On the Charts: Sade Returns With Best-Selling Week of 2010

The Big News: After a 10-year hiatus, Sade stormed the Billboard 200 — Soldier of Love eclipsed the half-million mark its first week in stores, selling 502,000 copies to push past Lady Antebellum's Need You Now and claim the title of 2010's top-selling debut week. The sales well exceeded Sade's midweek estimates, and Soldier of Love marks the band's first Number One album since Promise back in 1985. After a two-week reign, Lady Antebellum settled into Number Two with another 208,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Three more new albums debuted inside the Top 10, led by Jaheim's Another Round, which sold 112,000 copies to take Number Three. Country musician Josh Turner's Haywire and Christian rapper TobyMac's Tonight entered the charts at Five and Six, respectively. The unearthed Jimi Hendrix song "Valleys of Neptune" claimed the Number One spot on the Singles chart, ahead of artists like Lady Gaga and Sade.

Debuts: Outside the Top 10, the next highest charting debut was Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds' third live acoustic album Live in Las Vegas at Number 17 with 35,000 copies. After shattering February 14th records at the box office, the Valentine's Day soundtrack bowed at Number 20. Elsewhere, Massive Attack's Heligoland slotted at Number 46, Yeasayer's second album Odd Blood scored Number 62 and Hot Chip's One Life Stand took 97.

Last Week's Heroes: While Lady Antebellum relinquished the Number One spot after holding strong against Lil Wayne and the Hope For Haiti Now collective, Need You Now only experienced a one-percent sales drop from last week, which speaks volumes about the album's durability. Weezy, on the other hand, saw his Rebirth sales drop 49 percent as his rock-rap LP sold another 89,000 copies, good for Number Four. By comparison, however, Tha Carter III sold more copies in its second week (309,000) than Rebirth has sold in its first two weeks combined (265,000.) This week's biggest drop, however, was reserved for Nick Jonas and the Administration's Who I Am, as the JoBro's side project plummeted from Number Three to Number 28 following a 71 percent sales drop from its debut week.

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  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
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  MOVIES 'Great Gatsby' Is a Crushing Disappointment
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  TV Why You Should Watch 'Happy Endings'
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  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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