Chickenfoot Debuts at #6, Costello Has Highest Charting Album in 29 Years

The new group Chickenfoot, made up of Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, Chad Smith and Joe Satriani, have put their debut album at number 6 on the upcoming Billboard Album chart on sales of 49,000 copies.

While that may sound like a paltry amount, only two albums sold in excess of 100,000 copies last week, the Dave Matthews Band's Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King with 424,000 and Eminiem's Relapse with 141,000. It's then a huge drop to the number three position where 311's Uplifter sold only 60,000 copies.

Thus, the problem with today's music industry. There seems to be huge interest in new releases but the sales number don't reflect it, with totals sales for the week of 6.38 million units being down 15.6% from the same week last year (and, remember, that is sales of both physical and digital product). Overall sales for the year is at 155.1 million, down 14% from last year at this time.

There was one bright spot, though. It seems that having your new album not only on the shelves of the retailers and digital stores, but also at your favorite coffee place is a real boost. Elvis Costello's Secret, Profane and Sugarcane premiers at number 13 on sales of 28,000. That is the best one of his albums has done on the Billboard Album chart since 1980's Get Happy!! which went to number 11. His all-time best placement is 1979's Armed Forces which peaked at number 10.