There’s little cheer at the beginning of the holiday sales season. With the exception of the new releases and Christmas discs from Barbra Streisand and Mannheim Steamroller, every album in the top 50 had fewer sales in the week ending Dec. 2 than the week before, according to SoundScan figures issued Wednesday.
Creed’s “Weathered” (Wind-Up) continues to hold the top spot with second-week sales of 417,000 units, a 53% drop. For the rest of the holdovers in the top five, “Now That’s What I Call Music Vol. 8” (Virgin) fell 46% to 353,000 units; Garth Brooks’ “Scarecrow” (Capitol Nashville) slid 48% to 231,000; and Britney Spears’ “Britney” (Jive) saw its sales sliced in half to almost 226,000.
Rapper Ludacris’ “Word of Mouf” (Def Jam/Universal) led the newcomers, landing at No. 3 on sales of nearly 282,000. Busta Rhymes’ first disc for J Records, “Genesis,” went home with 185,000 consumers, good enough for the No. 7 spot. The two-CD recording of “The Concert for New York” (Columbia) sold 77,000 copies and reached No. 27, while Smashmouth’s self-titled Interscope disc reached No. 48 on sales of 40,000.
Eighteen single-artist greatest hits packages registered in the top 200, led by Pink Floyd’s “Echoes” (Capitol), which sold 114,000 units to push it near a total of 600,000. The biggest gainer, owing largely to the death of George Harrison on Nov. 29, was the Beatles “1” compilation of hits released last year by Capitol. Sales nearly doubled last week, pushing the disc to almost 31,000 sold, good enough for No. 73.
The only new competition for next week comes from Cypress Hill, as the greatest-hits avalanche continues with albums from Cher, Ice Cube, Mariah Carey, Neil Diamond and OutKast plus a collection of Limp Bizkit remixes.
