Susan Boyle prevailed in the final week of music sales for 2009, holding at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart for a sixth week. Her “I Dreamed a Dream” (Syco Music/Columbia) sold 137,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Its 3.1 million sales gave Taylor Swift’s “Fearless” (Big Machine) a run for its money as the best-selling album of the year, but in the end Ms. Swift prevailed. “Fearless” holds at No. 5 on the latest weekly chart with 60,000 sales, but her total for the year was 3.2 million. With no major new releases, Lady Gaga’s “The Fame” (Interscope) sold 82,000 last week to reach No. 2, Alicia Keys’s “The Element of Freedom” (J) is third with 80,000, and Mary J. Blige’s “Stronger” (Geffen) is No. 4 with 62,000. Justin Bieber’s “My World” (Island) is No. 6 with 52,000 sales and the soundtrack to “Alvin & the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” (Rhino) is No. 7 with 51,000. The only title in the top 50 to have a weekly sales gain in this week after Christmas was the score to the film “Avatar” (Atlantic), which rose 72 spots on the chart to No. 31, with 18,000 copies sold.
Search Results Tag: Taylor Swift
January 7, 2010
January 5, 2010
Susan Boyle ‘bigger than MJ’
Sales of Britain’s Got Talent star Susan Boyle’s debut album were said to be have surpassed those of Michael Jackson by several thousand this year. The Scottish singer’s album ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ allegedly pipped the 2.3 million US number of Jackson’s Number Ones collection to become the best-selling album of the year. The 48-year-old spinster may next topple country-pop star Taylor Swift whose album Fearless hit the 2.7 million sales since its release in 2009, experts predicted.
January 1, 2010
Susan Boyle Eyes 6th No. 1 Week, Lags Taylor Swift For Top ‘09 Seller
As the new year is ushered in, it’s looking like Susan Boyle will celebrate a sixth straight week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 next week, as industry prognosticators project her “I Dreamed a Dream” album may sell about 150,000 to 165,000 copies by week’s end on Sunday (Jan. 3) night.
As we’ve been reporting, Boyle’s “Dream” has been swiftly catching up to Taylor Swift’s “Fearless,” which is currently the top selling album of 2009. Now, with one week left to go, it’s looking like “Dream” may fall just a bit short in the race.
Presently, “Fearless’” 2009 total stands at 3,157,000, while “Dream” is at 2,982,000.
With “Fearless” projected to sell in the neighborhood of 65,000 to 75,000 this week, it looks like Boyle’s “Dream” will not close the gap between the two, and “Fearless” will remain the year’s top seller.
If “Dream” sells its projected amount this week, the year will close with two albums — “Dream” and “Fearless” — having sold at least 3 million. The
last time that happened was in 2006, when three sets managed the trick: the soundtrack to “High School Musical” (3.7 million), Rascal Flatts’ “Me and My
Gang” (3.5 million) and Carrie Underwood’s “Some Hearts” (3.0 million).
2006 did not benefit from having a 53-week sales tracking year, as we do in 2009, thanks to a quirk in the calendar. Without the so-called extra week in 2009, we’d only have one 3-million seller: “Fearless.”
“Dream” is the only album that looks like it will sell over 100,000 in the week that closes on Jan. 3. The runner-up on the Billboard 200 may end up being Lady Gaga’s “The Fame,” which could shift perhaps 90,000 to 95,000 copies. If “The Fame” can rise to No. 2 on the chart, it will be a new peak for the long-running album, which has gone as high as No. 4 on the tally.
No major album releases came to market this past week, so don’t count on any eye-popping debuts on next week’s chart.
Nielsen SoundScan’s sales tracking week, as reflected in Billboard’s sales charts, runs from Monday through Sunday of each week. Next week’s album charts will be revealed on Wednesday, Jan. 6 and will reflect data through the week ending Sunday, Jan. 3.
