September 27, 2007

Kanye West Clobbers 50 Cent In Week-Two Sales — But Reba McEntire Takes Top Spot

By Chris Harris (MTV.com)

For the last month or so, everyone in the music industry has been abuzz about Kanye West and 50 Cent - or more specifically, the epic sales campaign the two waged during the weeks leading up to the September 11 release of their latest LPs, 'Ye's Graduation and Fif's Curtis.

And last week the results came in, with West the undisputed victor. But who'd come out on top after week two? Would West's sales continue to eclipse 50's, or would the tables turn, resulting in a come-from-behind coup?

Well, neither ended up being the case, and the results stayed pretty much the same: Sales of Graduation were significantly stronger than those generated by Curtis, and interest in both sets waned. According to the latest SoundScan totals, sales for West's latest dipped 76 percent, while Curtis suffered a 79 percent sales cut. What this all means, basically, is there's a new name in the No. 1 position on next week's Billboard albums sales chart, and that name is Reba.

What's even more surprising than the bubbly, fire-fleeced country sweetheart and former star of the now-canceled CW sitcom Reba surpassing the two biggest hip-hop releases of the year so far? The fact that the album is the first No. 1 of McEntire's 30-year career.

McEntire's Reba Duets - which features collaborations with artists like LeAnn Rimes, Kelly Clarkson, Rascal Flatts, Don Henley, Justin Timberlake, Faith Hill and Kenny Chesney - sold more than 300,500 copies during its first week in record stores to claim the chart's peak position. Reba's previous best was a No. 2 bow for 1994's Read My Mind. That drops West's Graduation to No. 2 with close to 226,000 scans and 50's Curtis to No. 3 with 143,000 sold. (In just two short weeks, Graduation has sold nearly 1.2 million copies.)