MICHAEL JACKSON - THE ESSENTIAL: DEBUT WEEK
IRELAND
The Essential - Top 75 Albums
Week #01 (24/07/05): #4
UK
The Essential - UK Top 200 Album Chart
Week #01 (24/07/05): #2 (Sales: 45,527)
The Essential - UK Top 40 R&B Albums Chart
Week #01 (24/07/05):
#1 (Sales: 45,527)
Music Week - 24/07/05
Remaining atop the singles and albums charts, James Blunt continues his remarkable run by increasing his singles sales for the seventh week in a row, and his album sales for the 13th time in 14 weeks, writes Alan Jones
Blunt is so dominant at present that he would have easily topped both charts this week with only half the sales he actually achieved.
You're Beautiful enjoyed a 19.2% improvement to 46,443 sales to take the singles title for the second week in a row, with a 120.2% lead over Mariah Carey's We Belong Together, which rebounds to number two even though its sales are off 22.9% week-on-week at 21,086. You're Beautiful is the first number one single to increase its sales on its second week at number one since Blu Cantrell's Breathe, which sold 47,312 copies on its first week at number one in August 2003, and 49,192 copies - a 4% hike - the following week.
It's more than five years since any Warner Music single spent more than one week at number one - but Blunt's second week at the summit ends a drought that has endured since All Saints' February/March 2000 chart-topper Pure Shores.
You're Beautiful is now up to fifth on the year-to-date singles rankings, trailing Tony Christie's (Is This The Way To) Amarillo (1,075,260 sales), Crazy Frog's Axel F (492,487), McFly's All About You/You've Got A Friend (328,607) and Akon's Lonely (318,158).
Meanwhile, Blunt's Back To Bedlam album enjoys a modest 1.1% increase in sales to 110,932, putting it 143.7% ahead of nearest challenger, The Essential Michael Jackson.
Blunt's album has sold more than 100,000 copies in three of the last four weeks, and has sold 759,793 copies this year, and 764,542 in total. At the current rate of progress it will pass the million mark in mid-August. It is still somewhat adrift of Coldplay's X&Y - the year's best-seller with 1,086,768 sales to date - but sold 66,332 copies more than its rival last week.
Apparently suffering little fallout from his recent court case, the aforementioned Michael Jackson compilation, The Essential sold 45,527 copies to debut at number two - this despite the fact that Jackson's had a string of previous high selling compilations in the last decade, of which the most recent - Number Ones - has sold 1,323,236 copies in less than two years. The Essential is a career-encompassing 38 song 2CD set winding its way through from the Jackson 5's first hit I Want You Back to MJ's 2002 number two single You Rock My World.
First American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson has sold 4,911,618 copies of her first two albums in America but little more than a hundredth of that total here. Clarkson's 2003 debut album Thankful sold 2,248,019 copies in America, and reached number one - but peaked here at number 52, selling 43,387 copies. Follow-up Breakaway - a number three hit in the states with sales of 2,663,599 in 33 weeks, is showing greater promise here, and debuts at number 10 this week on sales of 17,631, following introductory single Since U Been Gone's number six success.
Like the Michael Jackson album, Kelly Clarkson's is a Sony BMG release, giving the company fully half of the Top 12 albums on the chart, and the only two new entries to the Top 20 this week.
Stephen Fretwell's new single Emily has attracted a lot of radio support - it's number 12 on the airplay chart this week - but makes a modest debut at number 42 on the singles chart. Instead, it seems to be sparking album sales.
Fretwell's Magpie album was released last November, falling short of the Top 200 and attracting modest sales of 8,976, before it finally entered the chart at number 112 last week. It now catapults to number 34, with sales up 373.5% week-on-week at 8,564. Run, the previous single from Fretwell's album, peaked at number 79 in February.
With Feel Good Inc continuing a slow and stately decline of the singles chart, Gorillaz-mania is flaring again with favourable reaction to upcoming follow-up Dare, which debuts at number three on the TV airplay chart. As a result, the Gorillaz' Demon Days album ends seven weeks of decline to rebound this week. The album - which has previously moved 1-2-6-9-11-19-26-29 - jumps to number 15, with sales of 14,737 representing a 45.5% increase week-on-week. Demon Days' nine week sales tally of 326,506 place it well ahead of their self-titled 2001 debut, which had sold 185,715 copies at the same stage.
Returning to the singles chart, there are three debuts in this week's Top 10, with Lee Ryan debuting ahead of old timer Paul Weller and newcomer Daddy Yankee.
Eight months after the 12 hit chart career of Blue drew to a close with the highly appropriate Curtain Falls, former band member Lee Ryan makes his solo chart debut at number three with Army Of Lovers. The 22 year old, whose self-titled debut solo album is due next Monday (1 August), sold 20,879 copies of Army Of Lovers last week. Blue sold 1,853,796 singles - an average of 154,483 per release - reaching a high of 292,690 duetting with Elton John on Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word, and a low of 43,773 for penultimate single Bubblin'.
The first reggaeton hit - a fusion of hip-hop, salsa and dancehall sung in Spanish - Daddy Yankee's Gasolina was a number 32 hit on the US Hot 100 earlier year, and makes its UK chart debut this week at number five, with 14,287 sales. Daddy Yankee - real name Raymond Ayala - is a 26 year old Puerto Rican, and has released six albums so far, with Gasolina being taken from the latest, Barrio Fino.
