Nov 19 2008
Taylor Makes Swift Entry on Top
Eighteen-year-old Taylor Swift sold a whopping 592,000 copies of her sophomore album Fearless, easily placing at No. 1 on the new Billboard 200. (picture courtesy of Associated Press/Damian Dovarganes)
A country music idol fended off a challenge from a runner-up American Idol to land her first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 this week.
Taylor Swift’s Fearlesssold 592,000 copies last week, according to Nielsen SoundScan, easily outpacing David Archuleta’s self-titled debut album, which sold 183,000. Swift’s total is the largest first-week sales for a female act this year; the last female album to open higher was Mary J. Blige’s Growing Pains last December (629,000).
Furthermore, Fearlessenjoyed the largest debut sales by a country female since Shania Twain’s Up! sold 874,000 in 2002.
Swift’s debut album still ranks inside the top 40 after 109 weeks, selling more than 3.5 million to date. Nearly every track on Fearless has charted on the Hot 100, thanks to weekly single releases at iTunes.
Yet another entry in the Now! That’s What I Call Musicseries graces the albums chart, as No. 29 sold 172,000. With the advent of iTunes and the ability for consumers to make their own compilation albums, this series has suffered the consequences. Nonetheless, still a respectable number.
Christina Aguilera’s Target exclusive- Keeps Gettin’ Better: A Decade of Hits- sold 73,000 copies, good enough for a No. 9 entry. By comparison, fellow ex-Mousketeer Britney Spears saw her first hits compilation sell just over 250,000 in its debut week back in 2004. Granted, Spears’ album was available at every outlet, but, hey- if anyone wants to get Aguilera’s album and doesn’t want to travel, there’s always target.com, right?
Hits compilations in general just don’t sell like they used to- as with the Now franchise, music buyers can cherrypick what individual tracks they want to buy and make their own hits compilation. A couple of weeks ago, Rascal Flatts’ Greatest Hits Volume 1 debuted with just 89,000, peanuts compared to what the country act’s studio albums sell in their first weeks. And, Celine Dion’s Essential Collection debuted with even less that same week (57,000).
Next week’s Billboard 200 will see some heavy action, with Beyonce’s I Am Sasha Fierce easily debuting at No. 1 with first-week projections in the vicinity of 500,000-550,000. Battling for runner-up slots will be Nickelback, American Idol winner David Cook and, of course, Swift’s Fearless.
However, with the economy in the downward spiral it’s currently in, overall album sales continue to lag behind last year’s numbers. So no matter how fierce Beyonce’s debut numbers are, they likely won’t be fierce enough to lift 2008’s weekly numbers anywhere near those from 2007.
