DOUBLE PLAY:
R. KELLY IN THE GREEN
The salacious, multi-platinum soul man returns to the top of the charts with his latest, garnering an impressive 395k in first-week sales, easily defeating the previous #1, Maroon 5's A&M/Octone album, It Won't Be Soon Before Long, now #2.
Another former chart-topper, Linkin Park's WB effort, Minutes to Midnight, drops a notch to #3, ahead of the week's biggest debut, Broken Bow country star Jason Aldean, whose Relentless album, distributed by RED, lands at #4.
RCA/RMG's resilient Daughtry moves up to round out the Top 5, one notch ahead of hard-charging Universal Republic diva Amy Winehouse, parlaying VH1 Gung Ho rotation, a performance on Sunday night's MTV Movie Awards and a Rolling Stone cover into an #11-6 and a nice 32% gain. Rehab has never been this successful.
Arista/RMG's Avril Lavigne (#7), Def Jam/IDJ's Young Jeezy Presents U.S.D.A.: Cold Summer (#8) and Reprise's Michael Buble (#9) are holdovers, while Star Trak/Interscope's Robin Thicke shows the power of another Oprah appearance with a #29-10 leap and a whopping 146% rise.
The only other newcomer to the Top 50 is prog-rockers Circa Survive's On Letting Go on Albany, N.Y.-based indie Equal Vision.
Other double-digit winners include A&M/Interscope's Fergie (#20-14, +19%) and Capitol's Corinne Bailey Rae (#45-35, +11%)
Today, Def Jam's Rihanna and Jive/ZLG's T-Pain hit the street, and are expected to contend for next week's top spot, with Hear Music's Paul McCartney, WB's Big & Rich and Interscope's Marilyn Manson, Daddy Yankee and Chris Cornell also in stores.
