Billboard 200: 5/14/11- Adele No. 1: 124,000

Only 52k to go - I'll be infinitely happy if Sigh No More outsells Teenage Dream.

Adele's '21' Marks Sixth Week At No. 1
May 04, 2011
By Keith Caulfield (keith_caulfield), Los Angeles

It's a sleepy post-Easter week on the Billboard 200, as there isn't a single debut in the top 10 -- the first time that has happened since the tally dated Jan. 22. And not a single album in the top 40 posts a sales gain. Things should brighten up next week, once a bevy of new sets from the likes of Beastie Boys and Jennifer Lopez reach the tally.

Meanwhile, at No. 1 this week -- again -- is Adele's "21," marking its sixth nonconsecutive week atop the tally (124,000; down 19%, according to Nielsen SoundScan). It's just the fifth album by a woman in the last 10 years to earn as many weeks at No. 1. Since 2001, the only other female solo albums with six weeks in the penthouse are Norah Jones' "Feels Like Home," Susan Boyle's "I Dreamed a Dream" and Taylor Swift's "Speak Now" and "Fearless." (Swift's latter album has logged 11 weeks total at No. 1).

The chart's highest new entry is from Explosions in the Sky with their sixth album, "Take Care, Take Care, Take Care," starting at No. 16 with 19,000. That immediately trumps the act's previous high, which came with its previous effort, 2007's "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone," which spent three weeks on the list, peaking at No. 86.

Back in the top 10, Foo Fighters' "Wasting Light" steps 3-2 with just 34,000 (down 52%) while Mumford & Sons' "Sigh No More" climbs 7-3 with 32,000 (down 17%). Britney Spears' "Femme Fatale" rises one rung to No. 4 (30,000; down 34%), the "Lemonade Mouth" soundtrack falls one spot to No. 5 (nearly 30,000; down 57%), and Chris Brown's "F.A.M.E." ascends three places to No. 6 (28,000; down 22%). Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" jumps three to No. 8 (24,000; down 31%), Wiz Khalifa's "Rolling Papers" slides 12-9 (nearly 24,000; down 30%), and Paul Simon's "So Beautiful or So What" falls 8-10 (almost 24,000; down 36%).

Last week's No. 2 album, "Glee, the Music Presents: The Warblers," slides five rungs to No. 7 in its second week (28,000; down 68%). Despite its tumble, lead Warbler Darren Criss has reason to celebrate. He wrote the music and lyrics to the musical "Starship," whose cast recording bows at No. 134 on the Billboard 200 and at No. 1 on our Top Cast Albums chart (4,000 sold). The set was released exclusively through digital retailers on Friday, April 29, meaning it bows on the list this week with just three days of sales. (The tracking week ends on Sunday, May 8.)

Over on the Digital Songs chart, Perry's "E.T." continues to hold court at No. 1 with a little more than 300,000 (down 13%), barely edging out Adele's "Rolling in the Deep," which is steady at No. 2 (with almost 300,000; up 1%). Making an expected leap up the tally is Spears' "Till the World Ends," which rallies 12-3 with 246,000 (up 102%). Its gain is fueled by the much-hyped new remix of the song featuring Nicki Minaj and Ke$ha.

Bruno Mars' "The Lazy Song" holds at No. 4 (194,000; up 3%), the Black Eyed Peas' "Just Can't Get Enough" falls two to No. 5 (176,000; down 15%), and Tinie Tempah's "Written in the Stars" (featuring Eric Turner) rises 11-6 (144,000; up 12%). Ke$ha's "Blow" climbs two spots to No. 7 (143,000; down 5%), Jennifer Lopez's "On the Floor" is down one to No. 8 (139,000; down 14%), and Brown's "Look at Me Now" also falls a rung to No. 9 (131,000; down 14%). Closing out the top 10 is Cee Lo Green's "F**k You (Forget You)," rising 13-10 (124,000; up 3%). The Digital Songs chart's highest debut is the Glee cast's mash-up of "I Feel Pretty" (from "West Side Story") and TLC's "Unpretty," which bows at No. 13 with 112,000.

Overall album sales in this past chart week (ending May 1) totaled 5.4 million units, down 17% compared with the sum last week (6.5 million) and down 2% compared with the comparable sales week of 2010 (5.5 million). Year-to-date album sales stand at 101.9 million, down 2% compared with the same total at this point last year (103.7 million).

Digital track sales this past week totaled 25.3 million downloads, down 5% compared with last week (26.7 million) and up 18% stacked next to the comparable week of 2010 (21.5 million). Year-to-date track sales are at 438.4 million, up 10% compared with the same total at this point last year (400 million).