December 31, 2009
Susan Boyle continues chart reign
Susan Boyle’s “I Dreamed a Dream” holds at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart for a fifth consecutive week, selling another 510,000 copies according to Nielsen SoundScan. So far, the set has shifted 2,982,000 copies in America.
“Dream” has sold more than half a million copies in each of its first five weeks of release — something only four albums have done since SoundScan began tracking data in 1991. The Beatles’ “1″ did it in its first six weeks, while Garth Brooks’ “Sevens” and Backstreet Boys’ “Black & Blue” each managed 500,000-plus frames in their first five weeks.
With just one more tracking week left in the year, “Dream” may overtake Taylor Swift’s “Fearless” as the year’s top selling album in the U.S. Swift’s “Fearless” has sold 3,157,000 in 2009 — thus, the gap between the two is down to just 175,000. Because of a quirk in the calendar, instead of 52 tracking weeks in 2009, there are 53. The final week of 2009 will reflect sales data for the week ending Jan. 3. Because four out of the seven days in that week fall in 2009, the full week gets credited to 2009.
Believe it or not, with the continued domination of “I Dreamed a Dream,” Boyle is the first artist in the Billboard 200′s 53-year chart history to enter the list at No. 1 with a debut album and spend five consecutive weeks at the summit. In second place are Lauryn Hill (1998) and Ashanti (2002), each with three weeks in charge out of the gate with “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” and “Ashanti,” respectively.
Because Boyle continues to dominate the Billboard 200, a superstar diva is forced to sit on the sidelines again this week: Mary J. Blige’s “Stronger With Each Tear” debuts at No. 2 with 330,000 copies. Her arrival comes one week after Alicia Keys’ “The Element of Freedom” bowed at No. 2 behind Boyle with 417,000.
This is Blige’s third studio album in a row to start with more than 300,000 sold. Her last set, “Growing Pains,” launched at No. 1 with 629,000 in December of 2007, while “The Breakthrough” debuted at No. 1 with 727,000 in December of 2005. Blige is the ninth woman in SoundScan’s 18-year history to see at least three albums all debut with an opening sales week of 300,000 or more. “Stronger” is her 10th top 10 album on the Billboard 200 and her seventh set to reach the top two slots. It fares better on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, where it starts at the summit. Now with nine No. 1s on the latter chart, Blige trails only Aretha Franklin (10 No. 1s) for most No. 1s among women in the R&B/Hip-Hop tally’s 44-year history
Blige’s “Stronger” is one of just two debuts within the top 40 of the Billboard 200 this week, as the year slowly comes to a close. The lone other entry comes from the “We Are Young Money” collaborations album featuring artists on Lil Wayne’s Young Money label. It debuts at No. 9 with 142,000.
Next week’s batch of debuts will look especially barren, as no major releases were issued this week. The next big arrival will be Ke$ha’s “Animal” on Tuesday, Jan. 5.
The rest of this week’s top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 remains full of familiar titles. Andrea Bocelli’s “My Christmas” holds at No. 3 with 284,000 (down 27%) while Keys’ “Freedom” falls two slots to No. 4 with 280,000 (down 33%). Swift’s “Fearless” moves down one rung to No. 5 with 224,000 (down 6%), while Lady Gaga’s “The Fame” stays put at No. 6 with 169,000 (up 20%). Justin Bieber’s “My World” EP climbs from No. 8 to No. 7 with 157,000 (up 23%) while Carrie Underwood’s “Play On” slides three slots to No. 8 with 153,000 (down less than 1%). Closing out the top 10 is Michael Buble’s “Crazy Love,” down three positions, with 137,000 (down 3%).
Overall album sales in this past chart week (ending Dec. 27) totaled 17.14 million units, up 13% compared to the sum last week (15.14 million) and up 1% compared to the same sales week of 2008 (17.03 million). Year to date album sales stand at 374.6 million, down 13% compared to the same total at this point last year (428.4 million).
