Chemical Brothers score fifth chart-topping album
09 July 2007 - 10:02:59
Source: musicweek

The Concert For Diana attracted a bumper TV audience and resulted in
considerable improvements in sales for most featured artists but it couldn't
prevent an overall 5.8% dip in album sales last week to 2,259,017, with
sales at the top of the artist album chart proving particularly weak, writes
Alan Jones.

With introductory single Do It Again remaining in the Top 20, The Chemical
Brothers' new album We Are The Night becomes the duo's fifth number one
album - a record for a dance act. Arriving 12 years to the week since the
Chemical Brothers made their album chart debut with Exit Planet Earth, it
sold 36,392 copies to debut at the summit.

The Chemical Brothers' sixth regular album includes collaborations with
Midlake, The Klaxons and Willy Mason, and is the first studio album to top
the charts for a dance act since their last album, Push The Button, in
February 2005 - although compilations by Basement Jaxx, Faithless and
Jamiroquai have reached number one in the interim.

Of their previous number ones, Push The Button opened with sales of 58,364
in 2005, Come With Us (2002) opened with 49,811 sales, Surrender (1999) with
70,043, and Dig Your Own Hole (1997) with 62,793. The Chemical Brothers' two
other albums both debuted and peaked at number nine - Exit Planet Earth in
1995 on sales of 10,690, and the compilation The Singles 93-03 on sales of
26,476. Surrender was the fastest starting album by the band, and is their
most successful, with to date sales of 599,492. Overall, they have sold
2,125,034 albums in the UK.

We Are The Night's sales are the lowest for a number one album for 12 weeks,
and the fourth lowest of the year. It was the only album to sell more than
30,000 copies last week - runners-up The Traveling Wilburys' Collection sold
28,757 copies.

Antipodean veterans Crowded House's first new album for 14 years, Time On
Earth becomes their highest charting studio album to date, debuting at
number three on sales of 27,799. Their previous best placed regular release
hitherto was Together Alone, the number four album which ended the first
phase of their career in 1993, though they did reach number one with
Recurring Dream: The Very Best Of Crowded House in 1996, after they
disbanded. That album is by far their most successful, with UK sales of
1,300,389.

Last week's chart-toppers, The Editors, slide to number four with An End Has
A Start, which suffered a 56.2% dip in sales to 25,996.

Helped by the band's televised appearance on The Concert For Diana and a £4
price tag in the HMV sale, Take That's Never Forget - The Ultimate
Collection reaches its highest chart placing since 2005 this week. Moving
88-9-10-5 since the sale started, it sold 25,517 copies last week,
(1,272,784 to date). Although current single I'd Wait For Life was Take
That's
least successful since Once You've Tasted Love in 1992, the band's current
album Beautiful World also enjoys a major Diana lift, jumping 40-11 on sales
of 16,763, increasing its career tally to 1,727,975.

Velvet Revolver's second Libertad makes its maiden chart appearance at
number six on sales of 25,403, beating the number 11 debut/peak of their
2004 debut Contraband, which enjoyed first week sales of 23,157, which have
since swollen to 212,426. Velvet Revolver is made up of five veterans with
an average age of 42. Vocalist Scott Weiland (Stone Temple Pilots) is the
youngest at 39. The band's other members are Guns n' Roses members Slash
(41), Duff McKagan (43) and Matt Sorum (46) and Dave Kushner (41) formerly
with Wasted Youth.

Another performer at The Concert For Diana, the newly-engaged Nelly Furtado
is back in the Top 10 after a gap of nine weeks with Loose. The album,
Furtado's third, was released 13 months ago and peaked at number four. It
jumps 20-7 this week on sales of 20,750, which lift its overall tally to
827,411 - making it, by some distance, her biggest seller. First album Whoa!
Nelly sold 655,418 copies while follow-up Folklore managed only 239,252
sales. With next single In God's Hands due soon, Loose should eventually
pass the million mark.

The Top 10 is rounded out by Amy Winehouse's Back To Black (down 5-8, on
sales of 19,226), Kelly Clarkson's My December (down 2-9, on sales of
17,790), and Rihanna's Good Girl Gone Bad (down 7-10, on sales of 17,519).