Next week's Billboard 200 competes with the same week in 2010 when: Godmack's "Oracle" debuted at No. 1 with 117,000 while MercyMe's "The Generous Mr. Lovewell" launched at No. 3 with 88,000. The previous week's topper, B.o.B's "The Adventures of Bobby Ray," fell to No. 12 in its second week with 36,000 (down 57%).

www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/charts-articles/chart-alert/adele-s-21-marks-sixth-week-at-no-1-1005168212.story

Britney Spears ended up higher with Sound Scan.

Adele and Mumford & Sons Go Go Go!!!!

What is sustaining Mumford & Sons sales? they don't even have a top40 hit.

Carrie Underwood, Play On (3,000, -29%, 1.993 million)
Carrie Underwood, Some Hearts (2,000, -8%, 7.102 million)
Daughtry, Daughtry (1,000, -16%, 4.801 million)
Charlie Wilson, Just Charlie (3,000, -17%, 214,000
Glee Cast, Glee: The Music, Vol. 1 (3,000, -36%, 1.166 million)
Aerosmith, Greatest Hits (2,000, -33%, 5.299 million)
Aerosmith, Devil's Got a New Disguise (2,000, -31%, 621,000)

Are we reading the same article? No debuts in the Top 15. Every album in the Top 40 declined in sales. If not for Adele, the #1 album would have sold under 35k. The sky is not falling - it has hit the ground, been run over and stomped on.

^^It's a bad week. That's all.

We had major releases yesterday. Next week's chart will be much better.

Yay Britney wasn't the one with the record low #2 :')

yay TTWE jumps to #3 and Femme Fatale stays strong in top 5 such an awesome week for Britney fans

Oh yes, let's just follow Adele's numbers.. then why the hell post the other numbers if she's all that matters? Take your shade, Britney is doing consistent

Next week, FF will be gold!

^LOL Seriously. is it not obvious that the comment was an exaggerated one? Fact is, Adele is THE hot act in music right now- everyone else, like it or not, is not even close to her sales momentum. So, saying it's all about Adele is no different than saying it's all about such-and-such when they were dominating the charts.

:)

new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/chart_watch/74359/week-ending-may-1-2011-albums-adele-saves-music-biz/#mwpphu-post-form

Week Ending May 1, 2011. Albums: Adele Saves Music Biz
Posted by Paul Grein in Chart Watch

Adele is single-handedly keeping the lights on in the beleaguered music industry. The singer's sophomore album, 21, sold another 124,000 copies this week, bringing its total sales 1,399,000. The album has sold more copies in just 10 weeks than Mumford & Sons' sleeper hit Sigh No More has sold in 58 weeks (1,377,000) or Rihanna's out-of-the-box hit Loud has sold in 24 weeks (1,231,000).

21 is the first album to sell more than 100K copies this many weeks after its release since Sigh No More sold 133K copies in its 48th week (right after the Grammys in February). It's the first album to spend its first 10 weeks in the top three since Eminem's Recovery spent its first 13 weeks in that elite territory.

21 tops The Billboard 200 for the sixth week. It's the longest-running #1 album since Taylor Swift's Speak Now had six weeks on top from October into January. It's the longest-running #1 album by a British artist since Susan Boyle's I Dreamed A Dream had six weeks on top in late 2009.

Adele has a second album in the top 20. Her 2008 debut, 19, jumps from #28 to #20 in its 79th week on the chart. 19 is #1 on the Catalog Albums chart for the 10th time in the past 11 weeks. This is the first time a studio album (as opposed to a hits compilation) has topped the catalog chart this long since Michael Jackson's Thriller 25 led the way for 11 weeks in 2008 (which was of course the year before he died).

In addition, 21 holds at #1 in the U.K. for the 13th week. It's the longest run at #1 in that country since the Spice Girls' Spice had 15 weeks on top from November 1996 to May 1997. 19 rebounds to #2 on the U.K. chart. This is the fifth week so far this year in which Adele has had both of the top two albums in the U.K., according to The Official Charts Co.

Mumford & Sons' Sigh No More rebounds from #6 to #3 in its 58th week. It's the first time that an album this old has placed in the top three since Lady Gaga's The Fame ranked #3 in its 66th week in January 2010.

Katy Perry's Teenage Dream rebounds from #11 to #8 in its 36th week. The album has sold more copies during its run than any other album in this week's top 20 (1,429,000). Last week, it surpassed the total sales to date of Perry's 2008 debut, One Of The Boys, which is up to 1,381,000.

