Velvet Revolver Shoots In At No. 1 (original) (raw)

Velvet Revolver smuggles “Contraband” into the top slot of The Billboard 200 this week. The RCA debut — which joins ex-Guns N’ Roses bandmates Slash, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum with Wasted Youth guitarist Dave Kushner and Stone Temple Pilots’ Scott Weiland — opens with U.S. sales of 256,000 units, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The set knocks Usher’s “Confessions” (LaFace/Zomba) to No. 2, on a 12% slide from last week to 171,000. Former chart-topper Avril Lavigne falls 2-3 with “Under My Skin” (Arista), down 28% to 122,000.

Rock/rap quintet 311’s “Greatest Hits ’93-03” (Volcano/Zomba) enters the chart at No. 7 with 63,000 copies. The 2003 studio set “Evolver” also bowed at No. 7 and has sold 307,000 to date.

The two-disc compilation “2004 Warped Tour” (Side One Dummy) bows at No. 8 with 61,000 copies. The set — on sale for less than $6 at Circuit City, Best Buy and Target — has the highest debut ever for a Warped tour compilation. The last one opened at No. 21 with 39,000 copies.

Gretchen Wilson’s “Here for the Party” (Epic) and Prince’s “Musicology” (NPG/Columbia) each drop one slot this week, to No. 4 and No. 5, respectively. Hoobastank’s “The Reason” holds on at No. 6 for the third week. D12 falls 7-9 with “D12 World” (Shady/Interscope), and Slipknot’s “Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses” (Roadrunner) rounds out the top 10 .

With 42,000 copies, pop-country trio SheDaisy is enjoying its best opening sales week ever with third studio effort “Sweet Right Here” (Hollywood), which bows at No. 16. 2002’s “Knock on the Sky” opened at No. 23 with 39,000 copies and has sold 218,000 to date.

Marc Anthony enters The Billboard 200 at No. 26 with the Spanish-language set “Amar Sin Mentiras” (Sony), which moves 35,000. It bows at No. 1 on Top Latin Albums. Anthony’s 2002 set “Mended” entered The Billboard 200 at No. 3 with 111,000 units and has sold 645,000 to date.

PJ Harvey has her best sales week ever, debuting with 34,000 copies for “Uh Huh Her” (Island). It also scores her highest Billboard 200 position, at No. 29. Harvey’s 2000 set “Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea” entered at No. 42 with 32,000 copies and has sold 271,000 to date.

Overall U.S. album sales are down 1.8% from last week to 10.8 million units, about 15% behind the comparable week last year. Sales for the year to date are 6.5% ahead of last year.

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