The Civil Wars Debut at No. 1 on Billboard 200 Albums Chart

The Civil Wars Debut at No. 1 on Billboard 200 Albums Chart

Though the duo may be on a touring hiatus, the Civil Wars are celebrating their first No. 1 album this week. The act's new self-titled set debuts atop the Billboard 200 chart, selling 116,000 copies according to Nielsen SoundScan. LATEST FROM CIVIL WARS It's easily the best sales week for the pair (Joy Williams and John Paul White) who previously saw a one-week high after the Grammy Awards in 2012, when their full-length debut, "Barton Hollow," shifted 36,000. Its sales that week were buoyed by the duo's performance on the Awards, which shot the album from No. 41 to its peak of No. 10 on the chart. The Civil Wars has been on hiatus since last November, citing "internal discord and irreconcilable differences of ambition." While the act is not performing shows to promote the new album, Williams has been giving interviews to the press. White, however, has been keeping a low profile and has not spoke to the media. A sturdy 69% of "The Civil Wars'" first week sales came from digital retailers. Its download sales of 81,000 easily place it at No. 1 on the Digital Albums chart as well. Last week's No. 1, Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines," falls to No. 3 with 65,000 (down 63%). The runner-up title last week, Five Finger Death Punch's "The Wrong Side of Heaven and the Righteous Side of Hell, Volume 1," falls to No. 8 with 35,000 (down 69%). The new "Now 47" compilation arrives at No. 2 this week with 82,000 -- a figure slightly lower than the 91,000 that the "Now 46" set started with in May. All 47 of the regular, numbered, "Now" albums have reached the top 10, and all but the first debuted in the top 10. The Civil Wars: Track-By-Track Review Jay Z's "Magna Carta… Holy Grail" slides 3-4 with 48,000 (down 22%) and the "Teen Beach Movie" soundtrack holds at No. 6 with 38,000 (down 19%). Rock band Asking Alexandria nets its highest-charting album and best sales week yet, as "From Death to Destiny" debuts at No. 5 with 41,000. It surpasses the No. 9 debut and peak of its last release, 2011's "Reckless & Relentless," which moved 31,000 in its first week. Imagine Dragons' "Night Visions" profits from a $7.99 sale price in the iTunes Store, as the album vaults from No. 11 to No. 7 with 37,000 (up 46%). In terms of download sales, it rose by 87% for the week (climbing 10-3 on the Digital Albums chart). Gospel artist Tye Tribbett claims his first top 10 album, as his new "Greater Than" bows at No. 9 with a career-best sales frame of 30,000. He had previously gone as high as No. 16 with "Stand Out" (with his group G.A.). "Greater Than" also enter at No. 1 on the Gospel Albums chart -- Tribbett's fourth leader on that tally. Rounding out the top 10 on the Billboard 200 this week is Florida Georgia Line's "Here's to the Good Times," which is a non-mover at No. 10 with 26,000 (down 8%). THICKE HOLDS, JAY Z RISES ON DIGITAL SONGS CHART Over on the Digital Songs chart, Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" (featuring Pharrell and T.I.) holds at No. 1 for a tenth non-consecutive week, selling another 346,000 downloads (down 14%). Jay Z's "Holy Grail" (featuring Justin Timberlake) rises 3-2 with 166,000 (up 2%), Miley Cyrus' "We Can't Stop" falls 2-3 with 158,000 (down 10%) and Imagine Dragons' "Radioactive" is steady at No. 4 with 132,000 (down 15%). Anna Kendrick's "Cups" is a non-mover at No. 5 (114,000; up 4%), Avicii's "Wake Me Up!" jets 9-6 (113,000; up 13%) and Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" (featuring Pharrell Williams) is stationary at No. 7 (just under 113,000; up 10%). Drake's "Hold On, We're Going Home" is the chart's highest debut, as it starts at No. 8 with 109,000. The track features Canadian duo Majid Jordan and the latest preview single from Drake's upcoming studio album, "Nothing Was the Same." Lana Del Rey's breakout single "Summertime Sadness" (with Cedric Gervais), zips into the top 10, rising 13-9 with 101,000 (up 24%). 64% of the song's overall sales this week come from the uptempo dance remix produced by Gervais. The song was originally recorded as a dreamy ballad for Del Rey's "Born to Die" album. The track concurrently rises 22-17 on the Pop Songs airplay chart (known as Mainstream Top 40 on Billboard.biz) with a 47% gain in audience on top 40 radio. Drake's OVO Fest Surprises With Kanye West, Lil Wayne Capital Cities' "Safe and Sound" closes the top 10, as it falls 8-10 with 99,000 (down 3%). Overall album sales in this past chart week (ending Aug. 11) totaled 4.71 million units, down 7% compared with the sum last week (5.08 million) and down 5% compared with the comparable sales week of 2012 (4.96 million). Year to date album sales stand at 171.01 million, down 6% compared to the same total at this point last year (182.24 million). Digital track sales this past week totaled 22.10 million downloads, down 3% compared with last week (22.76 million) and down 8% stacked next to the comparable week of 2012 (24.03 million). Year to date track sales are at 820.24 million, down 3% compared to the same total at this point last year (845.43 million). Next week's Billboard 200 competes with the same week in 2012 when: 2 Chainz's "Based on a T.R.U. Story" debuted at No. 1 with 147,000. The previous week's No. 1, the "Now 43" compilation, fell to No. 2 with 75,000 (down 32%).



