Susan Boyle’s “I Dreamed a Dream” holds at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart for a fifth consecutive week, selling another 510,000 copies according to Nielsen SoundScan. So far, the set has shifted 2,982,000 copies in America.
“Dream” has sold more than half a million copies in each of its first five weeks of release — something only four albums have done since SoundScan began tracking data in 1991. The Beatles’ “1” did it in its first six weeks, while Garth Brooks’ “Sevens” and Backstreet Boys’ “Black & Blue” each managed 500,000-plus frames in their first five weeks.
With just one more tracking week left in the year, “Dream” may overtake Taylor Swift&’s “Fearless” as the year’s top selling album in the U.S. Swift’s “Fearless” has sold 3,157,000 in 2009 — thus, the gap between the two is down to just 175,000. Because of a quirk in the calendar, instead of 52 tracking weeks in 2009, there are 53. The final week of 2009 will reflect sales data for the week ending Jan. 3. Because four out of the seven days in that week fall in 2009, the full week gets credited to 2009.
Believe it or not, with the continued domination of “I Dreamed a Dream,” Boyle is the first artist in the Billboard 200’s 53-year chart history to enter the list at No. 1 with a debut album and spend five consecutive weeks at the summit. In second place are lauryn hill (1998) and Ashanti (2002), each with three weeks in charge out of the gate with “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” and “Ashanti,” respectively.
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