Groban in good position to maintain chart crown

By Geoff Mayfield

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Some of Josh Groban's fans think he has the voice of an angel, so it seems appropriate that his first attempt at a Christmas album carves out a rare niche in chart history.

With Thanksgiving week's store traffic and an appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" accelerating an album that already had momentum, his "Noel" captures an 81 percent sales increase and No. 1 on the Billboard 200. That makes his set the first Christmas album to lead the big chart in 13 years, and only the second to top the list since 1962.

"Noel" garners 405,000 copies (moving from No. 2 to No. 1), the strongest week of Groban's career and the largest by any Christmas set since Celine Dion's "These Are Special Times" topped 460,000 in two different weeks of 1998. Groban's uptick of 182,000 copies easily seals The Billboard 200's Greatest Gainer award.

The last seasonal set to crown the big chart was Kenny G's 1994 release "Miracles -- The Holiday Album," which, like Groban's, rose to the top rung during the Thanksgiving sales week. It held at No. 1 the following week and jumped back to the summit during the Christmas frame.

When the smooth-jazz "Miracles" moved to the top of the page, it marked the first time in decades that a Christmas album had reached No. 1. The last to do so had been Mitch Miller's "Holiday Sing Along With Mitch," a byproduct of the leader's popular NBC series, "Sing Along With Mitch." Released in 1961, the same year that Miller's series hit the air, the album ascended to the chart's throne in January 1962. It was Miller's third No. 1 album and his second seasonal offering to lead the list.

It will take years to find out whether Groban can match Miller with a second chart-topping Christmas album. In the near term, "Noel" has a real shot at notching multiple weeks at No. 1, as G's "Miracles" did.

The week after Thanksgiving, Groban was booked to revisit "Oprah," along with appearances on NBC's "Christmas at Rockefeller Center" special and the November 30 and December 1 airings of "Good Morning America."

Between now and Christmas, Groban is also lined up for "Live With Regis and Kelly," "Rachael Ray," "Larry King Live" and a Christmas Eve return to "Good Morning America," along with a rerun of Oprah Winfrey's November 20 "My Favorite Things" episode, which fueled this week's rise to the top.

With all that TV exposure and the album already showing more sales oomph than any Christmas collection of the last nine years, combined with a soft release schedule for the remainder of the gift-buying season, it would not be a large surprise to see Groban rally more weeks at No. 1. As it is, "Noel" has already sold 1 million copies in seven weeks, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

This marks Groban's second chart-topper. He scored his first when his second studio album, "Closer," shot from No. 11 to No. 1 during a soft week in January 2004. His 2006 album, "Awake," peaked at No. 2, while his self-titled 2001 debut grew its way to No. 8 the year after it was released.

DRY TURKEY

It's almost as if the music industry forgot Thanksgiving was happening.

The holiday week's release schedule was void of the Pied Piper kinds of releases we've seen in Thanksgivings gone by, like Jay-Z's "Kingdom Come" last year, U2's "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" in 2004 or Creed's "Weathered" in 2001, which each started well above the half-million mark. "Kingdom" launched last year with 680,000; the U2 and Creed titles each opened with more than 800,000.

Even compared with Thanksgiving slates that didn't yield No. 1 albums, this year's crop is fallow, the lone top 10 bow belonging to reigning "American Idol" champ Jordin Sparks.

With 119,000 sold, she scores The Billboard 200's Hot Shot Debut at No. 10, but does so with the lightest opening week by an "Idol" winner's first album. The previous low start for an "Idol" champ had been 240,000 for Fantasia in 2004.

Last year's Thanksgiving frame saw five new entries in the top 10 among 19 albums that surpassed 100,000 for the week. Only 11 beat that threshold on this week's list.

Reuters/Billboard