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Usher No. 1 in 2004? Yeah!
01/05/2005 8:05 PM, E! Online
David Jenison
How's this for a stat: The combined sales of Norah Jones ' Feels
Like Home and Eminem 's Encore still doesn't best 2004's top
seller, Usher's Confessions.
Usher decimated all
comers as Confessions sold a hair under 8 million total copies,
according to year-end data released by Nielsen SoundScan today. That
topped both the 2003 and 2002 champs, 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die
Tryin' and The Eminem Show, which sold 6.5 million and 7.6
million copies, respectively. Usher also dominated at radio as his hits
"Yeah!" and "Burn" were the first- and fourth-most played singles of the
year. For digital download tracks, "Yeah!" also finished at five for
2004.
Usher's fifth album started off strong last March,
selling 1.1 million first-week copies. This marked the best debut sales
week since 'N Sync 's Celebrity sold 1.88 million copies in 2001
and the best single-week sales since The Eminem Show moved 1.3
million in 2002 during its second week out. Overall, Confessions
had the third-largest debut for a solo album and the largest ever by an
R&B artist.
Still in the Top 10 over nine months after its
release, Confessions has an excellent shot at making the Top 10
all-time bestselling list. Britney Spears ' ...Baby One More Time
currently holds up the rear of that list with 10.5 million. Usher move
ahead next month if he converts his eight Grammy nominations into wins.
When Confessions first topped the charts last
spring, the disc dethroned the year's runner-up, Norah Jones' Feels
Like Home. The Starbucks fave finished the year selling more than
3.8 million copies of her sophomore disc, a total jumpstarted by her
1.03 million-copy first week. (Jones' debut disc, Come Away with
Me, finished second to 50 Cent in 2003, selling 5.1 million for the
year.)
Eminem's Encore, currently the number one
album in the country, wrapped up 2004 as the number three seller. The
disc sold more than 3.5 million units for the year.
After a
steady decline in sales the past four years, 2004 finally reversed
course. Total sales--including CDs, singles and digital tracks--topped
817 million copies, compared with 687 million in 2003, an increase of 2
percent. It also marks the first time overall sales topped the 800
million mark since 2000.
Helping boost total sales was the
iPod Factor. In 2003, 19.2 million digital tracks were downloaded--a
figure dwarfed last year as 141 million were downloaded. Proving that
digital sales are picking up momentum, in the final week of 2004, 6.7
million tracks were sold online--a single-week record. Leading the
digital way in 2004 was Hoobastank's "The Reason," with nearly 380,000
downloads.
Thanks to the likes of Usher and Jones, R&B led
all genres, moving 162 million copies in 2004. Alternative music
accounted for 132 million in sales, followed by rap (81 million),
country (78 million) and metal (75 million).
Meanwhile, a
trio of country artists also made the year-end Top 10. Kenny Chesney's
When the Sun Goes Down sold 3.07 million at four, newcomer
Gretchen Wilson sold 2.9 million of Here for the Party at five,
and Tim McGraw's Live Like You Were Dying landed at six with 2.8
million.
The remaining Top 10 finishers ended 2004 within
150,000 copies of each other. Maroon 5's 2002 album, Songs About
Jane, finished at seven with 2.7 million; Evanescence's 2003 album,
Fallen, landed at eight with 2.6 million; acid-reflux queen
Ashlee Simpson 's 2004 debut, Autobiography, came in at nine with
2.57 million; and Now That's What I Call Music! 16 took the 10
spot with 2.56 million.
Usher and Maroon 5 were the only
artists to appear on the Top 10 year-end lists for both album sales and
digital tracks. They also join Evanescence as the only three to make the
Top 10 album sales and the radio single airplay lists.
Other
notable stats for 2004 include double digit growth for country and Latin
albums as well as for mass merchant music outlets. As far as genres,
Usher helped make R&B the top seller once again with 162 million total
sales, followed by alternative with 132 million and rap music with 81
million.
To recap, the Top 10 bestselling albums of 2004
were as follows:
1. Confessions, Usher, 8
million
2. Feels Like Home, Norah Jones, 3.8 million
3. Encore, Eminem, 3.5 million
4. When the Sun Goes
Down, Kenny Chesney, 3.1 million
5. Here for the Party,
Gretchen Wilson, 2.9 million
6. Live Like You Were Dying,
Tim McGraw, 2.8 million
7. Songs About Jane, Maroon 5, 2.7
million
8. Fallen, 2.61 million
9.
Autobiography, Ashlee Simpson, 2.57 million
10. Now
That's What I Call Music! 16, various, 2.56 million
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