The Case Of The Missing #2 Album – Chart Watch

For the second week in a row, Jack Johnson’s. Sleep Through The Static and Michael Jackson’s Thriller 25 are the top two albums in the U.S. Or are they?<They are, if you look at the Top Comprehensive Albums chart compiled by Nielsen/SoundScan. Johnson is #1 for the week with sales of 105,000 copies, trailed by Jackson with 63,000 copies. (The gap between the two is wider than it was last week, when just 14,000 copies separated them.)But Jackson is nowhere to be found on the list of Top Current Albums that is published each week (as The Billboard 200) in Billboard magazine. The top 10 from that chart is reprinted in countless newspapers and websites around the world, including this one. The reason for the omission, as I explained last week, is that Nielsen/SoundScan and Billboard exclude catalog titles-defined as albums that are 18 months old or older-from the main chart. (Continuously running “current” hits are exempted.)The idea is to make more room on the chart for new albums, which need every break they can get. This week, the rule resulted in 31 older albums being removed from Top Current Albums and shifted over to Top Catalog Albums. Just four of these 31 titles would have ranked in the top 100: Thriller 25, which would have ranked #2; Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ Greatest Hits, #63; Guns N’ Roses’ Greatest Hits, #64, and Bob Marley & the Wailers’ Legend, #84.The idea of clearing catalog product out to give new titles a break makes a certain amount of sense. But having a top 10 that forever has to carry an asterisk is a high price to pay. Billboard and Nielsen/SoundScan should consider revising their policy so that the top 10, at least, is presented without any modification. They could even present the top 100 exactly as is. This week, as noted, they’re opening up only four spots in the top 100 by having this policy. Most of the catalog titles–including such perennial best-sellers as Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon, AC/DC’s Back In Black and Metallica’s Metallica–rank in the second hundred.In his Over The Counter column, Billboard’s Geoff Mayfield reports that Thriller 25 is only the second album to be denied a top 10 spot on Top Current Albums by the catalog-exclusion rule since the Comprehensive chart bowed in late 2003. Il Divo’s The Christmas Collection would have placed #10 on the main chart in December 2006 if it had been allowed to compete. Even so, two albums denied a hard-earned spot in the top 10 is two too many.I know that Michael Jackson, a proud and highly competitive man, is never content to finish second. But he should bear in mind that his album, which won the Grammy for Album of the Year 24 years ago, sold more copies in each of the last two weeks than this year’s freshly-minted Album of the Year champ, Herbie Hancock’s River: The Joni Letters. River ranked #5 last week and this week dives to #16.This will be a memorable week for Johnson, who also makes the cover of Rolling Stone for the first time. Johnson was born in 1975, when Jackson was roughly at the midpoint between his initial Jackson 5 smashes and his solo superstardom with Off The Wall.On Hot Digital Tracks, “Low” by Flo Rida featuring T-Pain holds at #1 for a record 13th consecutive week. It is now just 129,000 copies behind “Crank That Soulja Boy” as the most downloaded track of all time. It will probably take two more weeks to top it. The Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em track just keeps adding to its total. It sold 30,000 downloads this week.

Top Billboard-2005

The Billboard TOP  is a ranking of the highest-selling music albums, published weekly by magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists. Often, a recording act will be remembered by its “number ones”, those of their albums that outsold all others during at least one week.

The chart is based solely on sales (both at retail and digitally) . The sales tracking week begins on Monday and ends on Sunday. A new chart is published the following Thursday with an issue date of the following Saturday.

