It’s a sure thing that Bette Midler will have the highest charting album of her career this week. The only question is the exact final position.
Hits Daily Double has released its weekly Building Album Sales Chart and they show Midler’s new album, It’s the Girls!, debuting this week at number 3 with sales of about 39,200 copies. That position will, most likely, hold as it is well behind the sales of Taylor Swift’s 1989 (402,900) and Now 52 (60,150). It’s closest competition from below is Jason Aldean’s Old Boots, New Dirt with an estimated 35,000 in sales.
Midler has released 14 studio albums during her career with two of them, 1973’s Bette Midler and 1990’s Some People’s Lives, having the highest peak at number 6. For those who like to nitpick, Midler technically went to number 2 with the soundtrack to Beaches but that is not considered one of her studio albums.
The Doobie Brothers’ Southbound Train is looking at estimated sales of 16,400 in its first week which should put it somewhere around 15 to 17 on the albums chart. If it turns out to be 17, it will be their highest charting album since 1989’s Cycles which also went to 17. If it charts higher, it will be their best effort in 34 years, back to 1980’s One Step Closer, which peaked at 3.
Neil Young’s new album, Storytone, is looking like a major disappointment. Projections have it selling just 10,100 copies which would put it around the mid-30’s. Young hasn’t had a studio album chart that low since 1989’s Freedom only went to 35. If it opens lower than that, you would have to go back another year to This Note’s For You (1988 / #66).
Other projected starts for veteran artists for the week:
Home For the Holidays – Darius Rucker (9,800, #37)
Venus & Mars: Deluxe Edition – Paul McCartney & Wings (9,550, #39)
Basement Tapes Complete – Bob Dylan (8,850, #41)
Wings at the Speed of Sound – Paul McCartney & Wings (7,850, #48)
Final chart positions will be out on Thursday morning.
