Blunt holds at two on Billboard chart

24 March 2006 - 14:56:37

Music Week

 

James Blunt's Back To Bedlam holds at number two on Billboard's Top 200 album chart, on its 24th week in the listings, writes Alan Jones.

 

Blunt's album surged 9-2 last week, on massive gains fuelled by the singer/songwriter's appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. With the impact of that appearance fading, and no new impetus to help the album to reach pole position, its sales dip by 22% week-on-week to 126,150.

 

Juvenile, who trumped Blunt last week, slides 1-5 with his new album Reality Check allowing the Disney TV soundtrack to High School Musical to nip in to take chart honours for the second time. The surprise hit of the year, and comprising songs by a cast of previously unknown young actors/singers, it previously topped the chart three weeks ago, and has increased sales for nine weeks in a row since its January chart debut. It sold 142,272 copies last week, 3% more than the previous week, to take its cumulative total to 811,806.

 

Completing the top three, the only new entry to the Top 20 this week comes from E-40. The 31-year-old rapper lands the 12th and highest charting album of his career with My Ghetto Report Card, which opens at number three on sales of 93,526, helped enormously by the fast rising hit Tell Me Where To Go, which vaults 58-35 on the Hot 100.

 

A dozen new albums invade the chart but the fact that only the E-40 album sold in any numbers means that sales are down week-on-week by 2.6%. They are off 4.1% compared to the same week last year.

 

The only British act to debut this week is Black Sabbath, whose Greatest Hits 1970-1978 arrives at number 96 on sales of 11,227.

 

There are two other Brits in the Top 40: David Gilmour's On An Island slides 6-16 with sales off 57% to 40,891, while Natasha Bedingfield climbs 43-40 with Unwritten as the single of the same name climbs 7-6 to reach a new Hot 100 chart peak. Bedingfield's album sold 22,479 copies last week, just 58 more than the week before, to lift its total to 381,752.

 

Meanwhile, increasing airplay for The Arctic Monkeys sparks an 18% improvement in sales of their debut album Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not to 21,594, earning it a 52-42 climb.

 

Although Edinburgh's KT Tunstall's first hit single Black Horse & The Cherry Tree improves 91-81 on the Hot 100, her Eye To The Telescope album is off 13% week-on-week with 20,880 sales and falls 40-46.

 

On the Hot 100, Sean Paul's Temperature rises again to take over at the top, while Canadian singer/songwriter Daniel Powter repeats his European success with debut single Bad Day climbing 5-2 on only its sixth week in the chart.

 

Last week's tally of eight records on the chart by British acts - the highest of the decade - is reduced to seven as Gorillaz's Dare dips out for the second time. Their Feel Good Inc is also in remission, falling 43-50.

 

Other singles by British artists not mentioned elsewhere in this report are James Blunt's You're Beautiful (down 3-4) and Goodbye My Lover (66-71) and Sting's Always On Your Side collaboration with Sheryl Crow, which slumps 33-74.

 

The US radio mix & US video of Natasha Beddingfield's Unwritten is a big improvement on the British versions from last year - if those US versions had been available in the UK last year then Unwritten would have ben a far bigger hit.