Source: Yahoo News
The last time a Santana album reached No. 1 on the charts, Isaac Hayes' Oscar-winning ``Theme from Shaft'' was the best-selling pop single. This time, Santana has both the top album, ``Supernatural,'' and the top single, ''Smooth,'' according to sales data issued Wednesday.
In its 18th week of release, ``Supernatural'' ended the two-week reign of Creed's ``Human Clay,'' selling 169,500 copies in the week ended Oct. 17 .
``Smooth,'' the group's Latin-flavored collaboration with Matchbox 20 singer Rob Thomas, remained the No. 1 single, based on a combination of sales and radio airplay, for the second consecutive week.
Santana's previous No. 1 album was ``Santana III,'' which topped the charts for five weeks in 1971. Before that, the group's second album, ``Abraxas,'' was No. 1 for six weeks in 1970. ``Smooth'' marks Santana's first No. 1 single, surpassing ''Black Magic Woman,'' which peaked at No. 4 in 1971.
U.S. sales of ``Supernatural'' to date stand at 1.9 million copies, and about 3 million copies have been shipped to stores, according to Arista Records president Clive Davis.
He predicted the album would sell between 5 million and 10 million copies in the United States alone, fueled by the holiday shopping season as well as inevitable exposure at awards shows.
Davis told Reuters that Santana frontman-guitarist Carlos Santana was thrilled with the sales success.
``He said, 'It's good that I'm lying down, or I would fall down.' That was his quote,'' Davis said.
It was also a special thrill for Davis because Santana was the third act he ever signed, following Big Brother & the Holding Company and Blood Sweat and Tears, in 1969-70. At that time, Davis was a president of Columbia Records. He has been running Arista since launching the label in 1975, and he renewed his relationship with Santana earlier this year.
He budgeted $400,000 for Santana to go into the studio, and directed that the album be split evenly between ``vintage'' tracks in the tradition of ``Oye Como Va'' and ``natural'' collaborations with artists ranging from Eric Clapton to Lauryn Hill to Everlast. When Davis saw the sessions were going so well, he doubled the budget and made the project a big priority.
``I knew what we had was special, but it would only be a fantasy to see it triple-platinum in 17 weeks, to see the single No. 1, to see the album No. 1 and build every week,'' Davis said.
Perhaps more importantly, ``Supernatural'' served as an inspiration to other veteran performers, ``great artists who might have written themselves out of the future,'' he said.
The album is straddling musical boundaries, with the Wyclef Jean-guided ``Maria Maria'' developing on top-40 radio stations and the Everlast collaboration ``Put Your Lights On'' at modern rock outlets, Davis said.
Among new releases in the latest sales week, 311's ''Soundsystem'' debuted at No. 9, and Warren G's ``I Want It All'' at No. 21. The last 311 album, ``Transistor,'' opened at No. 4 in August 1997 with 128,500 copies, compared with 91,400 for ``Soundsystem.''
Warren G's previous release, ``Take a Look Over Your Shoulder,'' entered the charts at No. 11 in March 1997 with 92,500 units, vs. 55,700 for his new one. An Eric Clapton compilation of songs from 1981-1999 opened at No. 23.
After Santana, the top 10 consisted of Creed at No. 2, the Backstreet Boys' ``Millennium'' at No. 3 (unchanged from last week); Lou Bega's ``A Little Bit of Mambo'' at No. 4 (up five); Britney Spears' ``...Baby One More Time'' at No. 5 (up two); Christina Aguilera's self-titled debut at No. 6 (up two); Kid Rock's ``Devil Without a Cause'' at No. 7 (up three); Limp Bizkit's ``Significant Other'' at No. 8 (up three); 311's ''Soundsystem'' at No. 9; and Method Man & Redman's ''Blackout!'' at No. 10 (down four).
Tumbling out of the top 10 were Live's 2-week-old ``The Distance to Here'' and Garth Brooks' 3-week-old ``Chris Gaines'' project, which each fell 11 places to Nos. 15 and 16, respectively, with sales drops of about 40 percent.
