Watch
Michael Jackson's Number Ones is the best-selling album in the U.S. for the fourth time in the past five weeks. This is the first time that an album by a deceased performer has been the best-seller this long since the Notorious B.I.G.'s Life After Death was #1 for four weeks in March and April 1997. It's the first time that a greatest hits album has ranked as the nation's best-seller for four or more weeks since the Beatles' 1 was on top for eight weeks in 2000-2001. It's the first time that a Jackson album has been out front this long since Dangerous was #1 for four weeks in December 1991-January 1992.
Only one other album--Taylor Swift's Fearless--has been the best-seller in the U.S. for four or more weeks so far this year. Fearless is #1 for the year-to-date. Number Ones is currently #4 on that tally.
Now, from reading all this you would probably conclude that Number Ones is #1 on The Billboard 200. Alas, no. Billboard doesn't include catalog albums on its flagship chart. The lucky beneficiary of that rule is Demi Lovato, whose sophomore album, Here We Go Again, opens at #1 despite selling 46,000 fewer copies this week than Number Ones.
Lovato, who played the female lead in Camp Rock, is the third Disney ingénue to land a #1 album in her own right. She follows Hilary Duff and Miley Cyrus. Duff played the lead in Lizzie McGuire. Cyrus, of course, plays Hannah Montana. (Chart-toppers Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera were one-time cast members of the revived Mickey Mouse Club, but that's not quite the same thing.)
Lovato is one of four teenagers listed in the top 10 on The Billboard 200. Lovato and Hannah Montana are both 16. Jordin Sparks and Taylor Swift are both 19. Lovato's album got off to a faster start than her debut album did in September. Don't Forget opened at #2 with first-week sales of 89,000.
But I'm not done with Michael Jackson. The fallen superstar has three of the 10 best-selling albums this week, down from six the past two weeks. This is the fifth consecutive week that Jackson has had at least three of the country's 10 best-selling albums, a remarkable achievement. Number Ones sold 154,000 copies and would have moved back from #2 to #1 if catalog albums were eligible to make The Billboard 200. The Essential Michael Jackson sold 76,000 copies and would have dipped from #3 to #4. Thriller sold 73,000 copies and would have fallen from #4 to #5.
In addition, Jackson is featured on 20 of the top 200 songs on Hot Digital Songs. For the second time in the five weeks since his death, his top-selling download is "Thriller." (It was "Man In The Mirror" the other three weeks.) And The Essential Michael Jackson is #1 in the U.K. for the fourth straight week. This ties Lady GaGa's The Fame for the longest-run at #1 in the U.K. so far this year.
I've pretty much spoken my piece about Billboard's policy of barring catalog albums from The Billboard 200, but I will add this one last nugget. Even though Number Ones has been the best-selling album in the U.S. for four of the last five weeks, it will go down in history as having peaked at a so-so #13 on The Billboard 200. (That's the highest position it reached when it was released in 2003.) Likewise, even though The Essential Michael Jackson was the second best-selling album in U.S. in the week after Jackson's death, it will go down as having peaked at a tepid #96 (its highest ranking when it was released in 2005.) The peak positions on Billboard's flagship chart don't give a full and accurate picture of the popularity of these albums.
Incidentally, if today's rules and standards about catalog albums had been in place in 1972, Roberta Flack's First Take, which topped the chart for five weeks that spring, wouldn't have been allowed back on The Billboard 200. The album rode the chart from January to June 1970. It came back to life after director Clint Eastwood used its key track, "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," in his November 1971 film Play Misty For Me. The album re-entered the chart in March 1972 and hit #1 six weeks later. If today's rules had been in place then, First Take would have been denied a return ticket to the big chart and would have become the first catalog album to outsell the #1 current album. Instead, Number Ones earned that distinction.
http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/ch...ng-july-26-2009-the-phantom-1-is-back-on-top/
