Garth Brooks Rules the Charts but Metallica’s Got the Buzz

Garth Brooks’ “Double Live” is the nation’s best-selling album for the second week in a row at nearly 650,000 copies, but it’s Metallica’s new two-disc collection that has retailers talking.

The quartet’s “Garage Inc.” took the No. 2 spot by selling more than 426,000 copies, reestablishing the metal band as a major player during a year of lukewarm sales for veteran rock acts.

Retailers said the album was greeted with far more enthusiasm than recent releases from the Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson, R.E.M. and Pearl Jam (whose new live album debuted this week at No. 15).

“Metallica is still vital, there’s still a buzz on the band, they’re still viewed as in-step and at the peak of their creativity,” says Bob Feterl, the regional manager for Tower Records in Southern California.

Brooks’ second-week showing was a strong follow-up performance to his record-breaking debut week sales of 1.08 million, according to SoundScan, the service that tracks music industry sales.

At No. 3, Celine Dion’s “These Are Special Times,” featured in her Nov. 25 CBS special, sold 409,000, nearly double the number sold the previous week. After steadily building in sales the past five weeks, it is positioned to be a strong holiday performer, retailers say.

A two-disc greatest-hits survey of rapper Tupac Shakur’s career debuted at No. 5 with 268,000 sold, about 13,000 less than the second-week figure for Jewel’s sophomore album, “Spirit.”

Overall, it appeared to be another strong week for sales, with 20 albums checking in with 100,000 or more copies sold.