I think this is the first time the 3 year old 'J Records' imprint has had the top 2 records in the US. I could be wrong but I dont think so. Ruben blasts to #1 ourperforming most predictions (that were mostly in the 350-400K range)...his mighty debut though huge was about 200K shy of Gay...I mean Clay Aikens record but about 150K more than Kelly Clarksons. No doubt about it...'American Idol' sells records (their Christmas album is even selling at #52 this week with 55,500K sold to rack up a total of 305,000 so far).

Musiq, Westside Connection and Avant all debut in the Top 20 and had this not been the middle of the hefty Xmas shopping season...each of these records would've been Top 5 had they been released at other times of the year...

Enjoy..

ARITST/TITLE/CURRNT WK SCANS/SCANS TO DATE

1-Ruben Studdard/Soulful/417,230/417,230
2-Alicia Keys/Diary of/342,400/965,900
3-Various/NOW 14/260,800/1,359,400
4-Toby Keith/Shock N'Yall/245,350/1,640,930
5-Josh Groban/Closer/237,700/1,200,800
6-Outkast/Speakerboxx/215,200/2,381,060
7-Rod Stewart/Vol 2/204,070/1,112,270
8-Hilary Duff/Metamorphosis/201,190/1,885,340
9-Sheryl Crow/Very Best of/173,700/967,090
10-Britney Spears/In The Zone/158,380/1,170,050
11-Clay Aiken/Measure of A Man/156,820/1,716,250
12-No Doubt/Singles/156,730/557,000
13-Musiq/Soulstar/156,180/156,180
14-Sarah McLachlan/Afterglow/139,040/1,063,500
15-Alan Jackson/GH Vol II/136,580/1,716,400
16-Westside Connection/Terrorist Threats/137,060/137,060
17-Harry Connick Jr/Harry for the Holi/128,900/502,140
18-Avant/Private Room/128,850/128,850
19-Blink 182/Blink 182/117,100/673,400
20-Beatles/Let It Be...Naked/116,560/634,500

Other debuts

21-Big Tymers/Big Money Heavy/116,000/116,000
27-Kelis/Tasty/93,690/93,690
30-Offspring/Splinter/87,700/87,700
45-Hoobastank/The Reason/65,700/65,700
83-Nick Cannon/Nick Cannon/36,430/36,430
111-Fefe Dobson/Fefe Dobson/29,600/29,600

VANITYSprisonBYTCH said:

These kinds of astronomical record sales and the record industry is suffering because of MP3 file sharing? Riiight.

JANFAN4L said:

I know..but if you look back to THIS WEEK a few years back...say '98 or '99 and the Top 10 would've ranged in the 300k-800k units sold...Though the numbers are huge this week...they were much bigger in years past. I think this year shows promise from last year though. I think this week THIS YEAR is bigger than same week LAST YEAR. I'll have to look.

VANITYSprisonBYTCH said:

Well, the reason the numbers are smaller is because MOST of the stuff in the top 20 is absolute tripe. Instead of bitching about file sharing and mp3 players, why don't they release some good material?

Very True...Hilary Duff, Clay Aiken,.Ruben Studdard.. Britney Spears..Musiq, Josh Groban...which one of these will last after another year or two???

Britney's on the way DOWN
Hilary is the new Britney, give her 3-5 years
Clay & Ruben..one will have staying power..we'll see
Josh Groban...another contemporary classical tenor will stomp him
Musiq-Really..not as good as most people claim...his music is boring and I give him another album before no one cares!

VoicesCarry said:

Yeah but even tripe was moving more units four years ago.

VANITYSprisonBYTCH said:

you mean in past years when file-sharing was absolutely unthreatened (unlike this year) on the user end, and especially in 1999 (the last biggest year the music industry had, i believe) when Napster was at its peak...>?

People are getting BORED with music because we lack

a) visionaries
b) superstars who can make good music
c) combinations of a and b

Remember when Prince, Madonna, and MJ would be in the top 10 at the same time? Those were the days...

Now all I have to look forward to is the latest untalented female singer slutting it up for a quick buck. Thanks for starting that trend, Britney. I really wouldn't mind if they actually produced good music while they were at it. And what happened to good male pop stars? All we have isClay Aiken, Ruben (a poor poor poor poor man's scratchy-voiced Luther) and Justin Timberlake, who chooses to cannibalize all the good aspects of MJ's music. Lifeless, soulless, factory-produced shit pop

VoicesCarry said:

I really hope the media doesn't start comparing Ruben to Luther. Please, please, no. That's like comparing 50-Cent to Tupac. There is no comparison.

OdysseyMiles said:

Gah. Must learn to type outside of the quotes lol.

Exactly. But for some reason this comparison has been made since his first performance on American Idol.

AaronAlmighty said:

That's right...'99 was the last year record sales saw an increase. '00 saw the first decrease which was not to drastic. It was '01 that saw a 10% drop which was huge amount of millions lost. It was '01 when the majors started massive layoffs and rumors of mergers and buyouts became the norm.

Today we have to major distributors that may merge in Feb:

SONY-Home to Columbia, Epic
BMG-Home to Arista, RCA, J, Jive, V2, Sanctuary

...and a buyout that ended up not happening between:

EMI-Home to Capitol, Virgin, Blue Note, Astrelwerks, Nettwerk

WEA-Warner, Elektra, Atlantic

...and within Universal...labels have been acquiring sister labels

Dreamworks acquiring Universal Records/Motown
Geffen acquiring MCA


Everyone's wanting to combine their assets in some way to save each other from falling even further.

VANITYSprisonBYTCH said:

what's completely transparent in their cries that piracy is hurting the industry, is that they're completely ignoring the fact that the country has been in a recession during the years that they've been "suffering"... very few industries have had growth in the same period.