Weird Al Yankovic comfortably takes US top spot

Things were extremely tight yesterday when Hits Daily Double published their partial list of the top sellers for the week. With only around 28% of reports in, Weird Al Yankovic was ahead of Jason Mraz by an index (an approximation of sales) of nine units.

That's not the case with the final report from the site which reflects their survey of music retailers. While the "index" does not represent exact sales, it is an approximation based on their sample and, in the end, Yankovic has won the race by over 20,000 units.

It was expected to be a tight race as each of the artist's respective record companies were really piling on the promotion, but Al's relentless releasing of a new video per day over eight days seems to have tipped the scales. Yesterday, Al was ahead 54,637 to 54,628. The final numbers, now in, show him up 104,007 to 83,941.

That's far too big of a gap to think that the full Soundscan survey, used by Billboard, will show any different conclusion for the week (unless they find a way to break Al's album into multiple chart entries like they did with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young last week).

Farther down the chart, Morrissey's World Peace is None of Your Business sold an estimated 13,500 to place him somewhere between 18 and 20. Of last week's releases, Judas Priest's Redeemer of Souls falls from the top ten to the high twenties with a sales drop of 59% while Neil Diamond's All Times Greatest Hits goes from the teens to the mid twenties with a very modest drop of 22% in sales.

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