Eminem's Recovery enters
The Billboard 200 at #1 with
first-week sales of 741,000.That's the biggest one-week
sales tally since AC/DC's
Black Ice stormed on to the
chart with sales of 784,000 in
October 2008. Recovery is
Eminem's fourth album to
achieve weekly sales north of 700K.
It follows The Marshall Mathers LP,
The Eminem Show and Encore.
Eminem is the first artist in
Nielsen/SoundScan history
(which dates to 1991) to top
the 700K plateau in weekly
sales with four albums.
Runner-up Garth Brooks
topped that mark with three
albums: The Hits, Sevens and
Double Live.
Recovery sold substantially more
copies in its first week than
Eminem's last album, Relapse, which
opened with sales of 608K in June
2009. In just one week, Recovery is
already #8 for the year-to-date.
Recovery is Eminem's sixth
#1 album. Among rappers,
only Jay-Z has had as many
or more #1 albums (11).
What's more, Recovery is
Eminem's sixth consecutive
album to reach #1. That's the
longest string of consecutive
#1 albums (in which every
charted album made #1) since the
Beatles had eight in a row from
Beatles VI in 1965 to the so-called
White Album in 1968. (Eminem had
seven of the 22 tracks on Eminem
Presents: The Re-Up, which peaked
at #2 in 2006, but that was marketed
as a Various Artists album.)
This week's hefty total for Recovery
pushes Eminem from #10 to #9 on
Nielsen/SoundScan's running list of
the best-selling album artists in its
history. (He pushes ahead of Pink
Floyd on this list, which reflects sales
from 1991 to 2010.) Eminem has sold
36,519,000 albums, which makes
him the top rapper on the list. He is
way ahead of Jay-Z, who is #27
overall with sales of 27,888,000
albums.
Recovery sold 255,000
digital copies. Only one
album has ever sold
more digital copies in
one week. That's
Coldplay's Viva La Vida
Or Death And All His
Friends , which sold
288,000 digital copies
in its first week in June 2008.
Eminem is also
breaking records on the
digital song front. "Love
The Way You Lie,"
Eminem's collabo with
Rihanna, sold 338,000
copies this week. It's Eminem's third
song to achieve one-week sales of
300K. "Crack A Bottle," his all-star
collaboration with Dr. Dre and 50
Cent, opened with sales of 418,000 in
February 2009. "Not Afraid" opened
with sales of 379,000 in May. Eminem
is the only artist who has topped
300K in weekly sales with three
songs. Flo Rida, Katy Perry, Lady
Gaga and Taylor Swift have each
topped 300K with two songs.
"Love The Way You Lie" enters Hot
Digital Songs at #1. It enters the Hot
100 at #2, behind "California Gurls"
by Katy Perry featuring Snoop Dogg,
which logs its fourth week on top.
"Love The Way You Lie" may yet
reach the top spot. It would be
Eminem's third #1 on the Hot 100 in
18 months, following "Crack A Bottle"
and "Not Afraid." This is noteworthy
because in his first 10 years of
recording, Eminem notched just one
#1, 2002's monster hit "Lose
Yourself." This would be the second
time that Rihanna is featured on a
#1 hit by a rap star. She was
featured on T.I.'s 2008 smash "Live
Your Life."
Eminem's 741K debut comes on the
heels of Drake's 447K bow last week.
This marks the first time that albums
have debuted with sales north of
400,000 in back-to-back weeks since
November and December 2008,
when Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Kanye
West and Britney Spears all opened
with sales of 400K or more in
successive weeks.
T-Pain recently told
MTV.com, "Ain't nobody
selling records unless you
Susan Boyle." His one-liner
was so provocative it was
even picked up in TIME
Magazine. While T-Pain was
moaning about soft sales,
Drake and Eminem were
busy making themselves exceptions
to the overall trend. Good for them.
Recovery also debuts at #1 in the
U.K. this week. It sold nearly 140K in
that market, which constitutes the
best-one tally in the U.K. so far this
year. It's Eminem's sixth straight
album to hit #1 in the U.K. Eminem
has sold more than 7.5 million
albums in the U.K.
Pop Quiz: Eminem's only album to
fall short of #1 was his 1999 debut,
The Slim Shady LP, which logged
three weeks at #2. Name the two
albums that blocked it from the top
spot. Answer below.
The back-to-back
albums Relapse and
Recovery mark the
second time that
Eminem has told a
story in the titles of
successive albums. He
did the same thing with
The Eminem Show,
Encore and Curtain Call: The Hits.
Kanye West picked up on this trick
with the titles of his successive
albums The College Dropout, Late
Registration and Graduation.
If Recovery winds up in Nielsen/
SoundScan's top 10 for 2010 (which
it almost certainly will), this will be
the fifth year that Eminem has had
an album in research firm's year-end
top 10. The Marshall Mathers LP was
the #2 seller of 2000, The Eminem
Show was the #1 seller of 2002,
Encore was the #3 seller of 2004, and
Relapse was the #8 seller of 2009.
Eminem has won the
Grammy for Best Rap
Album four times, more
than any other artist.
He'll probably be in the
running again this year
when the nominations
are announced at the
end of the year. But the
competition this year is fierce. Jay-
Z's The Blueprint 3 and Drake's
Thank Me Later are also front-
runners. Ludacris' Battle Of The
Sexes and B.o.B's B.o.B Presents The
Adventures Of Bobby Ray are also in
the mix. Who will take home the
trophy? Discuss amongst yourselves.
The Fine Print: Because
acts sometimes release
oddities that have no
chance of hitting #1, let
me add a few names to
the discussion in the
third paragraph. Elton
John had seven
consecutive #1 albums from 1972 to
1975 if you discount a reissue of his
debut album. Jay-Z has hit #1 with
his last seven albums if you discount
the three-CD The Blueprint:
Collector's Edition and reboots of
two albums. And Michael Jackson
had six straight #1 albums if you
discount a few Motown repackages
and a couple of HIStory knock-offs
and give him credit for Number Ones
being a #1 album.