news sours  www.billboard.com

Mad Men season 6 episode 9 review: The Better Half

Mad Men season 6 episode 9 review: The Better Half 

Like a chef composing a Michelin-star meal, Mad Men knows a thing or two about structure. After the previous episode’s unsettling acidity, this week we were served a satisfying, skilfully constructed staple. The Better Half reset this season to its factory settings. Frantic and trippy were out, measured, deliberate, and damned smart storytelling were in. The episode’s title was even more help than usual in decoding its theme. It was an instalment preoccupied with mirror-images, fractured wholes, and imitations. The opening spat over butter and margarine gave way to soap ‘twins’ Colette and Corinne, Don and Betty Draper mark two, and Bobbies one-five; before culminating in Peggy’s realisation that Ted and Don are peas in a compartmentalising pod. “You’re the same person sometimes” Peggy told Don after refusing to side with him or Ted on the Fleischmann pitch, a line she must have mentally repeated after Teddy gave her that chipper brush-off and both men retreated symmetrically into their offices. After two months of working across the corridor from each other, not only has Ted’s optimism failed to rub off on Don, but the former has morphed into a mirror-image of the latter. After declaring his love for Peggy, he pressed the Draper-trademarked “This never happened” reset button, and, with a line and gesture we’ve seen from Don countless times, breezily asked her to “round up the team”. Plus ça change eh Peggy? What has changed for Peggy of course, is her personal life. She and Abe started things in a closet and ended them in an ambulance, after their escalating neighbourhood unrest story climaxed in a bonkers spot of wounding without intent. (Lord, when the next round of Mad Men dolls appears, please let Peggy’s come complete with a knife-on-a-stick accessory.) Peggy and Abe’s plot this week was part urban gothic and part bonkers farce, but in keeping with the duality theme, it positioned the couple on opposing sides of the social fight. To Abe, product-hawking Peggy represents the Man, and to Peggy “I’m not a political person” Olson, Abe’s refusal to separate the personal from the political is plain old irresponsibility. Stabbed twice in as many days, ambitious Abe’s not wrong; that’s going to make for one hell of a story. In just one of the episode’s many elegant segues, the sound of Abe’s ambulance travelled all the way to the Drapers’ Manhattan balcony, adding to New York City’s impending sense of chaos and violence. Megan fended off her co-star’s advances against a soundtrack of police sirens, the threat of 1968 unrest rising in the background and, like Sally’s home intruder last week, trespassing even into the ‘better’ half of the city. Megan and Arlene’s scene gave way to the chirruping crickets of Bobby’s camp with another masterful transition as Megan’s would-be seductress exited stage right with the line “Status quo antebellum, everything as it was”. Cut to: Don and Betty’s trip back in time. Don and Betty’s reunion, like so much of this episode, was rewarding viewing for long-time fans. On the subject of imitations and mirrors, this Betty was the physical image of her former Grace Kelly-alike self, but much more in control, and much less neurotic. She even gave us an uncharacteristically wise insight into Don to rival Dr Faye’s “…you only like the beginnings of things” with the Megan-referencing line, “That poor girl, she doesn’t know that loving you is the worst way to get to you”. The audience’s most revealing insights into Don’s character have ever come not from Don, but from the women who surround him. Betty’s absolutely right, too. It’s a cruel irony that whoever is married to Don at the time appears to have the least clue about his real nature. Not being Mrs Draper has given Betty the wisdom she lacked when she was his better half. All this talk of halves and doubles recalls that doppelganger Don season six poster we pored over before episode one, which is humming with resonance after this week. Not only does it take in Don/Dick’s duality, and the aforementioned Don/Ted personality merger, but a third mirror has revealed itself from amongst the supporting cast, one wearing a natty pair of shorts… No, not Betty - despite the episode staging a ‘welcome back’ party for the blonde of old - but Bob Benson. Curse me for not noticing until now, but from their alliterative, cadence-matching names, to both having inveigled their way into the heart of SCDP without anyone knowing the first thing about them, Bob Benson is yet another version of Don, the man without a past. Since we first met Bob Benson being batted away like an irksome fly in the season opener, he’s carved out a niche as a fairy godfather for Pete and Joan, solving their problems and ingratiating himself into Joan’s personal life. Whatever is Bob’s plan? Or more properly, what is Matthew Weiner’s endgame for Bob? Season six does feel as if it’s creeping towards an endgame at the moment. Ties have been cut, leaving Peggy (whose future with Abe and promise of future kids has evaporated), Pete (still playing musical chairs and struggling to have his voice heard), and Roger (the world’s worst babysitter since Henry’s mother gave Sally half a tranquiliser and told her that serial killer-themed bedtime story) unanchored and spinning in mid-air. Don and Betty’s hook-up was a wormhole to the past, signalling yet more carousel-like repetition for our leading man, who’s still slouching from one adulterous bed to another. “Something has to change” said Megan, and we've only four more episodes of this season to find out what. Read Frances’ review of the previous episode, The Crash, here.


news sours  www.denofgeek.com