American Songwriter Reads the Charts: Hannah Montana Embraces Her Destiny

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For some reason it took four weeks to happen, but today Hannah Montana is top banana on the Billboard 200 chart. Recent debuts from Rascal Flatts and Keith Urban kept Miley Cyrus’s Hannah Montana movie soundtrack from embracing its destiny as the country’s top-selling album, but, despite a 32% decrease in sales, no one could stand in the way of the Montana franchise this week. How will she celebrate? I bet she’s going to Disney World.

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Billboard.com reports that the Hannah Montana soundtrack is the first film soundtrack to top the charts this year — last year, Mama Mia!, Twilight, and Juno received that honor. In fact, the Twilight soundtrack, which debuted in November, is still sucking blood from the charts, so to speak. It’s currently at #4, good news for the album’s stars, which include Linkin Park and Iron & Wine.

On the debut front, we have the Bad Boy R & B group Day26 claiming the #2 spot with their second album, Forever In A Day, and indie rockers Silversun Pickups, who’s new album Swoon bows at #7, a career-high for the band. Wake us when the new Bob Dylan record gets here.

Overall album sales this week totaled 6.36 million units, down 18.8% compared to last week’s sum, and down 15.2% compared to the same week in 2008 (7.5 million). Year to date album sales reached 111.7 million, down 12.3% from last year.

The top 10 albums in the country this week:

1. Hannah Montana Soundtrack
2. Day26 – Forever In A Day
3. Rascal Flatts – Unstoppable
4. Twilight Soundtrack
5. Now 30
6. Jadakiss – The Last Kiss
7. Silversun Pickups – Dangerbird
8. Lady GaGa – The Fame
9. Jason Aldean – Wide Open
10. Taylor Swift – Fearless

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