DMB Hold Off Aerosmith

The Dave Matthews Band's Everyday took a steep southern sales turn this week, but the 280,081 copies it sold were enough to keep it atop SoundScan's album chart for the second straight week and to place it's sales to date over one million copies.

But Matthews' second winning week wasn't due to a lack of competitors. Aerosmith's Just Push Play, their first album in four years, landed roughly 40,000 copies behind to score the Number Two position, just 5,000 copies ahead of Shaggy's Hotshot, which continues to post strong sales as it cleared the four million copies sold mark last week. Also splashing onto the chart was Eve's Scorpion, which bowed in at Number Four.

The duo of high debuts this week, paired with last week's trio of newcomers (DJ Clue's The Processional: Part 2 and Project Pat's Mista Don't Play held Top Ten spots in their second week), has given the Top Ten a much needed face lift. Only Hotshot, Dido's No Angel, the Beatles' 1, Lenny Kravitz's Greatest Hits and Ja Rule's Rule 3:36, remain with a Strom Thurmond-esque incumbent hold on the Top Ten.

The Top 200 was otherwise a bit dreary, though. Only eleven titles showed sales increases from the previous week. And debuts aside from those previously mentioned were somewhat scarce. R&B duo, Koffee Brown's Venus/Mars scanned just over 40,000 units to land a Number Thirty-two debut, followed by Oleander's Unwind (Number Ninety-four), Delbert McClinton's Nothing Personal (Number 103) and Alien Ant Farm's ANThology (Number 105).

New albums from Daft Punk and Semisonic should both fare well on next week's chart, but Eric Clapton's Reptile looks to be the strongest new entry in record stores this week, with a opportunity to shuffle the order of the Top Ten next week. Last year his collaboration with B.B. King, Riding With the King scanned nearly 200,000 copies for a Number Three debut, and as Reptile is his first proper studio release in three years, anticipation could push him towards the top.

This week's Top Ten: Dave Matthews Band's Everyday (280,081 copies sold); Aerosmith's Just Push Play (240,481); Shaggy's Hotshot (235,280); Eve's Scorpion (161,728); DJ Clue's The Professional: Part 2 (128,944); Dido's No Angel (113,291); the Beatles' 1 (82,801); Lenny Kravitz's Greatest Hits (80,455); Project Pat's Mista Don't Play (74,623); and Ja Rule's Rule 3:36 (73,135).

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Song Stories

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell | 1974

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.

More Song Stories entries »

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