Bone Thugs-N-Harmony Wage "War" on Charts

Wed., Aug. 6, 1997 5:45 PM PDT by

Rappers brought out the big guns, so to speak, taking the top-three positions in the album charts this week behind the solid number-one debut of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony's double-disc Art of War.

Thanks to sales of 394,000 units, War was declared on Puff Daddy's No Way Out, leaving the artist/producer at number 2. His album slipped mightily from its big bow at 561,000, but still chalked up respectable second-week sales of 301,000, according to industry sources.

Another hip-hop flavored rig, Men in Black, featuring raps by Will Smith and Snoop Doggy Dogg, also wielded some serious firepower. The soundtrack finished in third place with sales of 166,000, down from 180,000.

The rest of the Top 10 was a hodgepodge of alternative music and pure pop. In the pure-pop department, Spice Girls sold 134, 000 copies of their Spice (off a pinch from last week's total of 140,000) to land in fourth, and the brothers Hanson found another 116,000 screaming teens to buy their Middle of Nowhere, good enough for fifth place.

Mellow modern-rock chanteuse Sarah McLachlan held steady in the upper echelons of the pop charts. Her Surfacing was snapped up by 105,000 fans, charting at number 6.

The Spawn soundtrack, with its heavy-duty lineup of duets, including Metallica's Kirk Hammet teamed with Orbital, Korn and the Dust Brothers, and Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello with Prodigy, should have sold more than 98,000 copies, according to some observers. But the disc still made the Top 10, landing in the number-seven slot.

In eighth place, Prodigy's Fat of the Land is still high on the hog with sales of 91,000, while young alterna-act Matchbox 20 was one notch lower, selling 85,000 of Yourself or Someone Like You, up from 75,000. Jewel rounded out the Top 10 as her Pieces of You picked up 81,000 new fans.

Other big openings this week included the number-13 bow of the band Joe on Jive Records with All That I Am and Pantera's number 15 showing, Official Lies.

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