NEW YORK (Top40 Charts) - R&B newcomer
Ashanti is holding on to the No. 1 position on The Billboard 200 for the second week, as the
Goo Goo Dolls score the highest debut on the chart with
Gutterflower's bow at No. 4.
A few of music's mainstays - Neil Young and Bonnie Raitt - mark their territory at No. 10 and No. 13, respectively. Young's Are You Passionate? sold 56,260 in its first week, while Raitt's Silver Lining sold 54,308.
This week's top 10 now goes like this: Celine Dion hangs onto No. 2; Now That's What I Call Music! 9 moves up one notch to No. 3; Ashanti's rival Tweet drops two spots to No. 5; O Brother, Where Art Thou? dips one to No. 6; The Scorpion King soundtrack moves to No. 7; Shakira takes a nice leap forward from No. 12 to No. 8; and Pink jumps one to No. 9.
Sales of Ashanti's self-titled Def Jam disc tumbled more than 50% to 246,000 in the week ended April 14. The singer, who has risen to prominence through duets with superstar rappers like Ja Rule, set a record last week for the biggest sales of a debut, beating out former record holder Lauryn Hill.
French-Canadian songstress Dion held fast in second place with "New Day Has Come". The album moved nearly 226,000 copies out the door, down almost 40,000 from last week but good enough to push her over the platinum mark after three weeks.
The two singers' sales declines followed a larger trend in the chart, with all but one of the returning top 20 albums slipping from last week's numbers.
That one exception was classically trained pop singer Josh Groban, whose eponymous release shot up 109 places to No. 12 this week on the back of a glowing profile on the ABC newsmagazine "20/20." Sales of "Josh Groban" skyrocketed to nearly 56,000 from 9,800.
The best debut of the session came from Buffalo-born rockers the Goo Goo Dolls at No. 4. "Gutterflower" sold 101,000 copies, marking one of the Dolls' best out-of-the-gate performances, thanks in part to strong play of the single "Here Is Gone."
A pair of veteran acts also made an impressive impact in the top 20. Wizened rocker Neil Young landed at 10 with "Are You Passionate?" with sales of 56,000, while slide-guitar mistress Bonnie Raitt hit 13 with "Silver Lining", scanning more than 54,300 discs.
sOther notable debuts for the week include Tommy Shane Steiner, Then Came the Night (No. 71), Passion Worship Band's Passion: Our Love Is Loud (No. 77), Patty Griffin's 1000 Kisses (No. 101), Twiztid's Mirror Mirror (No. 103), Quarashi's Jinx (No. 104), Steve Earle's Sidetracks (No. 109), and Chris LeDoux's After the Storm (No. 121).
