e’s everywhere…and by next Tuesday, Jay-Z’ll make himself at home on top of the album chart, too.
Riding the wave of Black Friday and holiday dollars, the rapper looks headed for the year’s best debut week total of the year for his Kingdom Come-back on Def Jam, with our national network of retailers estimating a sales total of 850k, which will soundly defeat the previous high, Rascal Flatts’ 714k last April.
Aside from a marketing blitz that included Budweiser and Hewlett-Packard commercials along with promos for the NBA and NASCAR, Jay-Z is officially the #1 on-demand artist ever on Clear Channel Radio, with 600,000 plays over the past week on more than 220 station websites. He also performed the single, “Show Me What You Got,” on last night’s national ABC telecast of the American Music Awards and last weekend, his “Hangar Tour” included seven shows in less than 24 hours in Atlanta, Philadelphia, DC, New Jersey, Chicago, L.A. and Las Vegas, with exclusive MTV coverage.
Another legendary rapper, Snoop Dogg, follows with his Geffen album, The Blue Carpet Treatment, which will go head to head with Daughtry’s self-titled 19 Recordings/RCA bow, both in the 270k range. That would make it the highest Idol non-winner first-week sales total since Clay Aiken.
The Beatles’ much-ballyhooed George/Giles Martin mash-up on Apple/Capitol, LOVE, looks to be in the 250k area, which would put it right behind the other two and in a four-way fight for the pole position with Sony Music Label’s Now 23, whose counterpart rose a whopping 70% last Thanksgiving.
Another posthumous 2Pac album on Amaru/Interscope, Pac’s Life, looks to be headed for the 160-170k neighborhood. A singles collection from U2, U218, is on course for 100k, though that could be affected by a retail giveaway of a bonus live album for a limited number of early buyers. Siempre, the new album by Syco/Columbia international popera stars and Simon Cowell discovery Il Divo, currently on tour with Barbra Streisand, also appears headed for a six-figure opening.
Riding the wave of Black Friday and holiday dollars, the rapper looks headed for the year’s best debut week total of the year for his Kingdom Come-back on Def Jam, with our national network of retailers estimating a sales total of 850k, which will soundly defeat the previous high, Rascal Flatts’ 714k last April.
Aside from a marketing blitz that included Budweiser and Hewlett-Packard commercials along with promos for the NBA and NASCAR, Jay-Z is officially the #1 on-demand artist ever on Clear Channel Radio, with 600,000 plays over the past week on more than 220 station websites. He also performed the single, “Show Me What You Got,” on last night’s national ABC telecast of the American Music Awards and last weekend, his “Hangar Tour” included seven shows in less than 24 hours in Atlanta, Philadelphia, DC, New Jersey, Chicago, L.A. and Las Vegas, with exclusive MTV coverage.
Another legendary rapper, Snoop Dogg, follows with his Geffen album, The Blue Carpet Treatment, which will go head to head with Daughtry’s self-titled 19 Recordings/RCA bow, both in the 270k range. That would make it the highest Idol non-winner first-week sales total since Clay Aiken.
The Beatles’ much-ballyhooed George/Giles Martin mash-up on Apple/Capitol, LOVE, looks to be in the 250k area, which would put it right behind the other two and in a four-way fight for the pole position with Sony Music Label’s Now 23, whose counterpart rose a whopping 70% last Thanksgiving.
Another posthumous 2Pac album on Amaru/Interscope, Pac’s Life, looks to be headed for the 160-170k neighborhood. A singles collection from U2, U218, is on course for 100k, though that could be affected by a retail giveaway of a bonus live album for a limited number of early buyers. Siempre, the new album by Syco/Columbia international popera stars and Simon Cowell discovery Il Divo, currently on tour with Barbra Streisand, also appears headed for a six-figure opening.
