Coldplay’s ‘X&Y;’ still a hot sell

Coldplay’s “X&Y;” remains the bestselling album in the country this week, ending the revolving-door trend of a new No. 1 album for each of the last nine weeks.

The British rock quartet’s CD sold 323,000 copies in its second week in stores, topping the first-week totals of two new releases: the Foo Fighters’ “In Our Honor” and the Backstreet Boys’ return collection, “Never Gone.”

Those two albums finished second and third after selling 311,000 and 291,000 copies respectively, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Rapper Fat Joe’s “All or Nothing” debuted at No. 6, thanks to first-week sales of 107,000 copies.

Coldplay’s stay at No. 1 is the first time an album has held the top spot for consecutive weeks since 50 Cent’s “The Massacre” spent six weeks at No. 1. After “The Massacre” fell from No. 1 in mid-April, the position was held by Mariah Carey, Rob Thomas, Bruce Springsteen, Nine Inch Nails, the Dave Matthews Band, System of a Down, Audioslave, Carey again and Coldplay, whose two-week sales total is 1.1 million.

To make room for the three new albums, CDs by the White Stripes, Kelly Clarkson and Audioslave fell from the Top 10.

Alanis Morissette’s acoustic version of “Jagged Little Pill” sold 56,000 copies last week, enough to rank No. 17 on the SoundScan chart. But it didn’t qualify because it was sold only through Starbucks. The album won’t be eligible for the chart until it is available in record stores on July 26.

Billboard magazine reports that record sales were up about 10% from last week, but still down 7.2% for the year.