"NOW 7" GNAWING ON #1; "CELEBRITY" IN LIMELIGHT
Indeed, as tends to be the case with compilation albums, "NOW 7" is trending up in a big way, with the latest information indicating that the hit-jammed opus is beating expectations at all levels of retail and could end the week with a sales total as high as 750k.
Wow.
Not to take anything away from NSYNC's jaw-dropping #1 bow or the major effort put forth by Jive to make it happen, but with estimates for "NOW 7" growing as they are, "Celebrity" could very well take a back seat to the increasingly potent compilation franchise. "Celebrity" is expected to make a second-week showing in the mid-to-upper 600k range.
The strong upward trend for "NOW 7" is just the latest proof that breakthrough songs of the truly huge mass-appeal kind are the key to moving product. In other words, smashes = sales. The strength of the songs on "NOW 7" can't be underestimated: This latest volume in a series that routinely packs its releases with hits includes an unusually strong lineup of powerful tracks from chart-toppers including Destiny's Child, Janet Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, the Backstreet Boys, Nelly, Eve f/Gwen Stefani, Britney Spears, Aerosmith and, of course NSYNC. With many of these songs not available as commercial singles, the "NOW 7" disc assumes at least some of the draw of all of these acts combined—plus the others on the 19-track set. The result? People want it, people buy it by the millions.
Meanwhile, though NSYNC's "Pop" hasn't proved to be the over-the-top destroyer at mainstream radio that "Bye Bye Bye" was, it's still huge on both Radio Disney and the Disney Channel, which are definitely helping to drive the project along with fellow kid cable outlets Nickelodeon and Fox Family—all direct links to a huge segment of the band's audience.
And in case we forgot to mention it one more time, selling 1.9 million records in one week makes it pretty hard to say anything but "Whoa!"—no matter what happens next.
Whoa.
