Candygram! Sweet Success for Madonna

Material Girl's Hard Candy debuts at number one on the Billboard album charts

By David Jenison May 07, 2008 7:43 PMTags
Madonna, Justin TimberlakeKevin Mazur/WireImage.com

Gotta give it to up for Madonna, lady sure knows how to make an exit.

Hard Candy, the Material One's final Warners album before joining Live Nation, dominated the pop chart, moving 288,000 copies to debut at No. 1 for the week ended Sunday, per SoundScan.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer is now just one No. 1 away from tying Barbra Streisand's all-time record of eight chart-toppers, the standard for female artists.

Take that, Mariah.

The new single "4 Minutes" also reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, giving Madonna her 37th Top 10 hit and pushing her past Elvis for the most Top 10s of all time. The Justin Timberlake collaboration is her 53rd single to crack the Hot 100 (and her second duet, following 2003's "Me Against the Music" with Britney Spears, fresh off her split with Timberlake).

Album producers include Timbaland and Pharrell Williams, while Kanye West appears as a, um, Candy rapper.

Hard Candy concludes the singer's quarter-century career with Warner, which dates back to her 1983's self-titled debut. Last fall, Madonna signed a 10-year deal with concert promoter Live Nation, reportedly worth $120 million, that includes albums, tours, merchandise and promotion.

Madonna's megadebut knocked down the newly married Mariah Carey's E=MC2 and Leona Lewis' Spirit to Nos. 2 and 3, selling 95,000 and 84,000 copies, respectively.  (Carey's album still has bragging rights for biggest debut of the year, selling 463,000 copies in its opening week last month.)

Six other new releases cracked the Top 10.

Lyfe Jennings' Lyfe Change sold 80,000 copies at No. 4. Def Leppard's Songs From the Sparkle Lounge moved 55,000 at No.5, one spot and 1,000 copies ahead of the Roots' Rising Down.

Portishead, fresh off a Coachella reunion, checked in at No. 7, selling 53,000 copies of Third. This is the group's first studio release since its 1997 eponymous sophomore disc, which landed Portishead its previous career-high-debut at No. 21.

Speaking of reunions, Mudcrutch, the early '70s precursor to Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, finally recorded and released a debut album nearly four decades after forming. The self-titled effort, featuring Petty and his former bandmates, sold 38,000 to open at No. 8.

Tim McGraw lassoed in the week's seventh and final Top 10 bow with his limited-edition Greatest Hits collection. The two-disc Wal-Mart exclusive, which packages together his 2000 and 2006 retrospectives, sold 29,000 copies at No. 10.

Steve Winwood, who recently reunited with Eric Clapton for a trio of Blind Faith shows at Madison Square Garden, just missed, selling 26,000 copies of Nine Lives to debut at No. 12. The Brit rocker, who also logged in miles with Traffic, Go and the Spencer Davis Group, peaked at No. 126 with his last studio album, 2003's About Time.

The chart's other noteworthy newcomers included Carly Simon's This Kind of Love at 15, Augustana's Can't Love, Can't Hurt at 21, Lil' Mama's VYP: Voice of the Young People at 25, indie electro-rockers Mindless Self Indulgence at 27 with If, Maná's Arde el Cielo at 30 and Estelle's Shine at 38.

Overall, week-to-week sales were up 10 percent, but still down 10 percent compared to the same sales week in 2007.

  1. Hard Candy, Madonna
  2. E=MC2, Mariah Carey
  3. Spirit, Leona Lewis
  4. Lyfe Change, Lyfe Jennings
  5. Songs From the Sparkle Lounge, Def Leppard
  6. Rising Down, the Roots
  7. Third, Portishead
  8. Mudcrutch, Mudcrutch
  9. Now That's What I Call Music! Vol. 27, various
  10. Greatest Hits, Tim McGraw