The top of the Billboard chart for the week ending August 6 remains mostly unchanged. Now That's What I Call Music Vol. 4, the pop hit sampler, remains at No. 1. Britney Spears' Oops!...I Did It Again, Nelly's Country
Grammar, and Eminem's Marshall Mathers LP stay at Nos. 2, 3, and 4, respectively.
The only variations near the top of the Billboard 200 are Creed's No. 6 Human Clay and Papa Roach's No. 7 Infest switching places and Sting's Brand New Day entering the top 10 after months and months of exile. What can explain Brand New Day's resurgence? Are people charmed by those articulate ads Der Stingle has appeared in on behalf of Compaq, or is "Desert Rose" getting played on the radio, which VH1.com doesn't listen to because we don't own one?
The highest debuts on this week's chart belong to rapper Big L's Big Picture, at No. 13, followed six places down by country thrush Jo Dee Messina's Burn at No. 19. And that's it for debuts in the top 50; we must look to the middle of the chart for more.
And so we shall! Coming in at No. 61 and 62 are the Coyote Ugly soundtrack and the Brian Setzer Orchestra's Vavoom!, followed by Rancid's Rancid at No. 68 (the latter two acts, the standard-bearers of neo-punk and swing music, respectively, had much higher debuts for their last albums, when their genres' profiles were much higher). Then, Morcheeba's groovetastic Fragments of Freedom provides the next-highest debut at No. 113. A respectable showing, all told, for a sleek dance act far better known in its British homeland.
For some reason, hardcore hootchie Trina's Da Baddest B***h returns to the chart after a short absence at No. 158. Then, some 30 places down are back-to-back debuts for alterna-Latino act Los Huracanes del Norte's En Que Trabaja at No. 181, and Portland, Ore., alterna-decadance act Dandy Warhols' Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia at No. 182.
In light of the dull dog days of summer music purchasing, VH1.com asks you, the consumers, to get off Napster or Amazon.com or whatever legal or extralegal means of online music appropriation you employ and go to your local record store and purchase the new album from Aaron Carter, the younger brother of Backstreet Boy Nick Carter. In so doing, you will make our chart reporting much more interesting for us and for you.
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