Surprising absolutely no one, Michael Jackson rules the Billboard Album Charts this week. The soundtrack to the movie “This is It” opens at the top spot with an impressive 373,000 units sold. An additional 6,000 units of the iTunes only collection of the album’s demos were also sold. The buzz around “This is It” was so intense that even the debut album by the intended tour’s guitarist, Orianthi, debuts at #125 this week with over 4,000 units sold. The King of Pop leads a busy pack of debuts this week, followed by the return of Creed. “Full Circle”, the band’s first studio album since 2002, opens at #2 with just under 110,000 copies sold. That’s barely 300 more units than the expanded edition of Taylor Swift’s “Fearless” sold, catapulting the already 4X Platinum album to #3 on this week’s chart. “Fearless” also becomes the second album to cross the 2 million barrier in sales so far in 2009, joining MJ’s “Number Ones” collection. The new songs on “Fearless”, all of which have been made available a la carte via download services, litter the Top 20 of the digital singles sales chart this week. For a second week, that particular chart is led by Christian synth-pop outfit Owl City with “Fireflies”.
Also entering the charts this week, the new collection of soul standards by Rod Stewart (#4), holiday collections by The Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Sting at numbers 5 and 6, and a live album by Jack Johnson at #11.
In the “all publicity is good publicity” column, we have Lil Wayne. “Tha Carter III” increases 3% in scans this week, no doubt due to the headlines surrounding Weezy’s upcoming jail term.
Next week, Carrie Underwood is expected to debut at the top with her new album “Play On”. Strong debuts are also expected from “Now That’s What I Call Music 32”, the “Glee” cast album, Weezer’s new one, and a Greatest Hits collection from the Foo Fighters.
Here’s this week’s Top 20 albums.
1) Michael Jackson “This is It”
2) Creed “Full Circle”
3) Taylor Swift “Fearless”
4) Rod Stewart “Soulbook”
5) Trans-Siberian Orchestra “Night Castle”
6) Sting “If On a Winter’s Night…”
7) Michael Buble “Crazy Love”
8) Various Artists “Twilight: New Moon Soundtrack”
9) Tim McGraw “Southern Voice”
10) Jay-Z “The Blueprint 3”
11) Jack Johnson “En Concert”
12) Miley Cyrus “Time of Our Lives EP”
13) Michael Jackson “Number Ones”
14) The Black Eyed Peas “The E.N.D.”
15) Tech N9ne “K.O.D.”
16) The Swell Season “Strict Joy”
17) Wolfmother “Cosmic Joy”
18) Train “Save Me, San Francisco”
19) Atreyu “Congregation of the Damned”
20) Owl City “Ocean Eyes”
