Queen of Hip-Hop Soul, meet the King of Christmas.
Mary J. Blige's Growing Pains stood out as the final marquee release of the year, but Josh Groban's record-breaking holiday run proved to be the soul singer's spoiler. For the week ended Sunday, Groban's Noël bounced back Blige and extended its chart-topping reign to five straight weeks selling another 757,000 copies, according to recent SoundScan numbers.
Groban now claims the year's second-best sales week, trailing only Kanye West's 957,000-copy Graduation bow, and the album's current 3.5 million tally keeps Noël on target to become the bestselling album of the year. The singer also extended his record for the most consecutive weeks at number one with a holiday album, having already broken Elvis' 50-year-old record of three straight weeks.
Though Groban played Grinch on Mary J., the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul still made a royal entrance selling 629,000 copies of Growing Pains at number two. Among first-week sales figures this year, Growing Pains finished fifth behind albums by Kanye West, Alicia Keys, the Eagles and 50 Cent. Like Blige, Fiddy also opened at number two thanks to a spoiler, in his case West's Graduation.
Though there were no other Top 10 bows this week, Chris Brown's Exclusive inched up two spots to number 10 selling another 176,000 copies in its seventh week.
The remaining Top 10 stocking stuffers were all holdovers: Alicia Keys' As I Am finished at three, the Eagles' Long Road Out of Eden at four, Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus at five, Now That's What I Call Music! 26 at six, Carrie Underwood's Carnival Ride at seven, Taylor Swift's self-titled at eight and the High School Musical 2 soundtrack at nine.
Just missing the Top 10, Jaheim's Makings of a Man sold 176,000 copies at 11. Early last year, Jaheim's Ghetto Classics topped the charts but on fewer copies sold, 132,000 to be exact. Going for a more mature vibe, Jaheim's fourth album is his first not to include the word "ghetto" in the title.
Lupe Fiasco, known for last year's rap-skate anthem "Kick, Push," followed at 15 selling 143,000 copies of his new concept album The Cool. Inspired by the song "The Cool" from his debut disc, The Cool tells the tale of the Streets and the Game, two characters who personify urban street life. Further epitomizing his bold ways, the Chi-town rapper recruited Fall Out Boy singer Patrick Stump to produce one of the album tracks.
Gospel great Kirk Franklin scored the week's other big bow, Fight of My Life, selling 74,000 copies at 33. In his 15 years as a recording artist, Franklin has picked up five Grammy trophies, his own BET show and the first platinum album for a gospel artist. Fight leads at radio with the Kenny Loggins-sampling party-starter "Declaration (This Is It)."
Further down the chart, "Right Thurr" rapper Chingy found the answer to his album title as Hate It or Love It sold a disappointing 31,000 copies at number 84. The St. Louis rapper's first three albums all debuted in the Top 10, including last year's Hoodstar.
Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo followed at 163 selling 14,000 copies of Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo. Described as a collection of "my favorite home demos from '92 to '07," the disc most notably includes tracks from Weezer's discarded space-rock opera, Songs from the Black Hole, which morphed into 1996's Pinkerton. Appropriately titled Black Hole tracks include "Blast Off!" and "Dude, We're Finally Landing."
This week also marks Pink's one-year chart anniversary for I'm Not Dead, which enjoyed a lively 55 percent sales bump to finish the week at 77. The steadily selling album, which currently clocks in at 1.15 million copies sold, benefits from a consistent string of radio hits. In addition to three Top 20 singles in the U.S., I'm Not Dead charted an additional four hits around the globe.
The holiday week helped push sales up 42 percent overall from last week though still down 18 percent compared to the same holiday week in '06.
To recap, the week's Top 10 were as follows:
1. Noël, Josh Groban
2. Growing Pains, Mary J. Blige
3. As I Am, Alicia Keys
4. Long Road Out of Eden, the Eagles
5. Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus, Miley Cyrus
6. Now That's What I Call Music! 26, various
7. Carnival Ride, Carrie Underwood
8. Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift
9. High School Musical 2 soundtrack, various
10. Exclusive, Chris Brown