At this point Taylor Swift's Fearless seems more like Fear Factor for anyone trying to bounce her from the top of the charts.
The country cutie's sophomore album notched its eighth week at No. 1, selling another 63,000 for the week ended Sunday, per Nielsen SoundScan. Fearless is the first album to hit the eight-week mark since Usher's Confessions in 2004. It's also Swift's seventh consecutive week on top, a feat not seen since Creed's Weathered had an eight-week run in 2001.
To put this in perspective, Billy Ray Cyrus' Some Gave All holds the record for the most consecutive chart-topping weeks (17) and The Bodyguard soundtrack for the most nonconsecutive weeks (20) in the SoundScan era, which began tracking sales in 1991.
Unfortunately for Swift, however, eight will have to be enough. Bruce Springsteen's Working on a Dream, the first marquee release of 2009, is already on track to hit No. 1 on next week's chart and should get a big boost when the Boss headlines the Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday.
In an otherwise slow week, Mariah Carey's Ballads scored the only top 10 bow. The singer's fourth career compilation sold 29,000 copies in the 10 spot.
Andrew Bird's Noble Beast narrowly missed the top 10, selling 26,000 at No. 12. Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion followed one spot behind on 25,000 copies.
Bon Iver's Blood Bank EP sold 18,000 of its 23,000 copies as a download, helping it top the Digital Albums chart while finishing at No. 16 on the Billboard 200.
In other chart action, Kelly Clarkson's "My Life Would Suck Without You" topped the Digital Tracks chart on 280,000 downloads, while the Veronicas' Hook Me Up took over the Heatseekers chart.
Total album sales are up 9 percent from last week but down 12 percent compared to the same week in '08, when Alicia Keys' As I Am topped the charts.
Here's a recap of the top 10 albums:
1. Fearless, Taylor Swift
2. I Am… Sasha Fierce, Beyoncé
3. Dark Horse, Nickelback
4. 808s & Heartbreak, Kanye West
5. Twilight soundtrack, various
6. A Different Me, Keyshia Cole
7. Circus, Britney Spears
8. Intuition, Jamie Foxx
9. Notorious soundtrack, various
10. Ballads, Mariah Carey