Norah Jones didn't have any Grammy nominations or appear on the show this time around, but she still had enough jazz to take back the top of the charts.
After slipping to number two for a week, the songbird fluttered her way back to the top of the charts despite surging sales for last week's Grammy winners. Jones' Not Too Late sold 211,000 copies for the week ended Sunday, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Her toughest competition came from the late Gerald Levert, whose posthumous release, In My Songs, moved 165,000 at number two. The R&B singer—of the groups LeVert and LSG—and son of O'Jays vocalist Eddie, died last November.
The rest of the top 10 was packed with artists getting the traditional Grammy bump, led by the 2007 Grammy Nominees collection, which sold 131,000 copies and climbed four spots to three on a sales gain of 116 percent. Though she didn't win a trophy, Best New Artist nominee Corinne Bailey Rae did translate a performance on the CBS telecast into a five-slot, 132 percent jump for her self-titled debut, which now ranks at number four with 120,000. A pair of two-trophy winners, Justin Timberlake and John Mayer, also made moves upward. Timberlake, who performed twice during the ceremony, saw his FutureSex/LoveSounds hop three spots to number seven with 108,000 (a 123 percent gain), while Mayer's Continuum jumped 19 spots to 10 on sales of 80,000 (up 182 percent).
The biggest Grammy boost, though, went to the biggest Grammy winner, the Dixie Chicks. The Texas trio's Taking the Long Way—which earned trophies for Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Country Album and Best Country Performance by Duo or Group with Vocal—jumped 74 spots in the week leading up to the Grammys and rocketed another 64 spots to number eight following the wins. The disc's sales were up a whopping 714 percent, from 12,700 to 103,000.
Other big winners experiencing triple-digit percentage jumps: Red Hot Chili Peppers' Stadium Arcadium (number 12, 194 percent), Mary J. Blige's The Breakthrough (21, 161 percent), John Legend's Once Again (23, 138 percent), Gnarls Barkley's St. Elsewhere (44, 192 percent) and Tony Bennett's Duets (45, 147 percent).
Despite the big Grammy-spawned gains, overall sales were down by nearly 11 percent from the same period in 2006.
The remaining top 10 holdovers were Fall Out Boy's Infinity on High at five, Robin Thicke's Evolution of Robin Thicke at six and Daughtry's self-titled album at nine.
Further down the Billboard 200, Lucinda Williams and Van Morrison scored the week's other top debuts. The alt-country queen sold 57,000 copies of West to open at number 14. Meanwhile, Morrison's At the Movies compilation—featuring songs that appeared in such films as Born on the Fourth of July, An American Werewolf in London, The Outsiders and Pope of Greenwich Village—sold 29,000 copies at 35.
Here's a recap of the top 10.
1. Not Too Late, Norah Jones
2. In My Songs, Gerald Levert
3. 2007 Grammy Nominees, various
4. Corinne Bailey Rae, Corinne Bailey Rae
5. Infinity on High, Fall Out Boy
6. Evolution of Robin Thicke, Robin Thicke
7. FutureSex/LoveSounds, Justin Timberlake
8. Taking the Long Way, Dixie Chicks
9. Daughtry, Daughtry
10. Continuum, John Mayer