NINE INCH NAILS THE #1 SLOT
Rob Thomas on IPO Records or (Atlantic, as the case may be) is showing strong legs as his single resurges at Top 40 and album sales drop only 13%. Shady/Aftermath/Interscope's 50 Cent continues his extended chart run jumping 6-4 and the latest in the Star Wars saga on Masterworks/Sony Classical scores a debut at #5 with excellent first-week, pre-movie release sales surpassing 100k.
Other strong debuts this week are led by Fall Out Boy on L.A. Reid's red-hot Island Def Jam with a 70k first week placing it at #9 overall. The latest posthumous cash-in on the Elvis Presley franchise debuts at #14 for BMG Entertainment, while Flip/Interscope rockers Limp Bizkit flops in at a surprisingly weak #22, Ryan Adams & the Cardinals on Lost Highway/IDJ scores in at #29 with nearly 31k sold, and Jive/ZLG's Nivea scores in at nearly 30k for #33.
“Nine Inch Nails totally lived up to the hype that preceded it, easily debuting #1 with us. It’s a great record that fans obviously thought was worth the wait,” said Hastings’ George Deahl. “Fall Out Boy also came out of the gates with a big first week, and the newest Star Wars soundtrack was huge for us, even though the movie doesn't open for weeks. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go get my R2D2 outfit on and get back in line. And what the hell is a Sith, anyway?”
Also of interest this week, Joss Stone’s S-Curve/EMC release jumps up 16% as her awesome new Gap jeans commercial airs 7,456,341 times this week. Stone’s album is now soaring towards the platinum level as word of an internal EMI label switch starts to leak.
Next week's chart is already shaping up with the Dave Matthews Band (RCA/RMG), which just had its New York City concert simulcast live on AOL, heading past the 400k mark and Geffen's Weezer expected to notch a 200k-ish first week.
