Garth, Hanson, Garbage Top Charts

Frank may be gone, but he’s certainly not
forgotten.

As word of Frank Sinatra’s May 14 death spread
last weekend, fans flocked to record stores, snatching up their
idol’s various greatest hit collections at a dizzying pace.
According to SoundScan, for the week ending May 17, five of the top
twenty-five — and eleven of the Top 200 — catalog albums were
Sinatra titles, with his Very Good Years leading the way.
(Catalog titles are two years old or older, and do not qualify for
the so-called “current” sales chart.)

Combined, those Sinatra titles sold 74,000 copies — and that
was just over a three day period. (By comparison, the country’s No.
14 “current” album, by the Big Punisher, sold
76,000 copies for the entire week.) Expect strong Sinatra sales to
continue through this week as well.

Over on the main sales chart, Garth Brooks
remains No. 1, with his six-CD box set, Limited Series,
selling 190,000 copies. The week’s notable debuts belonged to
Hanson, whose Three Car Garage: The Indie
Recordings ’95-’96 (a collection of their pre-major label
songs), came in at No. 6, while Garbage’s
Version 2.0 bowed at No. 13. Down a bit further was
Lenny Kravitz’s 5, at No. 36. Down
much further, Soul Asylum’s Candy
From a Stranger at No. 121. That weak showing is not good news
for the once-multi-platinum selling rock act.

From the top it was Limited Series, followed by the
City of Angels soundtrack (selling 168,000 copies);
LeAnn Rimes’ Sittin’ On Top of the World
(147,000); the Dave Matthews Bands’ Before
These Crowded Streets (135,000); the soundtrack to
Titanic (129,000); Three Car Garage (116,000);
the soundtrack to Ally McBeal (116,000); Backstreet
Boys (103,000); George Strait’s One Step
at a Time (101,000); and Celine Dion’s
Let’s Talk About Love (98,000).