What birthday gift does one get for that pop star who seemingly has everything? Beyoncé's fans came through with something that she can't buy herself: a Billboard-topping debut.
Last week, Beyoncé celebrated her 25th by
dropping B'Day, the former Destiny's Child member's second solo LP. And 541,000 copies of the LP were purchased its first week in stores, scoring the singer her second #1 debut on Billboard's albums chart. Dangerously in Love opened at #1 back in 2003, selling close to 317,000 units its first week in stores and going on to move more than 4.3 million copies since its release.
Nearly 400,000 copies behind Beyoncé are Audioslave, who posed the closest threat to her throne. The rockers' third studio offering, Revelations, opens this week in the #2 slot, with close to 142,000 copies sold. Sales of Revelations didn't live up to the band's two previous discs — Audioslave's 2002 self-titled debut bowed at #7 with 162,000 scans, while 2005's Out of Exile took #1 with 263,000 copies sold — though the first-week showing isn't bad considering the band has yet to tour in support of the disc.
B'Day and Revelations were among seven new releases to crack Billboard's top 200, and two of three newcomers to make the top 10. Iron Maiden's latest, A Matter of Life and Death, claimed the #9 spot with sales just shy of the 56,000 mark.
The remainder of the top 10 is teeming with regulars, including the previous week's #1, Bob Dylan's Modern Times. That record slips to #3, selling 128,000-plus units. Danity Kane's self-titled debut falls from #2 to #4 with more than 82,000 scans, and the soundtrack to "Cheetah Girls 2" is in at #5 with 68,000 copies sold. Christina Aguilera's Back to Basics follows at #6 with 64,000 scans, while Jessica Simpson's A Public Affair slips two spots to #7 with 60,000 second-week sales.
Nickelback's All the Right Reasons climbs two positions to #8, thanks to another 58,000 scans that bring the disc's 49-week total to nearly 3.5 million. Nickelback fans have apparently taken to tour openers Hinder, whose Extreme Behavior — which has been steadily climbing the chart for months — makes its first appearance in the top 10, taking #10 with sales of more than 53,000.
Jars of Clay's Good Monsters opens at #58 with sales of 15,000 and change, while Essential Alice in Chains, a retrospective release chronicling the career of the Seattle grunge act, claims the #139 spot with 6,000 scans. Javier Solís' La Historia De Javier Solís comes in at #148 with 6,000 sales, and Aaron Tippin's Now & Then opens at #163 with nearly 5,000 copies sold.
The 2006 MTV Video Music Awards were kind to at least two artists during the subsequent sales week. Panic! at the Disco's A Fever You Can't Sweat Out jumped from #21 to #15, thanks to a 13 percent boost that amounted to more than 37,000 sales. Panic claimed the Video of the Year prize for "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" and also performed the track during the ceremony. And OK Go, who stole the show with their onstage re-enactment of the treadmill-enhanced clip for "Here It Goes Again," soared from #118 to #69 with Oh No, which surged 66 percent, from 8,000 to 14,000 sales.
This report is from MTV News.
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