US Chart Goss

Fall Out Boy top US albums chart

Source: Music Week

Introductory single This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race had to settle for a number two peak on the Hot 100, but Fall Out Boy’s second album, Infinity On High, goes one better, debuting in pole position in America this week, writes Alan Jones.

The Chicago band’s first album, From Under The Cork Tree, reached number nine in 2005 but Infinity On High secures pole position by dint of a first week sale of 260,000, relegating Norah Jones’ Not Too Late to second place.

There are also Top 10 debuts for newcomers Ashley Tisdale and Jason Michael Carroll.

Twenty-one-year-old singer/actress Tisdale, one of the stars of Disney’s enormously popular High School Musical, debuts at number five with her mainstream pop set Headstrong on sales of 64,000, while 28-year-old country sensation Carroll, originally from Houston, debuts at number eight on the Top 200 on sales of 58,000 with his first album Waiting In The Country, while entering the country albums chart at number one.

It registers the highest first week sales for an album by a new male country artist since 1992, when Billy Ray Cyrus’s Some Give All opened with sales of 90,000 - a spooky coincidence, since Carroll’s fundamentalist preacher father spanked him for daring to own a copy of Cyrus’ breakthrough hit single Achy Breaky Heart as a child.

The screening of the Grammy awards always provides a boost to nominees, winners and performers and Corinne Bailey Rae’s incendiary performance on the show, accompanied by John Legend and John Mayer, sent the Leeds lass’s self-titled debut album back into the Top 10. Jumping 17-9 on sales of more than 60,000, the album also moves 16-7 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop chart - a new peak.

Meanwhile Bloc Party’s A Weekend In The City debuts at number 12 stateside on sales of 48,000. The band’s second album far exceeds their 2005 debut, Silent Alarm, which climbed no higher than number 114.

Other Brits in the top half of the chart: Lily Allen slips 20-23 with Alright, Still, even though introductory single Smile improves 54-49 on the Hot 100; The Beatles’ Love ebbs 35-41, the lowest placing of its 12 week chart career; KT Tunstall’s Eye To The Telescope starts its second year in the chart with a gentle 81-85 decline; and Snow Patrol’s Eyes Open is up 93-91, although its sales are flat.

On the Hot 100, Beyonce’s 10-week reign with Irreplaceable is finally over, as Nelly Furtado’s Say It Right climbs 2-1 to secure the Canadian’s second number one.