Packed with tracks by such hitmakers such as 50 Cent, Nelly, Beyonce, Justin Timberlake and P. Diddy, the soundtrack to “Bad Boys II” cruises to a third straight week atop The Billboard 200. The Bad Boy/Universal set holds onto the top spot despite a 21% slip in U.S. sales to 155,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Not since “Titanic” (Sony Classical) led the tally for 16 straight weeks in 1998 has a soundtrack logged three consecutive weeks at the top of The Billboard 200. While the Shady/Interscope soundtrack to “8 Mile” managed to register four weeks at the summit, it did so in non-consecutive weeks, broken up by albums from Jay-Z and Shania Twain.
In its three weeks, “Bad Boys II” has sold more than 670,000 copies. Album cut “Shake Ya Tailfeather” by Nelly, P. Diddy and Murphy Lee is a top-20 hit on Billboard’s Hot 100.
The Billboard 200’s No. 2 post is occupied for a second week by the 13th volume of the “NOW That’s What I Call Music!” series (Universal/EMI/Zomba/Sony). The compilation sold 114,000 copies, a 33% slip from the previous week.
Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love” (Columbia) rises 5-3 on the chart despite a 20% sales loss to 88,000 copies. Right behind her, Evanescence’s Wind-Up debut “Fallen” turns a 10% sales burst to 79,000 units into a 10-4 gain. In its third week on the chart, “Jackpot,” the Disturbing Tha Piece/Capitol debut from Chingy, gains one to No. 5. Sales of the set were down 10% to 77,000 copies.
The sole debut in top-10 of the album chart is “LSG2” (Elektra) at No. 6 with sales of 66,000. The album is the sophomore set from the R&B supergroup made up of Gerald Levert, Keith Sweat and Johnny Gill. The trio’s debut, “LeVert, Sweat, Gill,” opened at No. 4 with sales of 138,000 copies at the dawn of the 1997 holiday season. The set has sold 1.8 million units to date.
50 Cent’s “Get Rich or Die Tryin'” jumps back into the top-10 with a 12-7 boost. Sales of 64,000 were on par with the previous week’s total. Meanwhile, sales of Ashanti’s “Chapter II” (Murder Inc./Def Jam) slip 26% to 61,000 copies, and the set is up one slot to No. 8. Mya’s “Moodring” (Interscope) drops 3-9 in its second week on the chart; sales were down 47% to 59,700 copies.
Rounding out the top-10 is Norah Jones’ “Come Away With Me” (Blue Note/Capitol). The set rebounds from last week’s No. 13 perch thanks to a 5% gain to sales of 59,300 copies.
The only other album to debut inside the top-35 of The Billboard 200 is the debut from JS (short for Johnson Sisters). “Ice Cream” (DreamWorks) bows at No. 33 with sales of 28,000 copies. The album’s title track reached No. 58 last week on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks tally.