Green Day edges Eminem

It’s a good day for Green Day.

By the closest margin on the pop album sales charts in nearly eight years, the punk-rock trio’s “American Idiot” reclaimed the No. 1 position, outselling Eminem’s “Encore” last week by 178 copies.

The politically charged collection, which sold 100,167 more copies last week, entered the chart at No. 1 (with total sales of 267,000 copies) when it was released in September, but it had fallen out of the Top 20 by early December. Its Grammy nomination for album of the year as well as extensive TV exposure apparently helped trigger the resurgence.

“American Idiot,” which was second behind “Encore” on last week’s chart, has now sold 1.9 million copies in the U.S., while the Eminem album, which was released in November, has sold 3.6 million.

The last weekly album race this close was in April 1997, when Aerosmith’s “Nine Lives” outsold the “Space Jam” soundtrack by fewer than 170 copies, reports Geoff Mayfield, director of charts for Billboard magazine.

Elsewhere on the chart, R&B; singer John Legend’s “Get Lifted” moved up three places to No. 4 in its second week in stores. The CD, which is on Kanye West’s new, Sony-affiliated label Getting Out Our Dreams, sold 75,000 more copies to bring its total to 192,000.

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Robert Hilburn

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By the Numbers: Southland CD rankings

Here are the 10 bestselling CDs in Southern California last week, along with their national ranking.

*--* TITLE, ARTIST NAT’L RANK PREV. WEEK

1 Green Day, American Idiot 1 1

2 Gwen Stefani, Love.Angel.Music.Baby 15 2

3 Ray Charles, Genius Loves Company 13 16

4 John Legend, Get Lifted 4 10

5 Destiny’s Child, Destiny Fulfilled 6 11

6 Tupac Shakur, Loyal to the Game 14 3

7 Jay-Z & Linkin Park, Collision Course 8 4

8 Usher, Confessions 9 8

9 Eminem, Encore 2 5

10 U2, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb 12 13

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*--* Source: Nielsen/SoundScan Inc.

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