Alicia Keys Tops Chart

Alicia Keys' Unplugged album took the Number One spot this week, selling 196,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The CD, Key's third release, features guest spots by Common, Maroon 5's Adam Levine, Mos Def and Damian Marley. Keys knocked Canadian rockers Nickelback from their career high at the top spot: Their fifth effort, All the Right Reasons, sold 170,000 copies to come in second place.

Another big debut this week came from California-born country man Gary Allan's sixth effort, Tough All Over, which sold 100,000 CDs to land at Number Three. The album, inspired by the suicide of Allan's wife, is a hard-won crossover for the artist: His last record, 2004's See If I Care peaked at Number Seventeen.

Black Eyed Peas' Monkey Business continued to stick to the Top Ten: After months in stores, the album climbed back up four places to Number Four (90,000). And hip-hop superstar Kanye West's sophomore effort, Late Registration, sold another 83,000 copies in its seventh week to climb one spot to Number Five.

At Number Six is Latin pop star Ricky Martin's follow-up to 2003's Spanish-language album Almas del Silencio, Life (73,000), which features Black Eyed Peas, Amerie and Fat Joe, as well as production by Scott Storch. Sheryl Crow's fifth studio album, Wildflower, dropped two places to Number Seven (59,000) in its third week out. Veteran Chicago rapper Twista's latest, The Day After, fell from last week's career-high debut at Number Two to Number Eight (58,000). Country bad girl Gretchen Wilson's sophomore album and former chart-topper, All Jacked Up, also dropped: five places to Number Nine (57,000), while Atlanta rapper Young Jeezy's Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101, jumped nine spots back into the Top Ten (Ten, 54,000).

Feeling gloomier this week is gloomy-enough-already Fiona Apple, whose much-delayed third album, Extraordinary Machine, made for her highest debut yet, at Number Seven last week -- only to quickly drop seven spots, out of the Top Ten, to Number Fourteen (48,000). And Glasgow art rockers Franz Ferdinand's follow-up to their acclaimed, eponymous 2004 debut, You Could Have It So Much Better, dropped even faster: from Number Eight to Number Twenty-Seven (35,000), in only its second week out.

Next week, expect Stevie Wonder's first album in ten years, A Time to Love, to hit the Top Ten. And a whole generation of neo-New Wave fans just might make Depeche Mode's latest, Playing the Angel, chart high. And for those who feel Ashlee Simpson's post-lip-sync-debacle pain, there's always her sophomore CD, I Am Me. Let's see how many people buy it.

This week's Top Ten: Alicia Keys' Unplugged; Nickelback's All the Right Reasons; Gary Allan's Tough All Over; Black Eyed Peas' Monkey Business; Kanye West's Late Registration; Ricky Martin's Life; Sheryl Crow's Wildflower; Twista's The Day After; Gretchen Wilson's All Jacked Up; Young Jeezy's Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101.

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  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
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  MOVIES 'Great Gatsby' Is a Crushing Disappointment
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  TV Why You Should Watch 'Happy Endings'
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  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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