Beastie Boys End Six-Year Lull with No. 1 Album
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Proving they can still party for their right to fight, the Beastie Boys returned in style from a six-year recording lull to top the U.S. pop album charts with their latest release, “To the 5 Boroughs.”
The Beasties’ toast to their native New York sold 360,000 copies for the week ended June 20, about half the first-week tally of the veteran rap trio’s last offering, “Hello Nasty,” but enough to clinch the fourth No. 1 album of their career, Nielsen SoundScan reported on Wednesday.
By comparison, “Hello Nasty” opened at No. 1 in July 1998 with 682,000 copies sold its first week and remained on top for three weeks, going on to sell 3.8 million units to date.
Still, “5 Boroughs” (Capitol Records) got a stronger start than the Beasties’ 1994 release “Ill Communication,” which opened at No. 1 with 220,000 copies sold.
The band also went to No. 1 for seven weeks with its 1986 debut album, “Licensed to Ill,” which produced the band’s massive cross-over hit “Fight for Your Right (To Party)” and preceded the May 1991 launch of the SoundScan sales system for calculating chart rankings.
The Beasties’ 1989 album, “Paul’s Boutique,” peaked at No. 14, and 1992’s “Check Your Head” at No. 10.
The group’s sixth album finds bandmates Mike D, MCA and Ad-Rock (aka Mike Diamond, Adam Yauch and Adam Horovitz) all approaching their 40s as they continue to present their familiar brand of old-school rap spiced with punk.
Last week’s chart-topper, Velvet Revolver’s “Contraband” (RCA Records), the first album by a rock band to top the Billboard 200 since Metallica’s “St. Anger” a year ago, slipped to No. 3 with sales of 122,700 copies, a 52 percent slide from its opening number.
“Contraband,” the debut album from the supergroup featuring former Guns N’ Roses musicians and Stone Temple Pilots vocalist Scott Weiland, has sold nearly 380,000 copies to date.
Usher’s “Confessions,” which has spent a total of nine weeks at the top, held steady at No. 2 after a mere 1 percent drop from the previous week to sales of 169,000 copies. Its cumulative total rose to 4.3 million copies.
Gretchen Wilson remained at No. 4 for a second week with “Here for the Party,” and Avril Lavigne dropping two spots to No. 5 with “Under My Skin.”
Rounding out the top 10 were Prince’s “Musicology,” Hoobastank’s “The Reason,” D12’s “D12 World,” Los Lonely Boys’ self-titled release and Celine Dion’s latest set, “A New Day: Live in Las Vegas.”
Josh Gracin, the active-duty Marine who finished fourth on the second season of Fox Television’s “American Idol,” entered the pop chart at No. 11 and the country chart at No. 2 with his self-titled debut album, selling 57,000 copies its first week.
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