Top Billboard-2005

01 Webbie (Featuring Bun B) – Give Me That (Amended Version)
 02 Mariah Carey – We Belong Together
 03 Gwen Stefani – Hollaback Girl
 04 Mario – Let Me Love You [Radio Edit]
 05 Kelly Clarkson – Since U Been Gone
 06 Ciara – One, Two Step
 07 Kanye West – Gold Digger [Album Version (Edited)]
 08 Green Day – Boulevard Of Broken Dreams (SingleAlbum Version)
 09 50 Cent – Candy Shop [Album Version (Edited)]
 10 The Pussycat Dolls, Busta Rhymes – Dont Cha [Radio Edit feat. Busta Rhymes]  
 11 Kelly Clarkson – Behind These Hazel Eyes
 12 50 Cent – Disco Inferno [Album Version (Edited)]
 13 Lifehouse – You And Me
 14 Black Eyed Peas – Dont Phunk With My Heart
 15 Missy Elliott – Lose Control (Featuring Ciara Fat Man Scoop)
 16 Mariah Carey – Shake It Off
 17 The Killers – Mr. Brightside
 18 50 Cent – Just A Lil Bit [Album Version (Edited)]
 19 Rihanna – Pon de Replay [Radio Edit]  37 31
 20 The Game – How We Do [Album Version (Edited)]
 21 Weezer – Beverly Hills  18 02
 22 Ciara – Oh  4:16 91
 23 Rob Thomas – Lonely No More (Album Version) 
 24 Snoop Dogg – Drop It Like Its Hot [Album Version (Edited)]
 25 2The Game – Hate It Or Love It [Album Version (Edited)]  26 1
 26 Lil Jon the East Side Boyz – Lovers and Friends feat. Usher Ludacris  
 27 Destinys Child featuring T.I. and Lil Wayne,T.I., – Soldier [Radio Edit]
 28 Kelly Clarkson – Breakaway
 29 Will Smith – Switch [Main Version]
 30 Bow Wow feat. Omarion – Let Me Hold You
 31 Bow Wow feat. Ciara – Like You
 32 Gwen Stefani – Rich Girl
 33 Black Eyed Peas – My Humps
 34 Frankie J. – Obsession (No Es Amor) [Featuring Baby Bash] 
 35 Usher – Caught Up 
 36 D.H.T. – Listen To Your Heart (Furious F. EZ Radio Edit)
 37 Papa Roach – Scars
 38 Gorillaz – Feel Good Inc (Single Edit)
 39 3 Doors Down – Let Me Go [Rock Version]
 40 Green Day – Holiday (Album Version) (Faded Ending)
 41 Fall Out Boy – Sugar, Were Goin Down  49 50
 42 Pretty Ricky – Grind With Me (Radio Version)
 43 Chris Brown – Run It! [Remix featuring Juelz Santana]
 44 Nickelback – Photograph
 45 Akon – Lonely [Old Version (Clean)]
 46 Howie Day – Collide [Original Album Version]
 47 Green Day – Wake Me Up When September Ends (Album Version)  
 48 Bobby Valentino – Slow Down [Radio]
 49 Nelly – Over and Over [Album Version (Explicit)]
 50 Trillville – Some Cut (Explicit Version) [Feat. Cutty]
 51 David Banner – Play [Album Version (Explicit)]
 52 Fat Joe – Get It Poppin (Featuring Nelly) (Album Version
 53 Young Jeezy – Soul Survivor [Album Version (Edited)]
 54 Ludacris – Pimpin All Over The World [Album Version (Explici
 55 Usher - My Boo [Feat. Alicia Keys]
 56 Trick Daddy – Sugar (Gimme Some) (featuring Ludacris, Lil Kim, a
 57 Alicia Keys – Karma
 58 Coldplay – Speed Of Sound
 59 Gavin DeGraw – I Dont Want To Be
 60 Eminem – Mockingbird [Album Version (Edited)]
 61 Shakira – La Tortura (Artista Invitado Alejandro Sanz)
 62 Maroon – She Will Be Loved
 63 Baby Bash – Baby, Im Back [Album Version (Edited)]
 64 Ying Yang Twins – Wait (The Whisper Song)
 65 Backstreet Boys – Incomplete [Album Version]
 66 T.I. – Bring Em Out (Explicit Screwed Version) 
 67 Destinys Child – Cater 2 U
 68 Amerie – 1 Thing
 69 Foo Fighters – Best Of You
 70 Mariah Carey – Its Like That [Main Version]
 71 Natalie – Goin Crazy
 72 Carrie Underwood – Inside Your Heaven
 73 Kelly Clarkson – Because Of You
 74 Fantasia – Truth Is
 75 Pretty Ricky – Your Body (Explicit Version)
 76 Jesse McCartney – Beautiful Soul [Radio Edit]  
 77 Gwen Stefani – Cool
 78 Ludacris – Get Back [Radio]  
 79 50 Cent – Outta Control [Remix- Album Version (Explicit)]
 80 T.I. – U Dont Know Me (Explicit Screwed Version)
 81 Natasha Bedingfield – These Words [Manny Marroquin Mix aka U.S. Album Ve
 82 Black Eyed Peas - Dont Lie 
 83 Jennifer Lopez - Get Right 
 84 John Mayer - Daughters 
 85 Toby Keith - As Good As I Once Was 
 86 Brooke Valentine - Girlfight (Clean Radio Edit)
 87 Destinys Child - Lose My Breath
 88 John Legend - Ordinary People  
 89 Sean Paul - We Be Burnin (Recognize It - Amended Album Versio 
 90 The Click Five - Just The Girl (Album Version)
 91 Ryan Cabrera - True
 92 Omarion - O [Clean Album Version]
 93 Mike Jones – Back Then (Album Version)
 94 Jay-Z – NumbEncore (Explicit Version) [Feat. Linkin Park]
 95 Ja Rule – Wonderful [Album Version (Explicit)]
 96 T-Pain – Im Sprung [Original]
 97 Gavin DeGraw – Chariot
 98 112 – U Already Know [Album Version (Edited)]
 99 Faith Hill – Mississippi Girl (Album Version)
 100 Ludacris – Number One Spot [Album Version (Edited)]

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