Legendary Rocker’s Columbia Album Headed for Top After #1 iTunes, Media Flurry, Young Dro, Jessica Simpson Up Next

August 30, 2006

To the prophet go the spoils.

Bob Dylan may be old enough to be your grandfather, but he also looks like he’s going to have the #1 album in the country next week, based on one-day reports from our cracked staff of retailers.

The critically acclaimed Modern Times, the third of a comeback trilogy which included 2001’s Love & Theft and 1997’s Grammy-winning Time Out of Mind, looks headed for the top slot on next Tuesday’s album sales chart with a total that could surpass 130k... unless this week’s #1 Danity Kane can hold on after first-week sales of 216k.

The impressive debut for Zimmy comes on the heels of #1 sales at iTunes, a TV campaign for Apple’s music monster, the debut of his XM Satellite Radio show on AOL and some of the strongest reviews of his fabled career.

Grand Hustle/Atlantic rapper Young Dro, a protégé of fellow Atlanta hip-hop star T.I., is up next with a total that seems headed towards, if not past, 100k.

Jessica Simpson’s Epic bow, A Public Affair, is headed for between 85-95k, followed by Def Jam/IDJ’s Method Man and The Roots’ IDJ debut (45-50k) with veteran Jive/ZLG Oaktown rapper Too Short next at 35k.

Next Tuesday, Epic/Interscope’s Audioslave and Columbia’s Beyonce top the list of new releases.

The market was off by less than one percent vs. last week, down slightly over 1% vs. same week last year and now down over 5% year-to-date.

How can they project that?

CinisterCee said:

I don't know but they seem to be right most of the time.

CinisterCee said:

Pre-Sales maybe, or radio play?

VinnyM27 said:

They can project it because its all based on the orders that stores have placed so those numbers are in already, the only they dont know is if something has a Late Surge, which Danity Kane had last week, and how stores do reorders on them. But its not really a report of what people are buying.