Backstreet Boys' "Millennium" Reign Continues : Rolling Stone

Thanks to the frenzy surrounding their already sold-out Into the Millennium Tour (more than 700,000 tickets were sold last Saturday), it's no surprise the Backstreet Boys enjoyed a nice sales bump last week at record stores. The group's latest, Millennium, sold 250,000 copies for the week ending Aug. 15, according to SoundScan. That was easily enough to land the band at No. 1 in front of Limp Bizkit. Since Millennium's release three months ago, it has never sold fewer than 250,000 copies in a week, a truly astonishing run.

As the summer of BSB, Limp Bizkit and Britney Spears comes to a close, the question some inside the business are wondering is, who's going to get the bigger holiday bonuses this year? The folks working at the Firm, which manages both Limp Bizkit and the Backstreet Boys, or employees at Jive Records, home to BSB and Britney Spears? Already this year, Spears and the Backstreet Boys have sold eleven million albums.

The week's only Top 50 debut belonged to Violator: The Album. Featuring cuts from Q-Tip, LL Cool J and Missy Elliott, the album celebrates the mini-rap dynasty created by mogul Chris Lighty.

And what's up with Santana? The band that turned heads at the original Woodstock thirty years ago now have a new Top Ten album. After nine weeks on the charts, Supernatural, has climbed to No. 10. The last time Santana cracked the Top Ten was in 1981, when the album Zebop! reached No. 9.

Elsewhere in the Top 20 is Juvenile, New Orleans' contribution to teen gangsta rap. The group's latest, 400 Degreez, jumped to No. 15.

Among those heading in the opposite direction are Eric Clapton and histwo-disc compilation Blues. Out just three weeks, the album has tumbled from No. 52 to No. 85. Also, Wu-Tang Clan's Genius is fading fast. His album, Beneath the Surface, has slumped from No. 73 to No. 119 in two weeks' time.

From the top, it was the Backstreet Boys with Millennium, followed by Limp Bizkit's Significant Other (selling 192,000); Britney Spears' ...Baby One More Time (138,000); Now That's What I Call Music: Vol. 2 (136,000); the soundtrack to Runaway Bride (132,000); Kid Rock's Devil Without a Cause (121,000); Violator: The Album (115,000); Smash Mouth's Astro Lounge (102,000); and Santana's Supernatural (99,000).

ERIC BOEHLERT
(August 18, 1999)