Perry's current hit, "E.T." (featuring Kanye West), this week surpasses Cee Lo Green's "F**k You (Forget You)" to become the #1 digital seller so far in 2011. "E.T." has sold 2,493,000 copies in 2011. "F**k You" has sold 2,489,000. Perry, you will remember, had the #1 digital hit of 2010, "California Gurls" (featuring Snoop Dogg).

"E.T." won a tight race with Adele's "Rolling In The Deep" to wind up #1 on Hot Digital Songs. Both songs sold 300K this week. ("E.T." was ahead by about 500 units.) Which will prevail on the Hot 100? You'll find out when we post Chart Watch: Songs later today.

Paul Simon's So Beautiful Or So What dips to #10 in its third week in the top 10. This is Simon's biggest hit since The Rhythm Of The Saints logged 13 weeks in the top 10 in 1990-1991. The Rhythm Of The Saints was a Grammy finalist for Album of the Year in 1991 (it lost to Natalie Cole's Unforgettable With Love). So Beautiful Or So What is likely to make the Album of the Year finals next year (it will probably lose to Adele's 21.)

Shameless Plug: This month marks 20 years since Billboard first used Nielsen SoundScan data to power its charts. I will commemorate the anniversary over the next couple of weeks with a few Chart Watch Extras. First up is a year-by-year look at the #1 best-selling songs of each of the past 20 years. You can watch as physical singles crash and burn and digital songs gradually fill the void. The year-end totals range from eye-popping (Elton John's "Candle In The Wind 1997" sold more than 8 million copies in 1997) to depressing (there were five years in a row in the transition period from physical to digital in which the year's top-seller didn't even crack 1 million). Look for this Chart Watch Extra tomorrow.

Here's the low-down on this week's top 10 albums.

1. Adele, 21, 124,000. The album logs its sixth week at #1. The album sold 53K digital copies this week. This brings its digital total to 645K, which puts it in eighth place on the all-time list of top-selling digital albums. Four songs from the album are listed on Hot Digital Songs, topped by "Rolling In The Deep," which holds at #2.

2. Foo Fighters, Wasting Light, 34,000. The former #1 album rebounds from #3 to #2 in its third week. No songs from the album are listed on Hot Digital Songs.

3. Mumford & Sons, Sigh No More, 32,000. The album jumps from #7 to #3 in its 58th week. This is its 16th week in the top 10. Two songs from the album are listed on Hot Digital Songs. "The Cave" drops from #60 to #66. "Little Lion Man" drops from #72 to #77.

4. Britney Spears, Femme Fatale, 30,000. The former #1 album moves up from #5 to #4 in its fifth week. It has been in the top 10 the entire time. Two songs from the album are listed on Hot Digital Songs. "Till The World Ends" jumps from #12 to #3. "Hold It Against Me" drops from #113 to #122.

5. Various Artists, Lemonade Mouth soundtrack, 30,000. The soundtrack dips from #4 to #5 in its second week. It's the #1 soundtrack for the second time in the past three weeks. Six songs from the album are listed on Hot Digital Songs, topped by "Determinate," which drops from #28 to #43.

6. Chris Brown, F.A.M.E., 28,000. The former #1 album rebounds from #9 to #6 in its sixth week. It has been in the top 10 the entire time. Four songs from the album are listed on Hot Digital Songs, topped by "Look At Me Now" (featuring Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes), which dips from #8 to #9.

7. Glee Cast, Glee: The Music Presents The Warblers, 28,000. The album drops from #2 to #7 in its second week. The cast's version of Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know" vaults from #119 to #21 on Hot Digital Songs. (Darren Criss fans, read on.)

8. Katy Perry, Teenage Dream, 24,000. The former #1 album rebounds from #11 to #8 in its 36th week. This is its eighth week in the top 10. Four songs from the album are listed on Hot Digital Songs, topped by "E.T." (featuring Kanye West), which holds at #1 for the seventh week.

9. Wiz Khalifa, Rolling Papers. 24,000. The album rebounds from #12 to #9 in its fifth week. This is its fourth week in the top 10. Four songs from the album are listed on Hot Digital Songs, topped by "Roll Up," which jumps from #20 to #18.

10. Paul Simon, So Beautiful Or So What, 24,000. The album drops from #8 to #10 in its third week. It has been in the top 10 the entire time. No songs from the album are listed on Hot Digital Songs.

Two albums drop out of the top 10 this week. Alison Krauss & Union Station's Paper Airplane drops from #6 to #12. Justin Bieber's Never Say Never: The Remixes drops from #10 to #22.

