It was never a matter of if Eminem would top the charts with [article id="1717243"]The Marshall Mathers LP 2[/article]
. Slim Shady doesn't do second place and the streak continues with the Detroit fire-spitter's eighth studio album, which will top the charts thanks to sales of 792,000, according to figures provided by Nielsen SoundScan.

Just A Shady Less Than JT

The impressive debut, which beats the 741,000 open for 2010's Recovery, is his second-best opening week since the original Mathers LP in 2000. It is also his seventh major-label album in a row to debut at #1, though it fell short of setting the high-water mark for the year, which still belongs to the Justin Timberlake's The 20/20 Experience, which opened in March with 968,000.

Em's impressive numbers (which beat the early predictions of around 750,000) helped him leap-frog over the year's previous second-best, Drake's Nothing Was the Same (658,000). And, according to Billboard, it sold more than the combined figures for the #2 through #32 albums, and accounted for 14 percent of all album sales last week.

Avril Lavigne, Here's To A Top Five Debut

It was a good week for Avril Lavigne, who slid into the #5 spot with her [article id="1716859"]self-titled album[/article]
, which moved 44,000 units for the week's other top debut. Fellow Canadian songbird Celine Dion emoted into a #2 spot for Loved Me Back To Life (77,000) for the only other new blood in the top 10.

Otherwise, Katy Perry's Prism shed another 33 percent of its business in week three, dropping two spots to #4 (61,000) as sales inched toward 500,000. The biggest plunge of the week belonged to Arcade Fire, whose Reflektor skidded down 77 percent, falling eight slots to #9 (31,000) after topping the charts the week before.

The Wanted? Well...

It was a soft landing for The Wanted, whose [article id="1716900"]Word of Mouth[/article]
 opened at #17 on a modest 16,000 in sales. Numbers were also pretty timid for Molotov poptail M.I.A., who barely slipped into the top 25 at #23 with her long-delayed Matangi (15,000).

It will be interesting to see if Slim Shady can hold onto the top spot next week thanks to the arrival of Lady Gaga's ARTPOP.

A Great Big World Have A Great Big Week

A Great Big World have "The Voice" coach Christina Aguilera to thank for their song "Say Something" debuting at #1 on the Billboard Digital Songs chart. The song (which sold 52,000 without the Aguilera vocal through November 3), moved 189,000 units after their appearance on last week's show, for a 1,716 percent leap to the top of the tally.

Lorde, OneRepublic Up, Eminem Down

Lorde's "Royals" moved up a spot to #2 (186,000), while OneRepublic's "Counting Stars" jumped six spots to #3 (152,000), as Eminem's "The Monster" fell from #1 to #4 as sales were down by 60 percent (150,000).

Em was still tops, however, on the iTunes singles chart, with Big World down at #3. Pitbull scored his 13th top 10 hit on the chart with his Ke$ha collabo, "Timber," which leaped 9 spots to #8 (199,000).