Britney Sinks 'N Sync

Back - Index - Submissions - - What is RSS? Date: May 25, 2000 Source: E! online news Submitted By: Haselhorst Britney Spears did it again. In a clash of teenybopping titans, Spears' brand new Oops!...I Did It Again dethroned the hitherto unstoppable 'N Sync to nail the number one slot on the pop charts. Like her Jive label mates 'N Sync and the Backstreet Boys before her, the ex-Mouseketeer scored record first-week album sales. By moving 1,319,000 copies for the week ended May 21, Spears vaulted ahead of Mariah Carey for the biggest sales week for a female artist. Overall, Oops! now ranks as the second-best opening week of the SoundScan era, behind the 2.4 million opening for 'N Sync's No Strings Attached and ahead of the 1.13 million recorded by Backstreet's Millennium. Pearl Jam, the last great survivors of grunge rock, took the number two position with Binaural. Way back in the pre- Backstreet era, when Britney and the 'N Syncers were still playing with Mickey, Pearl Jam's sophomore album, Vs., made the headlines by selling nearly a million copies in its first week (it tallied a then-record 950,000 copies in 1993). Binaural, the rockers' seventh album, sold 226,000 copies in its first week, according to industry sources. Hip-hop duo Big Tymers, featuring Cash Money label cofounder Brian "Baby" Williams and Mannie Fresh, got paid this week as I Got That Work sold 187,000 units for a number 3 debut. Meanwhile, 'N Sync bid "Bye, Bye, Bye" to the top slot after eight straight weeks. No Strings Attached sold 174,000 copies, down 14,000 from the previous week and took the number four slot. That was enough to hold Whitney Houston's double-disc Greatest Hits, which sold moved 157,000 copies in its first week. Houston's 36-song collection, whose questionable album cover shows her mounting platinum albums to a wall, includes nearly every hit in her groundbreaking career as well as numerous remixes. (The one suspicious omission: "When You Believe," her 1998 duet with Mariah Carey for The Prince of Egyptsoundtrack.) The Mission: Impossible 2 soundtrack fell from number 2 to number 6 in its second week. It was followed by Sisqó's Unleash the Dragon, Santana's Supernatural, Creed's Human Clay and Joe's My Name Is Joe at number 10. Phish's Farmhouse made a number 12 debut with 88,000 units, easily a better bow than last November's six-CD endeavor, Hampton Comes Alive. DJ Quik, the former Compton gang-banger turned family man, cracked the top 20, snagging the number 18 position as Balance & Options moved 68,000 copies. The Temptations' Earrestistable and MxPx's The Ever Passing Moment each sold about 25,000 copies in the number 54 and 56 spots, respectively. Hanson's This Time Around, which fared poorly last week with a number 19 debut, free-fell down the charts with the chute not opening until slot 72. Their new album sold just under 20,000 copies in its second week. The Long Island rock band Nine Days made an impressive number 87 bow with its major label debut, Madding Crowd. Fueled by the hit single "Absolutely (Story of a Girl)," the album sold 15,000 copies in its first week. Carly Simon's The Bedroom Tapes, her first new material in six years, came in just below Nine Days at number 90 with 14,000 copies. In the nether-reaches of the charts was glorified ABBA cover band the A*Teens's with The ABBA Generation (number 100, 13,000 copies); British boy group 5ive's Invincible (number 108, 12,000 copies); boy-band BBMAK's Sooner or Later (number 118, 11,000 copies) and country group Blackhawk's Greatest Hits (number 152, 8,000). Veruca Salt, with singer-guitarist Louise Post as the only remaining original member, sold 7,000 copies of Resolver for the number 171 position, one spot ahead of Sonic Youth's NYC Ghosts & Flowers, which also moved about 7,000 copies. Comment on this item. Next Item: Backstreet Trio Reach New Depths Learning to Scuba Dive in the Bahamas Prev Item: Backstreet Boys: Fans of the Millennium