For the past three weeks in a row, Michael Jackson’s "Number Ones" has been the biggest-selling album in the country.
Each time, it’s been disqualified from Billboard’s flagship Billboard 200 chart, along with all Jackson’s other releases, due to its age. That unusual run of asterisked Billboard 200 chart-toppers is now over. Which artist put an end to Jackson’s posthumous flummoxing of the Billboard rules, you ask The answer is Chris Daughtry, whose “Leave This Town” bows atop the chart with a very nice 269,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That’s actually a bit of a drop-off from the 304,000 that the first album from American Idol alum Chris Daughtry’s band sold when it hit shelves in 2006, but it’s more than anyone else could muster in this sales frame — yes, even Michael. And so for the first time in a month, the No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 is actually the No. 1 selling album in the U.S., no tricks, no fooling. (“Number Ones,” meanwhile, sold another 192,000 this week, landing it handily atop the Top Comprehensive Albums chart, which counts catalog albums alongside new ones. So don’t think that MJ’s sales have dried up just yet.) Other Billboard 200 debuts this week came from the Dead Weather’s “Horehound” at No. 6, demonstrating that at least 51,000 devotees can be counted on to buy any side project Jack White dreams up. R&B singer Joe, shows up at No. 7 after signing over 49,000 units of his “Signature”; Twista fast-talked his way into 45,000 sales and a No. 8 bow; and Christian power-pop teens pureNRG squeak in at No. 20 with 22,000 copies sold.
