For the second week in a row, Ashanti, the new princess of R&B, will lord over the Billboard 200 albums chart. Her self-titled debut sold nearly 250,000 copies, according to SoundScan figures released Wednesday (April 17), enough to keep Celine Dion’s A New Day Has Come at #2 on sales of more than 225,000 copies.
Now That’s What I Call Music! Vol. 9, featuring songs by Pink, Ludacris and ‘NSYNC, moves up one spot to #3 after selling over 140,000 units. Entering at #4 are the Goo Goo Dolls, whose Gutterflower sold more than 100,000 copies in its first week. Tweet’s Southern Hummingbird slips into fifth place, pushing the Grammy-winning “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack down to #6. The album of bluegrass standards sold almost 75,000 copies in its 68th week on the chart.
“The Scorpion King” soundtrack (#7), Shakira’s Laundry Service (#8) and Pink’s Missundaztood(#9) all scoot up to make room for the top 10’s second debut, Neil Young’s Are You Passionate? Clearly, his fans are: more than 56,000 people picked up the LP, featuring the song “Let’s Roll,” which is an homage to the passengers on September 11th’s Flight 93 who used the titular phrase.
Not far behind, classical-cum-pop vocalist Josh Groban’s self-titled album skyrockets 109 places to #12 following a recent appearance at the Olympics and a profile on “20/20.” The album sold more than 55,000 copies. Right behind Groban, Bonnie Raitt’s Silver Lining debuts at #13 with over 54,000 copies sold. Linkin Park (#16), Nickelback (#18) and Alan Jackson (#20) all maintain their longtime presence in the top 20.
Further down the chart, Ozzy Osbourne’s Down to Earth moves up 15 spots to #97. Partying and puking, Andrew W.K. takes his I Get Wet up 14 notches to #110 following last week’s performance on “Saturday Night Live.” Res, who made it into the last spot on the chart last week after her How I Do had been out nearly a year, moves up 30 places to #170.
Several movie soundtracks take a dip on next week’s chart. “Queen of the Damned” falls 27 places to #86, “Resident Evil” drops 25 positions to #88 and “Lord of the Rings” backslides 37 spots to #151.
More of next week’s debuts include Twiztid’s Mirror Mirror (#103), Quarashi’s Jinx (#104) and Rusted Root’s Welcome to My Party (#129).
