Movie soundtracks, led by the cover-version-heavy Fox musical “Moulin Rouge,” gained significant ground in the nation’s album sales last week.
“Moulin Rouge,” featuring the hit single “Lady Marmalade” by Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim, Pink and Mya, moved up five spots on the pop album chart to No. 3 on sales of nearly 134,000 copies for the week ended June 3, according to data compiled from SoundScan. The Interscope album has moved nearly 450,000 copies in four weeks.
The “Pearl Harbor” score (Warner Bros.) jumped 17 spots to No. 14, boosting its sales by 59 percent from the week before to 63,000 copies. The soundtrack for “Shrek” (DreamWorks) moved up eight spots to land at No. 28 (40,000 copies sold), and the indefatigable “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack (Lost Highway) moved up three notches to No. 40, with a total of nearly 1.2 million units sold. Last week it sold 32,000 copies.
Hard-rock dynamo Staind, with scant competition from the latest crop of debuts, continued its reign at No. 1 on the pop charts as the Limp Bizkit proteges scanned more than 326,000 copies of “Break the Cycle” (Flip/Elektra) in their sophomore week.
New releases were hard to find in the album chart’s upper ranks. The highest debut was “Part II” (Arista) from contemporary-country crooner Brad Paisley, which sold 37,000 units to reach No. 31. Following at No. 38 was yet another soundtrack, this one to the Martin Lawrence comedy “What’s the Worst That Could Happen?” (Interscope).
Also bowing were “Time Sex Love” (Columbia), the first release in five years from Mary Chapin Carpenter, at No. 52 (27,000-plus sold); and “10,000 Hz. Legend” (Astralwerks) from Air, the ethereal French duo who recorded the “Virgin Suicides” soundtrack, sold 17,000 copies.
Next week will likely see a 1, 2, 3 bow for “Amnesiac” (Capitol), the buzz-laden fifth LP from Radiohead; “Free City” (Uptown/Universal) from the St. Lunatics, a hip-hop act fronted by St. Louis superstar rapper Nelly; and the soundtrack to the highly anticipated action film “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” on Elektra.