Keys edges Keith in tight race for the top

There’ll probably be more wrapped copies of Alicia Keys’ “The Diary of Alicia Keys” under Christmas trees this morning than any other album, but the CD didn’t ignite the massive sales rush of such past holiday season hits as Creed’s “Weathered” and the Beatles’ “1.”

In fact, last week’s sales total of 369,861 for “Diary” meant Keys beat Toby Keith’s “Shock’n Y’all” by just 381 copies in one of the tightest No. 1 races since Nielsen SoundScan began monitoring U.S. record sales a decade ago.

In line with the reduced expectations of the troubled record industry, Keys’ total paled against the pre-Christmas week sales of 865,000 generated in 2001 by the Creed album and the whopping 1.3 million figure of the Beatles CD in 2000.

Only three other albums last week even topped the 300,000 mark: volume 14 of the “Now That’s What I Call Music!” compilation series (354,000), OutKast’s “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” (335,000) and Josh Groban’s “Closer” (318,000).

“American Idol” star Ruben Studdard’s “Soulful” tumbled from No. 1 last week to No. 8 this week as the CD’s sales slipped from its first week total of 417,000 copies to 245,000 copies.

Despite last week’s modest showing, Keys’ album has gotten off to such a fast start, selling 1.3 million copies in just three weeks, that it is already No. 40 on the list of the year’s bestsellers.

Keith’s album, which has sold 2 million copies since its release in early November, is No. 10 among the year’s sellers.

Rapper 50 Cent’s “Get Rich or Die Tryin’,” which was released in February, is the year’s hottest CD, selling nearly 6.5 million copies. Norah Jones’ “Come Away With Me,” which was released last year, sold 5 million copies during 2003, bringing its total to 7.7 million.

The year’s other hottest releases: Linkin Park’s “Meteora (3.3 million), Evanescence’s “Fallen” (3.2 million) and “Speakerboxxx” (2.7 million).