3 Doors Down Number One

Seventeen Days, the third album from 3 Doors Down, sold 231,000 copies in its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan, to debut Number One. This is twice as many as the grunge-inflected Mississippi rockers' last effort, Away From the Sun, sold when it debuted Number Eight in 2002. The band, which kicked off its world tour this week, was one of a handful of groups invited to play the youth concert celebrating last month's presidential inauguration, and the album's debut single, "Let Me Go," has since performed well.

Bumped to Number Two this week is West Coast gangsta rap breakout the Game, whose debut The Documentary, moved another 158,000 copies, while Green Day's Grammy-winning American Idiot held onto Number Three (136,000). Two debuts round out the Top Five: R&B singer Brian McKnight's Gemini (Number Four; 103,000) and the fourth installment of the Totally Country compilation series (Number Five; 98,000), featuring tracks from Kenny Chesney, Toby Keith and Gretchen Wilson.

Another big debut this week comes from Canadian swing/jazz crooner Michael Buble, whose second studio album, It's Time, took Number Seven (93,000). And Nashville-based singer Lee Ann Womack, whose third studio album, There's More Where That Came From, marks her return to more traditional country, opened at Twelve (83,000).

Meanwhile, Eminem's powerhouse Encore finally fell out of the Top Ten --just barely, to Number Eleven (86,000) -- as did Lil Jon's Crunk Juice, eight places to Seventeen (65,000). Destiny's Child's comeback, Destiny Fulfilled, also lost momentum, dropping nine spots to Twenty-Three (57,000). But the big losers this week are Motley Crue, whose greatest hits compilation, Red, White and Crue, debuted at Number Six last week only to immediately plummet twenty-five places to Thirty-One, moving a measly 45,000 copies.

Next week, expect post-Grammy boosts to help Green Day, Kanye West, and, of course, the late Ray Charles.

This week's Top Ten: 3 Doors Down's Seventeen Days; the Game's The Documentary; Green Day's American Idiot; Brian McKnight's Gemini; Totally Country 4; John Legend's Get Lifted; Michael Buble's It's Time; Kenny Chesney's Be as You Are; Tina Turner's All the Best; Usher's Confessions.

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Song Stories

“1999”

Prince | 1982

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.

More Song Stories entries »

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