Paul Weller gets back to basics on From The Floorboards Up, the introductory single from his upcoming album As Is Now, and is rewarded by a number six debut for the single on first week sales of 13,013. It's the second highest charting single of Weller's 14 year solo career, being beaten only by the number five peak of 1996's Peacock Suit.
Weller's last single, a cover of folkie Gordon Lightfoot's Early Morning Dew, peaked at number 40 - but was available only on 7-inch coloured vinyl. Weller has scored 61 Top 75 hits - 57 of them reaching the Top 40 - since his 1977 debut with Jam.
1,001 sales short of matching the sales of the number 10 single - Crazy Frog's Axel - and powered by generous sampling of the Maisonettes' 1982 number seven hit Heartache Avenue, East London's 13 strong grime crew Roll Deep register their first hit single with The Avenue, which debuts at number 11 on sales of 10,531. The Avenue's popularity helps to revive Roll Deep's first album In At The Deep End, which debuted at number 50 six weeks ago, and has climbed 134-92-73 in the last fortnight, with sales last week of 3,332 - a 64.9% increase over the previous week - taking its cumulative sales past the 20,000 mark. The band is signed to Relentless Records, home to two other highly rated artists currently in the top half of the album chart, KT Tunstall and Joss Stone.
When London was announced as the venue for the 2012 Olympics, a celebration was held at Trafalgar Square, with former M People star Heather Small stepping up to the mic to sing Proud, which had been the campaign song. Said single, now reissued, debuts this week at number 33 with sales of 2,699. Small had 10 Top 10 hits as a member of M People, but Proud's original number 16 peak in 2000 - when it sold more than 45,000 copies - remains her highest solo chart placing. Proud is also featured on The Ultimate Collection, by M People featuring Heather Small. Released in February, when it reached number 17, the album saw its sales increase by 756.5% week-on-week to 5,045 last week, and re-enters the album chart at number 55.
Despite the second wave of attempted bombings in London last Thursday causing sales to fall at the end of the week, the singles market improved by 3.1% in the week as a whole to 780,444, with physical sales increasing 1.8% to 344,098 and downloads up 4.1% at 436,346. Album sales fared better still, with the market improving 6.3% overall to 2,513,999. Artist albums added 6.6%, at 2,002,448 and compilations improved 5% to 511,551.
Compared to the same week last year, however, album sales were down 2%, while physical singles sales were down 28.2% - but once downloads are added in, combined singles sales were up 62.9%. But the majority of download sales are for tracks outside the chart, and the 860 sales which earned Mew's Apocalypso anchor position on the Top 75 this week would have given it only a modestly better 67th place a year ago.
Blunt Holds Off Mariah, Michael On U.K. Chart
Edited By Jonathan Cohen. July 25, 2005, 11:15 AM ET
By Paul Sexton, London
Singer/songwriter James Blunt holds sway on both main U.K. charts for a second week, increasing his sales again with the single "You're Beautiful" and holding steady with his debut album "Back to Bedlam," both on Atlantic.
The biggest challenger to the album's sales crown was a new compilation by Michael Jackson, whose commercial appeal in Britain would appear to have outpaced his recent trials and tribulations.
"You're Beautiful" sold more than twice as many copies as its nearest singles rival, Mariah Carey's "We Belong Together" (Def Jam), which rebounded 3-2 in its third week. Lee Ryan, formerly of the recently disbanded pop act Blue, debuted at No. 3 with his first solo single "Army of Lovers" (Brightside), and Daddy Yankee scored what is widely recognized to be the first reggaeton hit in the U.K. with "Gasolina" (Machete) at No. 5.
"From the Floorboards Up" (V2), the lead track from Paul Weller's upcoming studio album "As Is Now," brought an impressive revival of his singles chart fortunes by debuting at No. 6. Weller has only once peaked higher since he started making records under his own name in 1991, with the No. 5 hit "Peacock Suit" in 1996. It's his fifth top 10 during that era but, including hits with the Jam and the Style Council, his 21st since 1979, when the Jam's "Eton Rifles" became the first.
Speaking of chart veterans, "The Essential Michael Jackson" (Epic) gave the troubled entertainer not only his best news in a long time but yet another successful U.K. compilation. The two-disc set is being marketed as a definitive career retrospective, starting with his Jackson 5 catalog and ending with recent solo material.
It has been only 18 months since Jackson's "Number Ones" collection topped the British chart. Previously, a Polygram-released "Best of Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five -- The Motown Years" reached No. 5 in 1997. Among numerous other Jackson compilations, 1983's "18 Greatest Hits" was also a No. 1 success.
Kelly Clarkson's somewhat patchy U.K. chart career has taken a turn for the better in recent weeks, with the No. 5 success of the single "Breakaway" now followed by a No. 10 debut for the RCA album of the same name.
Coldplay's "X&Y" (Parlophone) is in its sixth week at No. 1 on the European Top 100 Albums chart, while Crazy Frog's "Axel F" (Mach1) tops the Eurochart Hot 100 Singles tally for a fifth week. U.K. sales alone of the novelty hit are now close to 500,000 units.
http://www.billboard.com/bb/daily/article_...t_id=1000991004
