Katie Hasty, N.Y.
Taylor Swift's sophomore Big Machine album "Fearless" tops The
Billboard 200 for a fourth non-consecutive week after selling
262,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen
SoundScan, a 21% sales decline from last week.
With the continued success of her track "Single Ladies (Put a Ring
on It)", Beyonce's "I Am ... Sasha Fierce" (Music World/Columbia)
leaps up 5-2 on a 7% sales boost to 211,000. Britney Spears' Jive
set "Circus" rebounds 4-3 with 203,000 (+4%), while Nickelback's
"Dark Horse" (Roadrunner) climbs 6-4 with 177,000 (-9%).
Re-entering the top tier with an 11-5 move is Kanye West's "808s
and Heartbreak" (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam), on a 16% jump in sales to
165,000 units. The Chop Shop/Atlantic soundtrack to "Twilight"
moves 148,000 copies (-5%) and ascends a notch 7-6.
After a No. 2 debut last week, Keyshia Cole's "A Different Me"
(Geffen) takes a 61% sales plunge to 127,000, moving the set down
to No. 7. Similarly, Jamie Foxx's "Intuition" (J) experiences the
same decline in its second week to 105,000 and slips 3-9.
The 29th volume of the multi-label "Now!" hits compilation climbs
10-8 on a 12% decline to 122,000. David Cook rounds out the top 10
with his self-titled 19 Recordings/RCA debut, ascending 13-10 with
101,000 (-22%).
In this last chart week of 2008, sales totaled 17.02 million, up
17% compared to the final week of 2007. However, the week ending
Dec. 28, 2008 included three full days of pre-Christmas shopping.
The final week of 2007 ended on Dec. 30, and only contained one day
of last minute holiday shopping.)
There were 428.4 million albums sold this year, down 14.4% compared
to 2007's 500.5 million. Lil Wayne's "Tha Carter III" (Cash
Money/Universal) was the top seller of the year with 2.88 million
copies.
