Reba-McEntire-Keep_lAugust is “respect your country elders” month, it seems: Reba McEntire takes the top spot on this week’s Billboard 200 with 96,000 copies sold of Keep On Loving You, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That’s enough to unseat last week’s winner, King of Country George Strait, who falls to No. 2 with 61,000. For those keeping score, this is Strait’s 26th album and McEntire’s 31st. Whew.
Rounding out the Top Three is Third Eye Blind, who sold 49,000 copies of Ursa Major. For a band whose last album came out six years ago and whose last hit was three years before that, 49K is nothing to sneeze at. Looks like 3EB’s life is still semi-charmed, after all.
Elsewhere on the chart, Sean Paul enters at No. 12 with a not-particularly-imperial 28,000 units moved of Imperial Blaze. Lead single “So Far” hasn’t caught fire yet, but perhaps one of the dozen other extremely catchy dancehall bangers on the album will be able to gain some traction in the coming weeks. Down at No. 14, Ledisi, whose Best New Artist nod at last
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The Big News: For the second time in her three-decade career, Reba McEntire claimed Number One on the Top 200, as her latest album Keep On Loving You outpaced the competition with 95,000 copies sold. It was McEntire’s second consecutive album to top the charts after 2007’s Reba: Duets with 300,000 sold in its first week. The Top Five was country-tinged, as last week’s champ, George Strait’s Twang, dropped to second with an additional 61,000 in sales. Third Eye Blind’s first album in six years, Ursa Major, debuted at Number Three, ahead of usual suspects Black Eyed Peas’ The E.N.D. and Kings of Leon’s Only By the Night at Four and Five respectively.
Over on the all-encompassing Comprehensive Albums chart, Michael Jackson’s Number Ones remained at Number Two with another 67,000 copies sold. Essential Michael Jackson also cracked the Comprehensive Top 10 by coming in at Nine. On the Top Catalog Albums chart, Jackson continues to dominate as the King of Pop and Jackson 5-related releases take up nine of the Top 10 spots. Meanwhile, the Black Eyed Peas’ stranglehold on top of the Hot 100 continued for an unprecedented 21st consecutive week as “I Gotta Feeling” once again ruled.
Debuts: Outside of Reba and 3EB, no other new releases managed to penetrate the Top 10. Sean Paul came the closest as Imperial Blaze entered the charts at Number 12 with 28,000. Ledisi’s fourth album Turn Me Loose was a step behind Sean Paul, coming in at 14 with 27,000 sold. Mute Math’s Amistice was the last of the debuts in the Top 20, breaking in at 18. Further down, Quentin Tarantino, the king of the soundtrack, and his David Bowie-and-Ennio Morricone-powered Inglourious Basterds LP premiered at 132.
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