Groban Grabs Elvis' Holiday Crown

Groban Grabs Elvis' Holiday Crown

12/19/2007 6:00 AM, E! Online
David Jenison

Holiday sales might be depressing, but it's no blue Christmas for Josh Groban. He just broke a chart record Elvis set back when Eisenhower was President.

Josh Groban's Noël claimed an unprecedented fourth straight week at number one, a feat never before accomplished by a holiday album. Elvis Presley set the previous record, three weeks, half a century ago with 1957's Elvis' Christmas Album.

For the week ended Sunday, Noël topped the chart and rewrote the record books by selling an incredible 669,000 copies, according to the latest Nielsen SoundScan numbers.

Groban, whose single "I'll Be Home for Christmas" topped the AC charts this week as well, has sold nearly 2.8 million copies of Noël in its 10-week run. That puts Noël in the lead as the year's bestselling album, and if the trend holds, it'll become the first holiday album to top year-end sales in the SoundScan era.

Furthermore, the disc's 669,000-copy week is both a career-best for Groban and a 2007-best for a nondebuting album. Even factoring in first-week debuts, Noël chalked up the fifth-biggest sales week of the year.
Though his sales will drop sharply once Christmas Day hits, Groban still has a full shopping week to try to extend his number one run and further cement his place in chart history. His biggest challenge next week comes from Mary J. Blige's Growing Pains.

Though there were no top 10 debuts this week, Mannheim Steamroller's The Christmas Song made its Top 10 return, climbing six spots to number five. The disc, featuring guest vocals by Olivia Newton-John and Johnny Mathis, is the group's eighth holiday album in 23 years.

Overall, the Top 10 saw little movement. Holding their spots from last week, Alicia Keys' As I Am finished at twp, the Eagles' Long Road Out of Eden at three, Now That's What I Call Music! 26 at four and the High School Musical 2 soundtrack at six. Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus, Carrie Underwood's Carnival Ride and Garth Brooks' The Ultimate Hits slipped two spots apiece to numbers seven, nine and 10, respectively. Taylor Swift's self-titled jumped up a spot to eight.

Face Off, a new collaborative album by rapper Bow Wow and former B2K crooner Omarion, scored the highest debut at 11. The disc, featuring the radio single "Girlfriend" and the Rick Rubin-produced "Hey Baby (Jump Off)," sold 107,000 copies, missing the Top 10 by about 12,000.

Comparatively speaking, Omarion and Bow Wow both released individual albums last December, bowing in at numbers one and six, respectively.
Cash Money founder Birdman—aka Baby, aka Bryan Williams—scored the next best bow at 18 with his Lil Wayne-produced 5*Stunna selling nearly 86,000 copies. Young R&B singer Mario followed three spots behind at 21, selling 77,000 copies of Go!.

The Wu-Tang Clan's first new album in six years, 8 Diagrams, sold 68,000 copies at number 25. The revolutionary rappers came to prominence in the '90s on Steve Rifkind's Loud Records, which dissolved in 2002. Rifkind, who found new success with his Motown-based SRC label, recently relaunched Loud under SRC with Wu-Tang once again as the lead act.

The-Dream (his publishing checks read Terius Youngdell Nash) is best known as the pen behind Rihanna's "Umbrella" and J. Holiday's "Bed," but he makes his artist debut at number 30 this week with Love/Hate selling 59,000 copies.

Controversial rapper Beanie Sigel followed at 37 selling 49,000 copies of The Solution. Despite hailing from the city of brotherly love, the Philly rapper is no stranger to beefs, jail time and gunshots, even taking a bullet in the shoulder last year when he was allegedly robbed.

Most recently, Sigel was torn between Jay-Z and Dame Dash after the two former Roc-A-Fella partners had their falling out. While some members of his State Property crew joined Dash's new label, Sigel sided with Jay, making The Solution his first album since resigning to the new Roc-A-Fella label.

In a less dramatic affair, High School Musical—Hits Remixed sold 42,000 copies at 42. The Wal-Mart exclusive features reworked tracks from the two HSM soundtracks.

Overall, album sales are up over 24 percent from last week, and even though the same week last year featured many of the same artists and series (Groban, Underwood, Now! and Hannah Montana), sales are down an eggnog-spoiling 23 percent.

To recap, the Top 10 albums for the week included:
• Noël, Josh Groban • As I Am, Alicia Keys • Long Road Out of Eden, the Eagles • Now That's What I Call Music! 26, various • The Christmas Song, Mannheim Steamroller • High School Musical 2 soundtrack, various • Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus, Miley Cyrus • Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift • Carnival Ride, Carrie Underwood • The Ultimate Hits, Garth Brooks

Fuck that. Evlis is King.

-HECK!

I don't know who Evlis is Heck. Explain? ha.

I like Josh Groban. But beating out Elvis? now that's just crazy.

Don't know what you're talking about, Elvis is spelled correctly.

-HECK!

No it's not, it says Evlis.