Backstreet Boys To Reclaim #1 Spot On Chart
Backstreet's back — again.
The pop quintet's multiplatinum second album, Millennium, which was #1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart for five weeks before being knocked to #2 by Limp Bizkit's Significant Other three weeks ago, will reclaim the top spot this week, according to sales figures released Wednesday (July 21) by SoundScan.
Millennium, which features the hit "I Want It That Way" (RealAudio excerpt), sold 271,749 copies in the week ending Sunday and has now sold around 4 million copies in two months, according to SoundScan figures. The album, which sold a record 1.13 million copies the week it was released, is certified quintuple-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, for shipments of more than 5 million copies to stores.
Significant Other, another phenomenally successful sophomore album, will drop to #2 when the Billboard chart, which is based on SoundScan information, is posted Thursday. The thrash-rap band's album has sold around 1.5 million copies in four weeks.
This week's highest debut will come from Too $hort, the veteran Oakland, Calif., rapper who announced his retirement after his 1996 album, Gettin' It but has returned with Can't Stay Away. The record, his 11th in a little over a decade, will enter the chart at #5.
Can't Stay Away includes collaborations with Jay-Z as well as Eightball and MJG. Following Too $hort's usual approach, it is loaded with rhymes about ghetto life and women.
Several other hip-hop albums will make high debuts. The soundtrack to the movie "The Wood," featuring DMX, the Roots and an OutKast-Mystikal collaboration, will bow at #16; Notorious B.I.G. protégé Lil' Cease's The Wonderful World of Cease a Leo will enter at #26; and rap duo Gang Starr's two-CD retrospective, Full Clip: A Decade of Gang Starr, will hit the chart at #33.
The Gang Starr album includes such early singles as "Manifest" and "Step Into the Arena" along with B-sides, soundtrack cuts and three new songs. One of the new tunes, "Full Clip," is a battle rap that Gang Starr MC Guru said was written to address rappers who are "faking moves."
Guru said he kept the attack anonymous, with the murders of rappers Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. in mind. "I've never been one to do that," he said of his decision not to name names. "I think [naming names is] idiotic in a way. ... [But] now ... you can't do that or you have the result like you had with Biggie and Pac. ... It gets too serious. The world we're living in is too ill. So I look at it as like, if I can categorize these guys without naming names, then they'll just have to figure out: 'is he talking about me or not?' "
Despite the Backstreet Boys' reascension and the strong hip-hop debuts, the top 10 this week will include plenty of rock. Canadian singer/songwriter Sarah McLachlan's live album, Mirrorball, will remain at #7, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Californication will move up a spot to #8 and Smash Mouth's Astro Lounge will climb two spots to #10. And at #9 will be the soundtrack to the Walt Disney animated film "Tarzan," featuring music by ex-Genesis frontman Phil Collins.
"Weird Al" Yankovic, who specializes in parodies, will slip after a brief stint in rock-star territory. His Running With Scissors will fall 13 spots to #29, after having reached #16 last week.
Rounding out the top 10 will be Ricky Martin's self-titled English-language debut at #3, pop singer Britney Spears' ...
Also debuting: comedian Chris Rock's Bigger and Blacker, a collection of comedy bits and song farces with contributions from hip-hoppers Prince Paul, Ice Cube and Biz Markie, at #48; California, the third album by ex–Faith No More singer Mike Patton's band Mr. Bungle, at #144; and the three-CD Elvis Presley retrospective Artist of the Century at #163.
