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The Big News: As expected, Justin Bieber dominated the Billboard 200 in My World 2.0’s debut week in stores, selling 283,000 copies to earn his first Number One debut. My World 2.0 improved on the success of its 2009 predecessor, which arrived at Number Six with 137,000 copies last November. In fact, Bieber was on such a roll, sales of My World are up 50 percent from the previous week as either hardcore fans or misinformed parents bought the two albums together. My World finished the week at Number Five, its highest point in 19 weeks on the charts, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
The week’s Number Two album, Monica’s Still Standing, came in 100,000 copies behind Bieber but marked her highest-charting first week since After the Storm hit Number One in 2003. The R&B singer beat out her last album The Makings of Me, which only mustered a Number Eight debut and 93,000 in first week sales in 2006. One more new release managed to break the 100K mark, and it was the ever-successful Now! brand’s 33rd volume at Number Three with 135,000 copies sold. Last week’s Number One, Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now, slipped to Number Four to make room for the three debuts at the top.
Debuts: She and Him’s Volume 2 easily scored the duo’s best debut as Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward entered the charts at Number Six with 47,000 copies, a jump from Volume One’s Number 71 peak in 2008. Further down, Scorpions’ final album Sting in the Tail came in at 23, Snoop Dogg’s More Malice debuted at 29 and Goldfrapp’s Head First scored Number 44 in its first week.
Last Week’s Heroes: Even though Need You Now dropped to Number Four, the bestselling album of 2010 so far has only experienced a 16 percent decrease in sales in its ninth week, surpassing the three-quarter mark to doubl...
Article Source: Rolling Stone : Rock and Roll Daily