Green Day Top the Charts

Green Day claimed the Number One spot on the album chart this week by selling 267,000 copies of American Idiot, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The album, a self-proclaimed punk-rock opera, is the band's first Number One since its 1994 breakthrough Dookie. One half of Nelly's dual album release, Suit, fell to Number Two (160,000) in its second week, while its companion, Sweat, dropped two places to Number Four (128,000).

Other strong debuts include Australian country singer Keith Urban's Be Here, which took the Number Three spot, and Chicago rock trio Chevelle's This Type of Thinking Could Do Us In, which entered at Number Eight (89,000), the band's first Top Ten showing.

Tim McGraw's Live Like You Were Dying (Number Five, 102,000) is still putting up six-figure numbers five weeks after its release, and the late, great Ray Charles' final album, Genius Loves Company (Number Six, 94,000), is also showing staying power.

The artists to lose big this week were country star Alan Jackson, whose What I Do fell eight places to Number Fifteen (48,000); and Anita Baker, whose My Everything fell seven spots to Sixteen (46,000). Teen darling Ashlee Simpson's Top Ten days may also be numbered, as her debut, Autobiography, dropped from Number Six to Nine (75,000).

With no blockbusters hitting the stores this week, Green Day and Nelly should duke it out again for Number One next week.

This week's Top Ten: Green Day's American Idiot; Nelly's Suit; Keith Urban's Be Here; Nelly's Sweat; Tim McGraw's Live Like You Were Dying; Ray Charles' Genius Loves Company; Now That's What I Call Music! 16; Chevelle's This Type of Thinking Could Do Us In; Ashlee Simpson's Autobiography; Maroon 5's Songs About Jane

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Song Stories

“Too Close”

Next | 1998

Next was formed in Minneapolis when the uncle of Terry "T-Low" and Raphael "Tweety" Brown, who was a gospel choir director, introduced the brothers to Robert Lavelle "R.L." Huggar. Sounds of Blackness singer Ann Nesby groomed the R&B group before handing them over to Naughty by Nature's KayGee, who wrote and produced "Too Close." The idea for the song was sparked "from a conversation we had with several girls at a nightclub," explained T-Low. "It's talking about the club scene, with guys getting out of hand and the female telling him to back up, asking, 'What are you doing?'" 

More Song Stories entries »

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