Springsteen Tops Billboard Charts In Incredibly Depressing Sales Week

(YouTube, Via You Ain't No Picasso)

Bruce Springsteen's latest album Magic regained the top spot of the Billboard charts after slipping to number 2 last week. That's not depressing. In fact, it's probably expected. What's depressing is that the record sold only 77,000 copies, which itself was a 42 percent sales drop from last week's total. Granted, there weren't any huge releases scheduled last week, but still, wow.

What's even more mindblowing is that around this time 5 years ago (Oct. 30th, 2002), former Destiny's Child singer Kelly Rowland solo debut Simply Deep sold 77,000 copies in its first week. That album's chart position? #12.

You know what's not depressing and, in fact, quite hilarious? Ben Stiller's imitation of Bruce Springsteen, specifically, his counting. Watch the video at the top. It's an old favorite of mine, one that I imitated so often that threats of violence if I didn't stop came my way. Thanks to You Ain't No Picasso for pointing out the video.

(Jonathan Graef)

White Stripes Have Best Sales Week Ever

(Photo taken from Pitchfork)

Download: The White Stripes - "Conquest"
Download: The White Stripes - "Icky Thump"
Download: The White Stripes - "300 MPH Torrential Outpour Blues"

So, despite all the hubbub about leaks Rolling Stone reports that the White Stripes had their best sales week ever for Icky Thump The Stripes' sixth album sold a total of 224,000 copies, which was good enough for number two behind the latest from Bon Jovi.

Now, although this information is new, I have to wonder what people will say about the Stripes' sales total in spite of the leak. On the one hand, I wouldn't be happy if my record had leaked three weeks early and people were snatching up left and right online. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if the publicity generated by the radio station dust-up heightened the profile of the record, which may have lead to the increase in sales. On the other other hand, perhaps it's because Icky Thump is just a better record that its predecessor.

Discuss.