BIG COUNTRY
Another week, another country album debuts at #1.
After Zac Brown Band’s chart-topping bow, look for BNA/Sony Music
He’s on target for a total that will exceed his last album, Lucky Old Sun, which opened in Oct. 2008 with 176k, according to those music retailers who haven’t turned their stores into Jamba Juice outlets.
Next up is imprisoned rapper Lil Wayne’s 10-track digital-only release for Cash Money/Universal Motown, I Am Not a Human Being, with the physical album coming out Oct. 12. First-week digital sales are projected to be in the 90-100k range.
Asylum rapper Gucci Mane’s third album, The Appeal: Georgia’s Most Wanted, is next up, with a total that looks to be between 60-65k.
Veteran Reprise Rock and Roll Hall of Fame guitarist Eric Clapton’s self-titled Clapton, co-produced by Doyle Bramhall II, featuring covers of songs by J.J. Cale, Texas bluesman Lil’ Son Jackson and Louis Armstrong, will sell between 45-50k. Among his collaborators are Allen Toussaint, Fabulous Thunderbirds’ Kim Wilson and steel guitar session ace Greg Leisz.
Jimmy Eat World’s new DGC effort, Invented, their first album in three years, should see sales in the 40-45k area for these Rock radio mainstays.
Clapton's fellow Reprise legend Neil Young returns with the Daniel Lanois collaboration, the self-descriptive Le Noise, a workout on electric guitar, which should do between 25-30k, the same total eyed by Asylum’s Baton Rouge rapper Lil’ Boosie, currently under indictment for first-degree murder and serving a four-year term for gun and drug possession, with his aptly named new album, Incarcerated.
Lench Mob OG rapper Ice Cube’s I Am the West, his first since 2008’s Raw Footage, is in the mix for 24-27k.
A&M/UMe’s reunited Soundgarden are releasing a greatest hits album, Telephantasm, with one previously unreleased track, “Black Rain,” originally written and recorded for 1991’s Badmotorfinger. The best-of compilation should move between 15-18k, the same total as Def Jam/IDJ R&B act Jeremih’s All About You, the follow-up to his self-titled debut, which produced the hit single, “Birthday Sex.”
Also look for chart debuts from Atlantic’s Phil Collins, Warner Bros.’ Seal, Epitaph’s Bad Religion, HOR Records’ Doobie Brothers, Reach’s Christian act Lecrae, E1’s Donnell Jones and Vagrant’s Pete Yorn.
The market was down 6% vs. last week, down 15% vs. same week last year and still down 13% year to date. You may now return to fantasizing about Lane Pryce’s “chocolate bunny” before getting beat upside the head with his old man’s cane.