Diana concert beneficiaries not mentioned elsewhere include Lily Allen
(Alright, Still climbs 46-15 on sales of 14,313), Elton John (Rocket Man,
93-23, 11,495), James Morrison (Undiscovered, 66-25, 10,978), The Feeling
(Twelve Stops, 117-34, 8,106) and Rod Stewart, whose newly released set
combining all four of his American Songbook albums debuts at number 16 on
sales of 14,234.

Number one on the compilation chart for the third week in a row, Clubland 11
lost a third of its sales thrust last week but still managed to appeal to
25,649 buyers, more than the number two (Just Great Songs, 13,929 sales) and
three (Hard Energy, 10,801 sales) albums together.

Meanwhile, the sun is finally out but Rihanna and Jay-Z's Umbrella remains
up at the top of the singles chart, where its reign is now extended to eight
weeks.

In a singles market which dipped by 2.8% to 1,485,963 units, Umbrella
drifted 9.3% lower at 26,757 sales - the second lowest for a number one this
year, beating only the 20,665 copies that Leona Lewis' A Moment Like This
sold on its fourth and last week at number one, some 25 weeks ago. Kate Nash
remains runner-up, with Foundations selling a further 19,676 copies (down
1.2%).

Avril Lavigne scores her seventh Top 10 hit in total, and second in a row
from current album The Best Damn Thing, jumping 17-3 with When You're Gone,
on sales of 15,632. It's the follow-up to Girlfriend, which reached number
two in February, and has so far sold 218,705 copies. Despite the success of
When You're Gone - which is also enjoying major radio support, and moves 5-3
on the airplay chart this week - The Best Damn Thing only moves 31-28 on
sales of 9,762, raising its 12 week sales tally to 191,981.

Enrique Iglesias drifts 3-4 with Do You Know? on sales of 15,165, while The
Hoosiers move a notch in the opposite direction to a new peak with Worried
About Ray, climbing 6-5 on sales of 13,190.

One of the busiest of producers and artists in the last few years, with
credits on 99 different album projects since 2000, Timbaland is nevertheless
threatening to retire. He hasn't yet, and lands his third Top 10 hit this
week, as The Way I Are jumps 18-6 on sales of 12,181.

Featuring vocals by Keri Hilson and D.O.E., it's the second single from
Timbaland's second solo album Shock Value. The first, Give It To Me, a
collaboration with Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake, topped the chart 12
weeks ago, and has sold 192,222 copies to date.

Seventy-56-49-7: Natasha Bedingfield's Soulmate finally got released on CD
last week and sales of 10,647 help it to make a 42 place leap, and equal the
chart peak of predecessor I Wanna Have Your Babies. They are first two
singles from Bedingfield's second album, N.B. which has proved a major
retail disappointment compared to her debut album, Unwritten. The latter
disc, a number one, has sold 967,773 copies. After debuting at number nine,
N.B. sunk to number 146. It climbs 122-72 this week on sales of 3,816,
raising its cumulative tally to 46,532.

Fergie was one of the star attractions of The Concert For Diana - no, not
Duchess and former sister-in-law Sarah but Stacy 'Fergie' Ferguson, from
Black Eyed Peas, whose set went down a storm. On downloads alone, Fergie
secures her third straight Top 10 hit from The Dutchess with Big Girls Don't
Cry rocketing 28-8 on sales of 9,963, while previous hit Glamorous rebounds
77-36. The Dutchess itself moves 105-51 on sales of 5,655. its highest
placing for 11 weeks. The Dutchess peaked at number 27, and has a 42 week
sales tally of 93,214.

As Lee Mead's new role in the title role of the West End revival of Joseph
And The Technicolor Dreamcoat draws closer, his single Any Dream Will Do
falls 5-9 on sales of 8,212. Kelly Rowland slips too, falling 8-10 with Like
This on sales of 7,798.

