With a Bullet: Today's Charts

Posted on May 9th 2007 1:00PM by Gaylord Fields
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While the border is being secured at the south end of these United States, it's as porous as Swiss cheese left out in the sun at the boundary between us and the Great White North. The invading hordes from Canuckistan have overrun the upper reaches of the U.S. charts! If not for real American hero Ne-Yo securing the No. 1 position with the debut of his second LP of smooth R&B, 'Because of You,' the top three spots would be occupied by those people who look and sound (mostly) like us but prefer their bacon on the roundish side and have goony birds instead of dead white men on their money.

Vancouver vocaleer Michael Buble takes over the semi-coveted role of the nice young man your grandmother loves, as his album of Sinatra-esque pop standards, 'Call Me Irresponsible,' debuted at No. 2, shifting a cool 213,000 copies. Long-running Toronto heavy-prog-rock trio Rush, winners of countless Juno Awards (yeah, us neither), answer the question "Are they still around?" with a resounding and very high-pitched "Take off, eh?" as their 'Snakes & Arrows' sits in the No. 3 spot, selling 93,000 in its first week. Ontario dirty-popster Avril Lavigne makes ample room for her countrymen by lowering herself to a No. 4 position with her formerly chart-topping 'Best Damn Thing' in its third week.

Rounding out the Top 25's Canadian club are singer-songwriter Feist, whose 'Reminder' debuted at No. 12, moving 31,000, and the unkillable Nickelback, whose 'All the Right Reasons,' at No. 23 with more than 5 million in total sales, insists upon being part of every uncool cousin's record collection. The way this is going, I hope we Yanks can develop a taste for maple-flavored everything.

Tori Amos' 'American Doll Posse,' with first-week sales of 54,000, debuted at No. 5 -- that's one chart position for each of her wacky alter egos who appear on the disc, though it's a fair guess that her MILF character is doing the heavy lifting here.

Woman on top: Cute country couple Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton are probably shooting those cold blue laser beam stares at each other over the breakfast table, as her 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend' debuted at No. 6, with 53,000 sold, and future ex-boyfriend Blake Shelton's 'Pure BS' lags two spots lower, moving 49,000 in its first week.

Shaken, not stirred (not that she'd refuse a Martini prepared either way): Rumored Bond Girl Amy Winehouse once again proved herself to be a Steady Eddie, amassing her usual 35K in sales, with 'Back to Black' ranked at No. 13 this week.

The top five albums for the week ending May 6: