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By Geoff Mayfield (Reuters)
LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - It's the same old song: Flashy news in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 while album sales continue to sag, a pattern that even a career-best opener by Christina Aguilera cannot bend.
Fact is, with her new Nielsen SoundScan mark and six new titles entering the chart's first eight slots, the top 10 looks pretty healthy.
Aguilera's "Back to Basics" racks up 342,000 sales in its opening frame, beating her previous best start by 4.5 percent, set when last album "Stripped" bowed at No. 2 with 330,000 copies in 2002.
"Basics" is followed by new sets from R&B sophomore Lyfe Jennings (136,000), country stalwart Trace Adkins (115,000), new R&B ensemble Cherish (91,000) and the soundtrack to "The Cheetah Girls 2" (87,000), marking only the third time in the 50-year history of Billboard's album chart that five new entries occupy the first five slots.
Commerce from those five and the return of rapper Obie Trice (No. 8, 74,000) help deliver more volume in the top 10 than the chart saw in the same week last year, up by 6 percent. But none of that prevents an overall decline, with total albums missing the comparable 2005 frame by 6.7 percent. That deficit includes a 4.1 percent slip by catalog albums.
Mulling these numbers helps explain the odd juncture that finds the august Tower Records chain filing for bankruptcy just two weeks after winning its third straight Merchandiser of the Year award at the recent National Association of Recording Merchandisers convention.
And, while intense price competition from mass merchants and electronics chains has helped complicate life for Tower and other traditional music stores, it doesn't even look like the lowballers are having fun.
Year to date, mass merchants' album sales stand at 133.5 million units, down about 3 percent from the same point last year. Continued...
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CHRISTINA AGUILERA's new LP BACK TO BASICS has shot straight to the top of the UK album chart.The disc is Aguilera's third release, but it's the first time she has topped the British charts.
It knocks JAMES MORRISON's UNDISCOVERED to number two, with SNOW PATROL at three, ORSON four and THE KOOKS five.
SHAKIRA has made it four weeks in a row at the top of the singles chart with HIPS DON'T LIE. CHAMILLIONAIRE is number two with RIDIN', DAVID GUETTA VS THE EGG is three with LOVE DON'T LET ME GO (WALKING AWAY); ARCTIC MONKEYS are four and CASCADA five.
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