Eminem Tops Chart, Misses Milestone

“The Eminem Show” entered the national album sales chart at No. 1 as expected Wednesday, but the early release of the CD cost the Detroit rapper the chance of becoming the first solo artist to have back-to-back opening-week sales of a million-plus.

Eminem’s last album, 2000’s “The Marshall Mathers LP,” sold 1.76 million copies in its first week in stores, and many retailers expected the new collection to pass that mark in its first week. But that goal was lost when Interscope Records, eager to combat widespread downloading and street piracy of the album, allowed stores to begin selling the album last weekend instead of waiting until the scheduled Tuesday release date.

Though most stores apparently began selling the album Sunday, some retailers reportedly began selling it as early as Friday. Despite limited publicity about the early release date, fans bought 285,000 copies Sunday.

That figure made “The Eminem Show” an easy winner in the weekly sales race, according to Nielsen SoundScan, which monitors U.S. record sales. The runner-up, P. Diddy & Bad Boy Records’ “We Invented the Remix,” sold 144,000 copies over seven days. The second-highest new arrival on the chart was Marc Anthony’s “Mended,” which sold 111,000 copies and entered at No. 3.

The question now is whether Eminem has enough sales punch to sell a million copies this week. Geoff Mayfield, the savvy director of charts for Billboard magazine, believes the rapper has a fighting chance.

“There are a couple of different projections from people I respect,” he said Wednesday. “One camp is projecting it could do between 925,000 and a million, and the other one is saying it could do as much as a million and a half this week.

The positive factors in believing the album will sell a million is that a lot of his fans might not have even known it was on sale last week. The advertising was all tied to it going on sale Tuesday. Plus, the album should benefit from Memorial Day sales Monday that wouldn’t have been possible if it went on sale Tuesday.

“On the downside, the 280,000-plus that sold over the weekend won’t be in this week’s tally, and Memorial Day isn’t traditionally one of those long weekends that’s great for shopping. People do other things besides going to record stores over Memorial Day weekend.”

The other positions in the Top 10 this week are held, in order, by Cam’ron, Ashanti, Celine Dion, Musiq, Vol. 9 of “Now That’s What I Call Music,” Kenny Chesney and Moby. The best-selling single remains ‘N Sync’s pairing with Nelly on “Girlfriend.”