Outkast Beat Da Band

The sheer volume of Outkast's two-CD Speakerboxxx/The Love Below doesn't seem to be deterring fans, as 235,000 people snapped up the album last week, according to SoundScan, keeping it at Number One for the second straight week and pushing its to-date sales past three-quarters of a million. OutKast's latest also held off a strong debut by Bad Boy's Da Band, the P. Diddy proteges from Making the Band, who sold 204,000 copies of Too Hot for TV.

And while sales on this week's chart weren't quite as chunky as a week before, they were still plenty robust, with nine albums tallying six-figure sales. Sting's Sacred Love and Dido's Life for Rent made strong first-week showings: The former sold 195,000 copies at Number Three, while the latter sold 192,000 copies at Number Four. Martina McBride also debuted in the Top Ten, selling 123,000 copies of Martina at Number Seven.

And other big week one figures were tallied by a broad stylistic array of albums. Bette Midler jumped in at Number Fourteen with Sings the Rosemary Clooney Songbook, which sold 71,000 copies. Country star Gary Allan's See If I Care sold 58,000 copies at Number Seventeen. And Ill Nino's Confession (Number Thirty-seven, 28,000 copies sold), Luis Miguel's 33 (Number Forty-three, 26,000) and Bonnie Raitt's Best of Bonnie Raitt (Number Forty-seven, 23,000) repped hard rock, latin pop and blues, respectively.

As for next week's chart, look for Ludacris to shake things up a bit, as his Chicken and Beer arrived in record stores yesterday, and seems a cinch to give the Atlanta-based rapper a Number One.

• 
  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
• 
  MOVIES 'Star Trek' Is Crazy Good
• 
  TV 10 Shows to Watch This Summer
• 
  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“Tonight's the Night”

The Shirelles | 1960

The lead cut and title track from this girl group's debut album, "Tonight's the Night" was written by 19-year-old bandmember Shirley Owens, who sings lead, and producer Luther Dixon. The band from Passaic, New Jersey met in high school, first calling themselves the Pequellos. The song's frank thoughts about sexual and emotional surrender was racy for the time, but that didn't stop the Chiffons from cutting a similar version immediately after the original came out. "We were the first female group to write some of our own material," band member Beverly Lee recalls. "We did have some say-so in our writing."

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter