Celine Dion Leads Holiday Pop Attack
It's all about pop this holiday shopping season.
Singer Celine Dion's 1990s retrospective All the Way: A Decade of Song
will spend a second week at #1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart,
after selling another 327,647 copies the week ending Sunday, according
to SoundScan figures released Wednesday (Dec. 8).
Climbing back up to #2 and #3, respectively, will be the Backstreet Boys'
Millennium and Britney Spears'
Time, the year's two best-selling albums (both are certified nine-times
platinum). Country-pop singer Shania Twain's 13-times platinum Come
On Over, released in 1997, will return to the top 10, at #10, after
a hiatus of several months.
Dru Hill singer Sisqo and ex–A Tribe Called Quest rapper Q-Tip,
meanwhile, will enter the chart with their first solo albums, while the
Guns N' Roses' Live Era 1987–1993, the hard-rock band's first
album in six years, will bow at #45.
In the top 10 are: All the Way: A Decade of Song (#1), Millennium
(#2),
Santana's Supernatural (#4), pop singer Christina Aguilera's
self-titled debut (#5), rapper/producer Dr. Dre's Dr. Dre 2001
(#6), country singer Garth Brooks' The Magic of Christmas (#7),
saxophone player Kenny G's Faith: A Holiday Album, (#8), rapper
Will Smith's Willennium (#9) and Come On Over (#10).
The Dion album, which now has sold more than 1 million copies in three
weeks, includes such hits as "Beauty and the Beast" and the "Titanic"
theme song "My Heart Will Go On" (RealAudio
excerpt).
Sisqo's Unleash the Dragon, which finds him carrying on the Dru
Hill tradition for romantic ballads and slow jams on such songs as "Got
to Get It" and "So Sexual," will enter the chart at #18.
Q-Tip, whose nasal voice and use of jazz samples made the now-defunct A
Tribe Called Quest one of hip-hop's most popular groups, will debut at
#28 with Amplified. He uses spare beats and scratchy keyboards on
songs such as "Vivrant Thing" (RealAudio
excerpt).
Amplified finds Q-Tip in a happier musical space than on Tribe's
often-cerebral records, according to Chris Lighty, who co-manages Q-Tip.
"When you go solo, you're dealing with one mind instead of three," Lighty
said Friday. "It's more of a feel-good situation. We're reinventing Q-Tip
for a new audience."
Guns N' Roses' Live Era 1987–1993 features "Welcome to the
Jungle" (RealAudio
excerpt of live version) and other hard-rock anthems from the
group's original incarnation. Singer Axl Rose, the band's only remaining
original member, recorded a new studio album, Chinese Democracy,
due next year, with a revamped lineup that includes guitarist Paul Huge
and ex-Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson.
Also debuting this week will be the hip-hop compilation The Source
Presents Hip-Hop Hits Vol. 3, with hits by Ja Rule, Pharoahe Monch
and others, at #99 and Mr. Hankey's South Park Christmas, a comedy
album with songs by the characters from the animated series, at #160.
The "South Park" album is one of several Christmas albums enjoying big
sales. Seven holiday albums, including offerings from talk-show host Rosie
O'Donnell, singer/songwriter Jewel and 14-year-old opera singer Charlotte
Church, will be in this week's top 50.
Dr. Dre 2001 sold more than 207,000 copies last week and joins the
Dion album in having sold more than 1 million copies in three weeks.
Mel-Man, who co-produced 2001 with Dr. Dre, said last week that
Dre, who came to prominence with the gangsta-rap band N.W.A, kept some
of the racier bits from such rappers as Xzibit and Hittman off the album,
which follows up The Chronic (1992).
"There's a lot of stuff that was X-rated you'll probably never hear that
I was a strong supporter of," Mel-Man said. "Tons of profanity ... all
through every song. Dre would say, 'I've been down that road before.' So
we kept it to a minimum."
Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile, after weeks of decline, will make
a modest move upward on this week's chart, from #178 to #170, even though
it lost around 1,000 copies in sales from the previous week. Nine Inch
Nails' "Into the Void" (RealAudio
excerpt) is gaining steam on rock radio.
