Record Numbers
Yes, people still buy albums.
Rolling Stone cover artist and mellow surfer extraordinaire Jack Johnson stayed atop the album charts for this week despite a 50% sales drop. Sleep Through the Static moved a still-strong 180,000 copies in its second week to keep Johnson out in front of a strong sales push from Grammy-winning artists. The biggest beneficiary of the Grammy bump was Amy Winehouse, who won five awards and jumped from twenty-four to two on the charts, selling 115,000 copies of Back to Black. The award wins no doubt helped, but the biggest reason for the increase may have been Winehouse’s Grammy performance, where she appeared lucid and engaging for the first time in what seems like months.
Alicia Keys performed twice on the Grammys, helping to keep her As I Am album in the third spot with 109,000 copies. The Grammy Nominees 2008 compilation boosted its sales 40% to 72,000 units and landed at the number four spot. Jazz guru Herbie Hancock, whose River: The Joni Letters was a surprise winner for “Album of the Year,” absolutely exploded this week with a sales increase of more than 965%, propelling him to the fifth spot on the charts with 54,000 copies.
The soundtrack to the Oscar-nominated indie comedy, Juno continued to perform well ahead of Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony, pushing 53,000 in the sixth spot. Taylor Swift’s self-titled debut stays in the top ten at number seven with 52,000 copies. Sheryl Crow dropped six spots from last week, but still managed to sell just shy of 52,000 copies of her new disc, Detours. Close behind Crow in the ninth spot was Mary J. Blige, whose Growing Pains continues to show its chart power, selling another 49,000 units. The soundtrack to the street dance film Step Up 2 rounds out the chart at number ten, jumping 44% from last week to 45,000 copies.
Posted by Ryan Peters on Feb 21, 2008 @ 12:00 am
