Los Angeles, June 26: R&B ingenue Monica clinched the No. 1 spot on the weekly pop album charts on Wednesday with the debut of her third release, "After the Storm," knocking veteran balladeer Luther Vandross to second place. The latest set from the Atlanta-born vocalist sold nearly 186,000 copies its first week out, marking her biggest opening to date and giving her label, J Records, headed by legendary music impresario Clive Davis, its second No. 1 release in as many weeks, according to industry retail monitor Nielsen SoundScan.
Featuring her hit single "So Gone," Monica's "After the Storm" also landed at No. 1 on the R&B album chart.

The 22-year-old singer, who recorded her first hit single as an adolescent in the mid-1990s, sold 2 million copies of her last album, "The Boy is Mine," which debuted at No. 8 in 1998 with sales of 91,000 units.
In an otherwise anemic sales week ended June 22, J Records accounted for two other titles in the top five -- "Dance with My Father" from Vandross at No. 2 and "Bare" from Annie Lennox at No. 5, both in their second week of release.

COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING

Vandross, who remains hospitalized from a stroke, entered the charts at No. 1 with sales of 441,000 copies in a week that saw six-digit tallies for the top five releases and three albums selling 300,000 units or better.

This week, only one other act besides Vandross and Monica even topped sales of 100,000 units -- the hard rock band Metallica, which slipped a notch to No. 3 with 138,000 copies of "St. Anger" its third week in release.

The English rock group Radiohead sold 96,000 copies of "Hail to the Thief" in its second week to rank No. 4.
Still, the J Records's chart dominance demonstrated the continued industry influence of Davis, the former Arista Records executive who has worked with such superstars as Santana and Bruce Springsteen. Two years after he was ousted by parent company Bertelsmann AG, Davis returned to the fold last November when Bertelsmann bought out his half of J Records and installed him at the helm of a newly combined group called RCA Music Group, comprising J and RCA Records.

Rounding out the top 10 on the pop album chart this week were: hard-core rapper 50 Cent's "Get Rich or Die Tryin"' (No. 6), Grammy-winning vocalist Norah Jones' "Come Away with Me" (No. 7), "Fallen" from the rock band Evanescence (No. 8), the soundtrack to the hit movie "2 Fast, 2 Furious" (No. 9) and "American Idol" winner Kelly Clarkson's debut effort, "Thankful" (No. 10), also from RCA. Bureau Report