Jason Aldean's My Kinda Party rebounds from #13 to #11 in its 26th week. The album is far ahead of the blockbuster that kept it out of the #1 spot in November. Taylor Swift's Speak Now, which was in its second week at #1 the week My Kinda Party opened at #2, is currently #30. This is the sixth week that My Kinda Party has been #1 on Top Country Albums. That's the longest run on top by a male solo artist since Toby Keith's Honkytonk University had seven weeks on top from May to July 2005.

Explosions In The Sky's sixth album, Take Care, Take Care, Take Care, bows at #16. This is a huge improvement for the band, which peaked at #86 with its previous release, 2007's All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone...The story is similar with The Airborne Toxic Event's sophomore album All at Once, which bows at #17. The band's 2008 eponymous debut album peaked at #108. That album was a sleeper hit. It has sold a healthy 210K copies, though it never quite sold 5,000 copies in any one week. (By contrast, the new album sold 18K copies this week.)

Emmylou Harris' Hard Bargain bows at #18, becoming her highest-charting unassisted solo album. Her only higher-charting albums are collaborations. Trio, with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt, hit #6 in 1987. All The Roadrunning, with Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits fame, hit #17 in 2006. Harris first cracked The Billboard 200 in March 1975.

Country Strong drops from #23 to #33. It's the top-charting soundtrack to a theatrically-released movie for the 10th week.

The cast album to Starship debuts at #134 (and at #1 on Top Cast Albums). Even if you're not a Broadway buff, you know the show's composer and lyricist: Darren Criss. Criss, of course, is the star attraction on the top 10 album Glee: The Music Presents The Warblers.

Fast Five was #1 at the box-office over the weekend. The soundtrack, which features Busta Rhymes, Ludacris and Don Omar, among others, enters The Billboard 200 at #105.

Les Miserables: 25th Anniversary Concert was #1 on Top Music Videos again this week. The show dominated the Tony Awards in 1987. It was nominated for 12 Tonys and won eight, including Best Musical. Which, if any, of this year's Best Musical nominees will have this kind of staying power? This year's nominees, announced yesterday, are: The Book Of Mormon, Catch Me If You Can, The Scottsboro Boys and Sister Act.

Coming Attractions: Beastie Boys' Hot Sauce Committee Part Two is expected to be next week's top new entry. Also due: Jennifer Lopez's Love?, Now 38, Musiq Soulchild's Musiqinthemagiq, Sade's The Ultimate Collection, Barry Manilow's Duets, Fleet Foxes' Helplessness Blues, Shinedown's Somewhere In The Stratosphere, Sixx: A.M.'s This Is Gonna Hurt and Stevie Nicks' In Your Dreams.

^Yes- but, his album still has sold just 1/.3 of what Swift's album has sold.Nonetheless, his album is showing nice legs, thanks to his big country hit.

Artist This Week Retail-to-date
1 Adele 123,500 1,399,000
2 Foo Fighters 34,300 341,600
3 Mumford & Sons 32,000 1,377,100
4 Britney Spears 29,900 470,100
5 Lemonade Mouth 29,500 120,100
6 Chris Brown 28,300 513,200
7 Glee 27,500 113,800
8 Katy Perry 23,800 1,428,700
9 Wiz Khalifa 23,600 351,700
10 Paul Simon 23,500 129,300
11 Jason Aldean 23,400 1,118,300
12 Alison Krauss & Union 23,400 148,900
13 Bruno Mars 22,700 971,800
14 Rihanna 21,800 1,231,000
15 Various 20,500 276,200
16 Explosions in the Sky 18,600 19,000
17 Airborne Toxic Event 17,900 18,100
18 Emmylou Harris 16,800 17,000
19 Kirk Franklin 16,300 203,000
20 Various 15,900 550,400
21 Justine Bieber 14,500 538,300
22 P!NK 14,300 706,400
23 Steve Earle 13,600 14,000
24 Justin Bieber 13,500 2,730,800
25 Mana 13,000 83,400
26 Zac Brown Band 13,000 876,800
27 Nicki Minaj 12,900 1,342,200
28 Augustana 12,000 12,000
29 Taylor Swift 11,900 3,373,900
30 Hollywood Undead 11,900 119,700
31 Jennifer Hudson 11,900 302,200
32 Various 11,800 246,400
33 Eminem 11,700 3,830,900
34 Lupe Fiasco 11,400 358,300
35 Rascal Flatts 11,100 792,300
36 Miguel 11,000 143,900
37 Silverstein 11,000 11,100
38 Florence & The Machine 10,600 596,300
39 Sara Evans 9,800 159,600
40 Marsha Ambrosius 9,700 259,800