Susan Boyle holds tight to #1 on next week’s albums chart. By Gil Kaufman T.I.’s No Mercy Photo: Grand Hustle Records Susan Boyle has officially earned the honorary title of Christmas Queen. For the second year in a row, the “Britain’s Got Talent” runner-up is taking on all comers with a chart-topping holiday release that has a stranglehold on the top spot of the Billboard 200 albums chart. Her second release, The Gift, will once again take the pole position next week with sales of 243,000, giving her a five-week total north of 1.3 million, according to figures provided by Nielsen SoundScan. The only new release to crack the top five is T.I.’s No Mercy, which comes in at #4. The album sold 159,000 just weeks after the King of the South reported to prison for an 11-month sentence tied to a probation violation from his 2007 federal weapons case. Also breaking into the top 10 is the “Tron Legacy” soundtrack from helmet-rocking techno duo Daft Punk, which moved 71,000 copies in its chart debut. The top 10 is otherwise just a shuffle of the usual suspects. Taylor Swift keeps her grip on the #2 spot with Speak Now, which sold 201,000 copies, pushing her past the 2.3 million mark in less than two months. Swift is followed by the “Glee” Christmas album (#3, 193,000), grade school reality-show opera singer Jackie Evancho’s O Holy Night EP (#5, 149,000), Nicki Minaj’s Pink Friday (#6, 82,000), Josh Groban’s Illuminations (#7, 75,000), another “Glee” collection, Vol. 4 (#8, 74,000), and Rihanna’s Loud (#9, 71,000). After just two weeks in the top 10, Kanye West’s well-reviewed My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy falls to #14 as sales shrank by 39 percent to 67,000. The Black Eyed Peas had an even harsher comedown for The Beginning, which drops 10 spots in week two to #16 (62,000, sales down 48 percent). Hard rockers Hinder enter the fray at #37 with All American Nightmare (35,000) while deadmau5 squeaks in at #47 with his album 4×4=12 (27,0000) and British soul siren Duffy hits #72 with her second album, Endlessly (18,000). My Chemical Romance are marching the wrong way on the chart with Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, which drops 27 spots to #87 in its third week, selling just 15,000 copies. That’s gangbusters compared to season nine “American Idol” winner Lee DeWyze, who continues to struggle to get traction for his debut, Live It Up. The LP slides another 10 spots to #133 on sales of 9,000, giving him a one-month total just shy of 72,000. The “Glee” Christmas album is tops on the iTunes albums chart, besting T.I., who settles in at #2, followed by Kanye, “Tron,” deadmua5, Mumford & Sons’ Sigh No More, Bruno Mars’ Doo-Wops & Hooligans, Hinder, Rihanna and the “Burlesque” soundtrack. The singles chart once again belongs to Katy Perry and her smash “Firework,” with Mars right behind with “Grenade.” They’re followed by the Black Eyed Peas’ “The Time (Dirty Bit),” Rihanna and Drake’s “What’s My Name,” Pink’s “Raise Your Glass,” Ke$ha’s “We R Who We R,” T.I.’s hookup with Eminem, “That’s All She Wrote,” Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yellow,” Trey Songz’s “Bottoms Up” and Enrique Iglesias’ “Tonight.” Next week should present the first challenge to Boyle’s domination with the arrival of late pop icon Michael Jackson’s first posthumous studio album, Michael, as well as new discs from R. Kelly, Diddy-Dirty Money, Ciara and the major-label debut of “Idol” runner-up Crystal Bowersox. Related Artists T.I. Susan Boyle Taylor Swift
Read the rest here:
T.I.’s No Mercy Debuts At #4 On Billboard
