Santana's Supernatural Still Top U.S. Seller
Santana's first #1 album in nearly 30 years will remain atop the
Billboard 200 albums chart for a second straight week, while another
comeback album, by the Eurythmics, makes a high debut.
Santana's collaborative album Supernatural, on which the veteran
Latin rock band worked with Dave Matthews, Lauryn Hill, Everlast, Wyclef
Jean, Eric Clapton and Matchbox 20 singer Rob Thomas, sold 183,535 copies
the week ending Sunday, according to sales figures released Wednesday
(Oct. 27) by SoundScan. That was enough to hold off the Backstreet Boys'
Millennium — a former #1 — which climbed back up a spot
to #2.
The week's highest debut will come from reunited pop duo the Eurythmics,
whose first album in a decade, Peace, will come in at #25, according
to SoundScan data.
The rest of this week's top 10: rock band Creed's Human Clay (#3);
German dance-pop singer Lou Bega's A Little Bit of Mambo (#4);
teen pop singer Britney Spears'
(#5); a resurgent Limp Bizkit's Significant Other (#6); rapper
Kid Rock's Devil Without a Cause (#7); pop singer Christina Aguilera's
self-titled debut (#8); New Orleans rapper Juvenile's 400 Degreez
(#9); and soul singer Brian McKnight's Back at One (#10).
Santana's single "Smooth" (RealAudio
excerpt), featuring Thomas, is the #1 song on the Billboard
Hot 100. Carlos Santana, known for his salsa- and jazz-laced guitar solos,
and his band haven't enjoyed this kind of success since 1970 and 1971,
when their albums Abraxas and Santana III, respectively,
reached #1.
"[Santana] chose to collaborate with a lot of good musicians, and the
result shows," Ronda Betts, music director of the Chico, Calif., rock
station KZAP-FM said last week.
The CD has been certified triple platinum, recognizing shipments of 3
million copies.
On Peace, the Eurythmics — singer Annie Lennox and guitarist
Dave Stewart — offer more of the melodic synth-pop that brought them
fame in the early 1980s. They even quote the 1983 chart-topping single
"Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" on the new disc's first single,
"Seventeen Again": "Sweet dreams are made of this/ Who am I to disagree/
I travel the world and the seven seas/ Everybody's looking for something."
Woodstock 99, a two-CD compilation of music from this summer's
troubled festival, which ended in a riot, will debut at #34. It includes
the Red Hot Chili Peppers' version of Jimi Hendrix's "Fire" (RealAudio
excerpt of live version), which ended the Peppers' festival-closing set as bonfires burned
out of control. Other acts on the LP include rappers DMX and the Roots
and the rock band Sevendust.
The week's other debuts will include pop group 98 Degrees' holiday album
This Christmas (#28); rapper Pharoahe Monch's Internal Affairs,
featuring the frenetic radio hit "Simon Says" (RealAudio
excerpt) (#41) and progressive rock band Primus' Antipop
(#44).
Like Supernatural, the Primus album is heavy on collaborations.
Guitarists Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Kirk Hammett of
Metallica are among the guests.
"Musically, there's some stuff for the trippers," Primus singer/bassist
Les Claypool said. "But there's also this aggressive element, so ... it's
like acid-metal or something. Groove-oriented acid-metal."
Wu-Tang Clan rapper U-God's solo debut, Golden Arms Redemption,
will hit the chart at #58, making him the latest Wu-Tanger to make a
relatively modest chart appearance. The full group's 1997 album, Wu-Tang
Forever, was a chart-topper. But in the past few months, Genius/GZA's
Beneath the Surface has peaked at #9, Ol' Dirty Bastard's N***a
Please at #10 and Inspectah Deck's Uncontrolled Substance at
#19.
Swing band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy's second album, This Beautiful Life,
with their take on "Ol' McDonald," will bow at #93, and former Roxy Music
frontman Bryan Ferry's As Time Goes By, with covers of such vintage
songs as "I'm in the Mood for Love" and "Falling in Love Again," will
come in at #195.
Juvenile, whose "Back That Azz Up" is a hip-hop radio hit, and McKnight
return to this week's top 10, while last week's highest debut, 311's
Soundsystem, and rappers Method Man and Redman's Black Out!
drop out. In the past two weeks, Limp Bizkit's album, which hit #1 this
summer, will have jumped from #11 to #8 to #6.
Dennis Elinski, the rock buyer at Tower Records in Austin, Texas, said
Limp Bizkit probably owe their recent sales bump to the Family Values
tour, which they're headlining. The outing also includes Method Man,
Redman and industrial rock band Filter.
"The tour is helping sales. They're coming here this weekend," Elinski
said.
(SonicNet's Will Comerford contributed to this report.)