Master P Hooks # 3

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Nothing like the Easter/Passover holiday weekend, combined with spring break, to drive consumers into record stores and boost music sales. For the week ending April 12, the soundtrack to Titanic remained at No. 1 for the fourteenth consecutive week, selling 410,000 copies according to SoundScan. Overall, nineteen of the top twenty records posted gains over the previous week. (Only Madonna's Ray of Light missed out on the seasonal fun.)

Once again, the week's big debuts belonged to hip-hop records, with the all-star soundtrack to Master P's latest, I Got the Hook (P, Silkk the Shocker, Ice Cube, 8-Ball), coming in at No. 3, while Atlanta's Goodie Mob debuted at No. 6 with Still Standing. Other notable debuts for the week included Bonnie Raitt's Fundamental at No. 21, and Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell's solo record, Boggy Depot, coming in at No. 28.

Meanwhile, it was the soundtrack to City of Angels making the week's most dramatic sales jump, going from No. 23 to No. 7. Along with being associated with last weekend's No. 1 movie, the soundtrack also boasts two modern rock radio hits, The Goo Goo Doll's "Iris" and Alanis Morissette's "Uninvited."

From the top, it was Titanic, (selling 410,000 copies), followed by Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love (220,000); I Got the Hook (183,000); Backstreet Boys (167,000); Savage Garden (160,000); Still Standing (123,000); City of Angels (108,000); K-Ci & Jo Jo's Love Always (106,000); Ray of Light (103,000); and Natalie Imbruglia's Left of the Middle (94,000).

Noticeably absent from that list is a single rock record. Recent high-profile guitar releases by Pearl Jam and Van Halen are laying low at No. 43 and No. 44, respectively.

The week's other big winner was yet another soundtrack; Grease. Thanks to the re-release of the twenty-year-old movie, sales of the record rocketed to 100,000 copies last week. But don't look for Grease in the top ten. Because the record is more than two years old, it's weeded out of the Billboard 200, and only counts towards the Pop Catalog chart, where it has been No. 1 for thirty-six weeks.

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Song Stories

“He Will Break Your Heart”

Jerry Butler | 1960

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."

More Song Stories entries »

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