Taylor Swift continues her reign on The Billboard 200 as “Fearless” starts an eighth week at No. 1. The Big Machine effort moved 63,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan, a mere 1% slip from sales last week.
This is likely the album’s last week on top, however, as Bruce Springsteen’s “Working on a Dream” (Columbia) is projected to debut in the summit next week.
Four other efforts in the top 10 hold are unmoved from last week: Beyonce’s “I Am… Sasha Fierce” (Music World/Columbia) at No. 2 with 51,000 (+3%); Nickelback’s “Dark Horse” (Roadrunner) at No. 3 with 45,000 (-3%); Britney Spears’ “Circus” (Jive) at No. 7 with 31,000 (-9%); and Jamie Foxx’s “Intuition” (Fox/Bad Boy) at No. 8 with 30,000 (-4%).
On a 1% decrease to 39,000, Kanye West’s “808s and Heartbreak” (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam) ascends 5-4, while the Chop Shop/Atlantic soundtrack to “Twilight” takes an 8% hit to 33,000 and climbs 6-5. Keyshia Cole’s “A Different Me” (Geffen) leaps 9-6 with flat sales at 31,000. “Notorious,” the Bad Boy soundtrack to the film of the same name, falls 4-9 with a 32% decrease in sales to 29,000.
Mariah Carey’s “Ballads” (Columbia/Legacy) compilation is the chart’s highest debut at No. 10 with 29,000. It’s the fourth best-of set that Carey has charted, following “#1’s” (No. 4 in 1998), “Greatest Hits” (No. 52 in 2001) and “The Remixes” (No. 26 in 2003).
Andrew Bird notches his best sales and charting week ever with the Fat Possum album “Noble Beast,” which debuts at No. 12 with 26,000. Bird had never reached The Billboard 200 before 2007’s “Armchair Apocrypha,” which debuted and peaked at No. 76 with 11,000.
Also scoring career-best numbers is Animal Collective with the Domino album “Merriweather Post Pavilion.” The project lands at No. 13 with 25,000; it debuted at No. 38 two weeks ago on the Top Independent Albums chart purely on vinyl sales.
“Blood Bank,” an EP from Jagjaguwar artist Bon Iver, starts at No. 16 with 23,000, both career bests. The artist’s 2008 debut, “For Emma, Forever Ago,” was one of the most critically acclaimed albums of last year and has been on a sales roll for several weeks. It entered The Billboard 200 at No. 198 in December after 10 months of release and is No. 85 this week.
Frank Sinatra’ “Seduction: Sinatra Sings of Love” (Rhino) climbs on at No. 23 with 17,000, just in time for the Feb. 14 Valentine’s Day holiday.
At 6.43 million units, sales are up 9.1% compared to the same total last week and off by 12% compared to the same week in 2008.
Additional reporting by Keith Caulfield.
