B2K's Omarion Tops Chart

Omarion's solo debut, O, sold 182,000 copies in its first week to take the top spot, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Since the breakthrough of his multi-platinum R&B boy band B2K in 2002, the twenty-one-year-old has gained steam on his own through guest appearances on popular sitcoms, in the feature films You Got Served and Fat Albert, and through his new, MTV-published autobiography.

Meanwhile, the Grammy boost is still in effect for the late Ray Charles' Genius Loves Company, which dropped only one spot to Number Two (110,000). And rounding out the Top Five are the Game's debut, The Documentary, which drops one place to Four (105,000), and veteran singer-songwriter Tori Amos' eighth studio album, The Beekeeper, which sold 83,000 copies to open at Number Five. This is 20,000 fewer units than the opening-week total of her last full-length effort, 2002's Scarlet's Walk, although that debuted at Number Seven. The other big debut this week came from the seventh installment of the Kidz Bop series of children's sing-alongs, which tackles everything from Usher's "My Boo" to Modest Mouse's "Float On."

The big losers this week were Southern garage rockers Kings of Leon, whose much-hyped and critically well-received sophomore album, Aha Shake Heartbreak, sold a mere 20,000 copies to debut at Number Fifty-Five. And it seems the Grammy effect no longer applies for winners other than Charles: Maroon 5's Songs About Jane fell back down the chart, from its boost to Number Nine to Eighteen (49,000); and multiple Grammy-winner Alicia Keys' The Diary of Alicia Keys dropped from Eleven to Twenty-Eight (35,000).

Next week, expect 50 Cent's The Massacre to blow away all competition -- in spite of its mid-week release tomorrow.

This week's Top Ten: Omarion's O; Ray Charles' Genius Loves Company; Green Day's American Idiot; the Game's The Documentary; Tori Amos' The Beekeeper; John Legend's Get Lifted; Kidz Bop Kids' Kidz Bop 7; Eminem's Encore; 3 Doors Down's Seventeen Days; Kelly Clarkson's Breakaway.

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Song Stories

“Time to Pretend”

MGMT | 2008

Listening to MGMT’s breakthrough song, one might interpret it as being about the excesses of rock stardom, but it’s actually about the duo’s pet praying mantis. Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden told Rolling Stone they got the idea from the insect's jerky movements. The mantis died, but the two bandmates kept the egg sack and allowed the hundreds of eggs to hatch. “We tried to name them all, but they died after a day,” said Goldwasser, with VanWyngarden chiming in, “But the praying mantis dance inspired us.”

More Song Stories entries »

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