This Week in Album Sales: Eminem is (Back) at #1 With Bad Meets Evil

Eminem's spent so much time at number one of the past year we may as well start calling a number one album an Eminem. Like, "Will Big Sean's debut album go Eminem? We'll find out next week?" Despite the fact that it had no major hit single and was rampantly dysfunctional, his collab album with Royce da 5'9", Bad Meets Evil, debuted at Eminem spot this week, moving 170,000 units. (See what I did there?) This means two things. One, people will still buy straight rap albums and two, Em has a loyal following that will buy everything he does. Everything.

On pure rhyme ability he's got to be in your top three rappers alive, and in terms of selling power he's got to be the top rapper working right now. Doesn't that, um, kind of make him the best rapper alive?

Moving Onto the Singles Chart: Top 10 Urban Songs with units sold

1 (2 overall). Pitbull ft. Ne-Yo - Give Me Everything 221,250
2 (3 overall). LMFAO ft. Lauren Bennett - Party Rock Anthem 188,000
3 (6 overall). Nicki Minaj - Super Bass 145,000
4 (8 overall). Lil Wanye - How to Love 133,000
5 (9 overall). Bruno Mars - Lazy Songs 132,000
6 (10 overall). Katy Perry ft. Kanye West - E.T. 124,000
7 (11 overall). Lupe Fiasco - Show Goes On 118,000
8 (12 overall). Jennifer Lopez ft. Pitbull - On the Floor 116,000
9 (13 overall). Drake ft. Rick Ross - I'm On One 93,000
10 (17 overall). Chris Brown ft. Lil Wayne - Look at Me Now 86,000

The Refined Take:

1) Just to really drive the point home, Bad Meets Evil's "Hell: The Sequel" is number one, "Recovery" is number 41 (4 million total sales), "Curtain Call" is at 132 (3 million total sales) and "Marshall Mathers" is at 143 (10.5 million total sales). Yeah, he's got four albums in the top 200. That's some shit not even the Biebs could dream of. All praise the all mighty Eminem. (In retrospect, isn't Royce's beef with Em one of the biggest historical mistakes in hip-hop history? If he had stayed cool with Em he might not be getting his first top ten album at 34 years old.)

2) On the other end of the spectrum, I just noticed that Rick Ross' "Teflon Don" is currently at 187 and has only sold 637,000 albums. Can that be true? Sure looks like it:



Wow, I assumed it had sold far better, he's probably never going to get to a million units, the cut off point for truly top tier rappers. I can only assume the lesson is that people may like talking about Rick Ross, they may even like listening to Rick Ross, but they're not particularly interested in buying Rick Ross.

3) Side note, but Gorilla Zoe's new album "King Kong" is currently at number 56 with about 10,000 in sales. That's a pretty low number, but I'm still a little shocked. I literally don't know a single person who would even joklingly consider buying a Gorilla Zoe album. Who are those 10,000 people? Can we get their names? I want to email them all individually and ask, "Really? Really?"

4) Because I know there are a lot of Tech heads in RefinedHype Nation, and he was the headliner on last week's charts, Tech N9ne's 'All 6's & 7's" fell quickly out of the top ten, tumbling to the number 25 spot. Makes sense; his hardcore fans turned out to buy the album and then there weren't a lot of folks left over. Still, as we've discussed, since he controls his own masters, label, budget etc. etc. etc., one album sold is like 100 albums sold for a major label artist. Forget Ross, now there's a man who's truly self made.

5) This week's Mr. Irrelevant Award, given to the song that sits at the absolute bottom of the charts (the number 200 spot), goes to...Swizz Beatz' "Everyday Coolin"..again. Come on people, let's kick this atrocity off the charts entirely. So hey, you. Yeah you random guy who inexplicably paid money for a Swizz Beatz song. Stop it. Just stop.