MICHAEL’S STILL KING,
FABOLOUS FOLLOWS

In all, Jackson scores nine of the Top 50, including Bad (#15), Off the Wall (#17), Dangerous (#19), Jackson 5’s Ultimate Collection (#21) and 20th Century Masters (#36), both on Motown, and the re-entering History: Greatest Hits Vol. 1 (#45).

Those continued Jackson sales were more than enough to bring smiles to the faces of Sony Music Entertainment chief Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, RCA/JIVE Music Group honcho Barry Weiss and Columbia/Epic Chairman Rob Stringer, who control seven of the Top 10, including RCA/RMG’s Daughtry (#5), Columbia’s Maxwell (#6), Sony Music’s Now 31 (#7) and RCA/RMG’s fast-rising Kings of Leon, up another 21% this week to #9 thanks to the crossover smash, “Use Somebody.”

Def Jam/IDJ rapper Fabolous’ Loso’s Way is the top debut, landing at #2 with just this side of 98k in first-week sales.

Interscope’s Black Eyes Peas (#8) and Walt Disney’s Hannah Montana 3 soundtrack (#10) round out the Top 10.

Warner Bros. High School Musical alum Ashley Tisdale scores the next highest chart debut at #16, followed by Soda Pop/Island/IDJ newcomer Kristinia DeBarge at #30.

Mercury Nashville Grammy-winning Country act Sugarland returns to the chart at #43 with Love on the Inside, with their brand-new Live on the Inside hitting Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club exclusively today.

A number of Country artists show upward mobility, including Capitol Nashville’s Darius Rucker (#29-24, +16%), Lyric Street’s Rascal Flatts (#42-35, +17%), Mercury Nashville’s Billy Currington (#44-40, +9%) and Atlantic’s Zac Brown Band (#20-14, +6%).

Hitting retail this week are Razor & Tie’s Kidz Bop Kidz, Emblem/WB’s Gloriana, Universal Republic’s K’Jon, Epic’s Modest Mouse EP, Hank III’s A** Jack on Curb and Atlantic’s Matt Hires.

Now excuse us while we share a long-distance beer with Obama and celebrate the end of racism in our time.