Ozzy Osbourne, The Used make chart debuts
As predicted, Ozzy Osbourne's Black Rain debuted at Number Three on the Billboard album chart on Wednesday (May 30th), behind chart-topper Maroon5 and Number Two placeholder Linkin Park. Osbourne's ninth solo effort sold 152,000 copies in its first week of release, good enough to earn the Prince of Darkness his highest chart position ever. Punk act the Used landed at Number Five, selling 92,000 copies of its third CD, Lies for the Liars, and also making its highest chart debut. 2004's In Love and Death bowed at Number Six.
Nearly a quarter of the sales of Black Rain were through digital retailers, which offered early access to Ozzfest tickets with pre-orders of the album.
Despite the relatively strong numbers, record sales were down more than three percent from last week and over 16 percent from the same week last year. Used bassist Jeph Howard told us, however, that he's not worried about the gloomy outlook for the record business: "I'm personally excited. This is like a revolution. Something this big in music, I don't think has happened for a long time. Like, everything as people know it is about to change, and it's on its way to it. It's headed toward this, like, a countdown. It's almost like a countdown to something that nobody knows what's at the end of it. It's like, what's gonna happen at the end of this? What's gonna go on? It's cool that we're living in that age that we can actually see what happens."
Last week's Number One album, Linkin Park's Minutes to Midnight, sold 198,000 copies, dropping 68 percent from the 623,000 it sold last week.
The Bravery's The Sun and the Moon debuted at Number 24 with a first-week total of 22,000 copies sold.
Submit the above story to:
Del.icio.us
Digg
reddit
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Nearly a quarter of the sales of Black Rain were through digital retailers, which offered early access to Ozzfest tickets with pre-orders of the album.
Despite the relatively strong numbers, record sales were down more than three percent from last week and over 16 percent from the same week last year. Used bassist Jeph Howard told us, however, that he's not worried about the gloomy outlook for the record business: "I'm personally excited. This is like a revolution. Something this big in music, I don't think has happened for a long time. Like, everything as people know it is about to change, and it's on its way to it. It's headed toward this, like, a countdown. It's almost like a countdown to something that nobody knows what's at the end of it. It's like, what's gonna happen at the end of this? What's gonna go on? It's cool that we're living in that age that we can actually see what happens."
Last week's Number One album, Linkin Park's Minutes to Midnight, sold 198,000 copies, dropping 68 percent from the 623,000 it sold last week.
The Bravery's The Sun and the Moon debuted at Number 24 with a first-week total of 22,000 copies sold.
Submit the above story to:
Del.icio.us
Digg
reddit
StumbleUpon
Facebook
The Rock Radio online