Kenny Chesney Ousts Twista

Country singer Kenny Chesney led a field of strong CD sales, moving 550,000 copies of his latest album, When the Sun Goes Down, to debut Number One. Chesney ousted last week's chart topper, Twista -- whose Kamikaze fell to Number Three with sales of 174,000 -- and further solidified the notion that a new generation of country stars has caught on with music buyers.

Chesney was among the country chart-toppers in 2002, but his release that year, No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem earned a Number One with a first-week sales figure of a mere 235,000. Chesney's spike mirrors that of Toby Keith, who sold 338,000 first-week copies of Unleashed in the summer of 2002 and 585,000 copies of Shock N Y'all in its first week of release in November 2003. Keith's record continues to be a Top Ten mainstay, selling 81,000 copies at Number Nine (up more than 20,000 copies from last week's chart), and Unleashed is still in the Top Fifty after eighty-one weeks. Alan Jackson continues to fare well, as his Greatest Hits Volume 2 moved back into the Top Twenty at Number Nineteen with sales of 51,000 (also up more than 20,000 from a week ago).

Country was hardly the only strong performer on the charts. Overall sales in the Top 200 were up to 5.26 million from 3.76 million last week, led by several other strong debuts. Incubus tallied 331,000 copies sold of A Crow Left of the Murder, which would have been a Number One through most of 2004 thus far, but was only good enough for Number Two this week. And Harry Connick's very successful 2003 holiday album seemed to remind fans he was still tickling the ivories. His new collection of standards, Only You, sold 139,000 copies at Number Five. The Barbershop 2 soundtrack (Number Eighteen, 54,000 sales), Five for Fighting's The Battle for Everything (Number Twenty, 50,000) and Lostprophets' Start Something (Number Thirty-three, 37,000) also made solid debuts.

Next week promises more big sales. A holiday weekend and Valentine's Day marketing should keep older material on the rise, while new albums from Courtney Love, Kylie Minogue and rappers Drag-On and Kanye West should make strong showings. But they'll likely wrestle for spots other than Number One, as Norah Jones' latest seems as sure a chart-topping bet as there has been in some time.

This week's Top Ten: Kenny Chesney's When the Sun Goes Down; Incubus' A Crow Left of the Murder; Twista's Kamikaze; Josh Groban's Closer; Harry Connick's Only You; OutKast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below; Evanescence's Fallen; Sheryl Crow's The Very Best of Sheryl Crow; Toby Keith's Shock N Y'all; and Ruben Studdard's Soulful.

ANDREW DANSBY
(February 11, 2004)