Jamie Foxx Back on Top

Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx's album, Unpredictable, returned to the top slot in a fairly tepid sales week, with another 97,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan. For weeks, the Ray star, whose record boasts help from hip-hop superstar Kanye West, has been swapping first place with R&B diva Mary J. Blige, whose latest hit album, The Breakthrough, is now at Number Two, with 95,000 CDs sold.

Another, stranger case of musical chairs features superstar rapper Eminem and American Idol Carrie Underwood. Eminem's first-ever hits compilation, Curtain Call, swapped places with Underwood this week to take Number Three (74,000), while her country debut, Some Hearts, took Number Four (73,000). And rounding out the Top Five is posthumous classics compilation The Legend of Johnny Cash, which climbed back up five places, no doubt boosted by the Cash biopic Walk the Line's big wins at the Golden Globes.

Nearly all the other holiday season hits are still selling strong. Canadian rockers' Nickelback's All the Right Reasons moved up a spot, to Number Six (50,000), and the Notorious B.I.G's posthumously released Duets: The Final Chapter — which sports beyond-the-grave collaborations with rappers like Jay-Z, Eminem and Snoop Dogg — is down three spots to Number Eight (43,000). And Mariah Carey's Grammy-nominated runaway hit, The Emancipation of Mimi, moved yet another 40,000 copies, dropping four places to Number Ten.

In the meantime, R&B newcomer Chris Brown's self-titled debut, back in the Top Ten in recent weeks, climbed up another place, to Number Seven (49,000). And British crooner James Blunt's debut, Back to Bedlam, finally cracked the Top Ten, climbing four spots to Number Nine (41,000) on the strength of his single "You're Beautiful." Blunt, who served four years in the British army, hooked up with producer Tom Rothrock (Beck, Elliott Smith) to create much of the album's Coldplay-like sound.

Next week, expect rap-metal outfit P.O.D.'s latest, Testify, to make for their third consecutive Top Ten album. And country star Rosanne Cash returns with Black Cadillac, an album inspired by the deaths of her father Johnny Cash, stepmother June Carter Cash and her mother Vivian (Cash's first wife), all within the same year.

This week's Top Ten: Jamie Foxx's Unpredictable; Mary J. Blige's The Breakthrough; Eminem's Curtain Call; Carrie Underwood's Some Hearts; Johnny Cash's Legend of Johnny Cash; Nickelback's All the Right Reasons; Chris Brown's Chris Brown; the Notorious B.I.G.'s Duets: The Final Chapter; James Blunt's Back to Bedlam; Mariah Carey's The Emancipation of Mimi.

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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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