The Diana effect was felt here too, with resurgences of old hits by Fergie,
Nelly Furtado, Take That, Lily Allen and most notably Puff Daddy's I'll Be
Missing You, the Notorious B.I.G. tribute which became identified with Diana
following her death. It charts for the first time since 1997, surging to
number 32 on sales of 3,931 downloads.

With iTunes pushing The Spice Girls back catalogue, Stop came within an ace
of returning to the Top 75 - the anchor position is held by Ne-Yo's Because
Of You on sales of 1,998, while Stop sold 1,952 copies to rank 78th.

While 1,998 sales for 75th place may seem insignificant, downloads have
significantly increased sales at the bottom of the chart in the last couple
of years. In the same week last year, the number 75 single sold just 1,050
copies, and in 2005 only 802 sales. However, turn back the clock 10 years -
when, incidentally, I'll Be Missing You was number one with 166,906 sales,
and you find that Skunk Anansie's Brazen 'Weep' sold 2,504 copies, all
physical (obviously) for 75th place.

In the same week, every one of the top eleven singles sold more than
Umbrella did last week. Apart from I'll Be Missing You, they lined up like
this: 2 Ecuador - Sash! (71,797 sales), 3 The Journey - 911 (59,134), 4
Free - Ultra Nate (44,581), 5 Something Goin' On - Todd Terry (42,491), 6
Bitter Sweet Symphony - The Verve (36,119), 7 Mmm Bop - Hanson (34,861), 8 A
Change Would Do You Good - Sheryl Crow (32,701), 9 I Wanna Be The Only One -
Eternal feat. BeBe Winans (31,660), 10 Just A Girl - No Doubt (31,130), 11
All That I Got Is You - Ghostface Killah (28,477).

On the album chart, The Prodigy also turned in a big sale, shifting 316,951
copies of The Fat Of The Land. Radiohead's OK Computer was a distant second,
with sales of 39,290.

Summary ...

read more »

news:Wj4li.1440$iE5.1048@fe3.news.blueyonder.co.uk...

Of course it was an unexpectedly good week last week.

It's not a genre known for long careers, at least as album acts. So I
suppose that softens the blow of the underwhelming sales a little.

Exit Planet Dust, he means.

It never looked quite right to see Jamiroquai classed as a dance act,
although I know they got nominated for the Brit Award more or less every
year it ran.

It's Exit Planet *Dust*, I tell ye! The title is a pun on the Dust Brothers
thing.
Maybe the Singles album would have done better had it been more
comprehensive.

Funny that. I would have thought that Dig Your Own Hole would have the edge,
as it was the most successful one singles-wise.

Must make them one of the top dance acts on that measure too.

Pedantic note: they're only about 50% Antipodean now. Neil Finn is of course
a New Zealander, and Nick Seymour is Australian: but keyboard player Mark
Hart (who first joined in 1992) is American, as is new drummer Matt Sherrod.

Although you could argue that they only disbanded a few weeks before that
album was released, and therefore Together Alone wasn't really the end of
their career.

Not surprisingly so. I'd guess that Woodface was their biggest-selling
studio album, although I prefer Together Alone myself.

Very pedantic note: they're not really The Editors. But everyone, myself
included, tends to call them that.

According to my little book, he was also in Electric Love Hogs. But of
course you knew that. ;-)

So obviously, he worked very hard on all 99 of them, and didn't in any way
do the minimum possible in order to get his name on them.

I know it took the first one a while to sell that many, but it's still not
great is it?

Not Alex Ferguson either.

Which means that had this rather silly campaign been not coincided with the
Diana business they'd have had a Top 75 hit, for whatever good that would
do.

And even that's not an all-time low, IIRC.

However, turn back the clock 10 years -

Their highest-charting single (not that week of course), though not their
most famous song.

One of many Number 2's for him.

Not their best work, I think.

I hated this at the time.

I didn't really like this either, but it was OK in hindsight.

Reunion hasn't AFAIK put this back in the charts, but then again lots of
people already have it.

In an Mmmbop, they were indeed gone.

Her best single? Crap video though.

This was awful.

Got a bit tiresome after a while.

Haven't heard this for about ten years. But it was pretty decent IIRC.

    Chris