Beatles Survive Shaggy's Charge for Top Spot
January 17 -- Shaggy Bullet: Deep-voiced dancehall singer Shaggy has a bullet aimed right at The Beatles and their hits collection, 1, but he will not knock them from the top of the Billboard chart this week, according to SoundScan data.
A bullet — a mark that indicates an increase in sales over the previous week — is something of a rare sight in the post-holiday sales doldrums. Shaggy's Hot Shot is the only LP in the Top 10 to earn one, for increasing sales (by about 6,000 units) to 191,154. The Beatles collection, despite a drop in sales, still moves 260,179 copies to hold on to the top spot.
Action, Reaction: When sales are low, it becomes easier to see the effect of outside events on the numbers. Virtually every album to see a spike in sales this week has an obvious reason behind it.
Leading the way is the soundtrack to Save the Last Dance, which sells 76,084 copies to land at No. 11. Though it has been out for several weeks, the collection of R&B songs has a reason to shoot up 30 spots: The movie opened last week and became the No. 1 box-office draw in the country.
Crazy Town sells 51,948 units of Gift of Game to shoot up 23 slots to No. 23. Reason? The video for the single "Butterfly" is getting constant attention from MTV.
R&B singer Jill Scott's debut, Who Is Jill Scott?, moves to No. 39, on sales of 37,888, with the help of a Grammy nod for Best New Artist. Lifehouse, named as tour mates with Matchbox Twenty and Everclear, jumps to No. 43 on sales of 33,506; and British rock act Coldplay, with a lot of positive buzz leading to brisk ticket sales for East Coast show dates, sells 19,771 units to move to No. 68.
Top 10 Stasis: The Top 10 albums in the country are the same this week as last week — they just change positions with each other. Following The Beatles and Shaggy, once again, is the latest Now That's What I Call Music collection, which moves 128,175 copies to take the third spot; Creed's Human Clay nails No. 4 with sales of 114,562 copies; Limp Bizkit follows at No. 5, selling 97,847 copies of Chocolate Starfish and Hot Dog Flavored Water; Sade's Lovers Rock moves up to No. 6 with 94,871 copies sold; Outkast's Stankonia holds at No. 7, selling 90,859 copes; Snoop Dogg's Tha Last Meal, despite the best wishes of former boss Suge Knight, slides to No. 8, selling 89,610 units; Lenny Kravitz sells 82,965 of his Greatest Hits for the No. 9 slot; and Dido's No Angel was rung up 80,211 times to land the No. 10 spot.
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