Sarah Boyle's I Dreamed A Dream album continues to lock up the top slot on the Billboard 200 chart for a fourth week in a row, selling 661,000 copies (up 14%), according to Nielsen SoundScan. Dream has now sold a total of 2,465,000 copies and is the second-best selling album of 2009. Only Taylor Swift's Fearless -- with 2,933,000 sold -- is standing in its way. With two weeks left in the 2009 tracking year, anything is possible.
R&B diva Alicia Keys has to play runner-up to Boyle, as her fourth studio album The Element of Freedom debuts at No. 2 with 417,000. Keys' last effort, As I Am, was released during Thanksgiving week of 2007 and started with 742,000 at No. 1.
Freedom's bow at No. 2 breaks a remarkable streak of No. 1 debuts for Keys. All four of her previous albums -- three studio sets plus an Unplugged release -- started at No. 1. However, Keys still has a chance of eventually reaching No. 1. The set could rise to the top next month when (and if) the Boyle hysteria dies down.
The second-biggest new arrival to the Billboard 200 is Robin Thicke's Sex Therapy: The Session, which begins at No. 9 with 123,000. It's the singer's third top 10 set in a row, following The Evolution of Robin Thicke (No. 5 in 2007) and Something Else (No. 3 in 2008). The latter album opened with a sales frame of 137,000 copies in October of that year.
Recent Comments