US Chart Goss

Tool top US Billboard albums chart

Source: Music Week

Nearly five years after their third album, Laterus, gave them their first US number one album, Tool make an even bigger impact with follow-up 10,000 Days, which sold a hefty first week 563,532 copies – nearly 10% more than Laterus managed when it dethroned Destiny’s Child’s Survivor in June 2001, writes Alan Jones.

Tool’s success deals a hammer blow to Pearl Jam’s attempts to secure a fourth number one with their self-titled eighth studio album, which pulled up short of Tool with sales of 279,137. Pearl Jam have three number ones to their credit, having topped the chart with VS (1993), Vitalogy (1994) and No Code (1996).

Completing an all new top three, hip-hop duo Mobb Deep sold 105,747 copies of Blood Money to debut at number three. It’s a total that would have earned them their first number one earlier in the year but is fewer than any of their last five albums sold on their first week in the shops.

The week’s big new intake (17 new entries to the Top 200) also includes a number eight debut for Jewel’s latest, Goodbye Alice In Wonderland (81,656 sales) and a number 10 debut for country star Phil Vassar’s Greatest Hits Volume 1 (64,644.

After sliding 7-15 last week, James Blunt rallies to number 13, with sales of Back To Bedlam up 9% week-on-week to 58,153. He remains the top ranked UK artist despite a spirited jump from KT Tunstall’s Eye To The Telescope., which reaches a new peak on its 13th week on the chart,, climbing 56-33. Tunstall’s album is one of several in this week’s chart to benefit from indirect American Idol exposure, with one of the five remaining contestants in the competition singing Tunstall’s Black Horse & The Cherry Tree. Tunstall’s album increased sales by 78% week-on-week to 27,635, improving its total to 270,734. Black Horse & The Cherry Tree enjoyed an even bigger surge on the download chart, rocketing 90-9 with sales of 37,584 representing an increase of 377% over last week. The track consequently makes excellent progress on the Hot 100, where it jumps 79-23.

Back on the album chart, the week’s only debut from a UK act is Gomez’s How We Operate, which debuts at number 106 on sales of 8,303. The band’s last album, Split The Difference, provided them with their first Top 200 appearance in 2004, but spent just one week on the chart, at number 191. How We Operate has received a warm welcome from US critics, and is released in the UK next Monday (15th).