Backstreet Boys’ ‘Black & Blue’ Losing Sight of Beatles

While the Beatles’ hit compilation cruises at No. 1 on the nation’s pop album chart, the Backstreet Boys may be feeling a bit bruised as their “Black & Blue” continues its tailspin.

The album, which fell from No. 2 to No. 9 on last week’s chart, dropped to No. 15 on this week’s sales list, which is based on SoundScan figures.

“Black & Blue”--which sold a remarkable 1.59 million copies in its first week in stores in November--sold only about 72,000 copies last week, compared to nearly 269,000 for the Beatles’ “1.”

After battling the Beatles head-to-head for weeks, “Black & Blue” is now almost a million behind “1” in total sales--4.36 million to 5.33 million.

Retailers don’t attribute the Backstreet Boys’ continued downward slide to any fan dissatisfaction with the music on “Black & Blue.”

“The trend we see right after Christmas is that the more pop sort of titles tend to decline and the more hard-core stuff goes up, whether that’s rap or metal or hard rock,” says Wherehouse senior pop buyer Bob Bell.

“So we’re seeing good upward movement on things like Crazy Town and Linkin Park--they’re doing very well after the holidays. This is kids buying the stuff they wanted as opposed to stuff their parents wanted to get them.”

While the Backstreet Boys are falling, English singer-songwriter Dido and Irish rockers U2 are both moving up the chart in the post-holiday season. Though both Dido’s “No Angel” and U2’s “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” saw a decrease in sales last week, they moved up in chart positions because their drops were less than those of other albums.

Dido--who is gaining attention because her “Thank You” is the musical foundation of Eminem’s “Stan”--moved from No. 17 to No. 9. U2’s album, which received glowing reviews and whose “Beautiful Day” received a Grammy nomination last week in the record of the year category, jumped from 22 to 16.

“Dido has been a really spectacular success story,” says Bell. “Most of that has come off the one single, ‘Here With Me,’ and it’s just now that people are starting to hear ‘Thank You’ on the radio. That means a lot of people are just finding out now about Dido, so that record has a long way to go.”

Most of U2’s gain was registered before Tuesday’s announcement of the group’s U.S. tour this spring. (Tickets go on sale Jan. 21 for the only announced Southland show, an April 23 concert at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim.)

“The tour is going to help U2’s album, even though they’re not coming through town until April,” says Tower’s Bob Feterl. “But the tour’s going to get a lot of buzz, and their whole catalog will do tremendously.” The Backstreet Boys’ rivals ‘N Sync are also showing considerable staying power. Though the quintet’s “No Stings Attached” has been in stores since March, it moved up last week from No. 27 to No. 22. Its overall sales should pass 10 million this week.

“No Strings Attached” was the easy winner in the 2000 album sales sweepstakes, selling 9.9 million copies. That was more than 2 million ahead of runner-up Eminem’s “The Marshall Mathers LP.”

The rest of the 2000 tally, according to SoundScan: Britney Spears’ “Oops! . . . I Did It Again” (7.89 million), Creed’s “Human Clay” (6.58 million), Santana’s “Supernatural” (5.85 million), the Beatles’ “1” (5.068 million), Nelly’s “Country Grammar” (5.067 million), the Backstreet Boys’ “Black & Blue” (4.28 million), Dr. Dre’s “Dr. Dre--2001” (3.99 million) and Destiny’s Child’s “The Writing’s on the Wall” (3.80 million).

The “No Strings Attached” success pushed it to the No. 9 slot among the all-time best sellers of the SoundScan era. Before SoundScan began monitoring U.S. record sales in 1991, record sales were measured by shipments to stores rather than numbers of albums sold in those stores.

Alanis Morissette’s “Jagged Little Pill” is the top seller on the all-time SoundScan list with 13.72 million copies. The 1995 album is trailed by Shania Twain’s 1997 “Come on Over” (13.65 million), Metallica’s 1991 “Metallica” (12.44 million) and the Backstreet Boys’ 1999 “Millennium” (11.70 million).

Based on the Recording Industry Assn. of America’s “shipment” standard, the all-time U.S. best seller is the Eagles’ “Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975” at 27 million copies. The collection, which was released in 1976, is trailed closely by Michael Jackson’s 1982 “Thriller” at 26 million.