Johnson's second No. 1 album sets digital record

By Geoff Mayfield

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - For anyone who has been playing Chicken Little because for the past three weeks the No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 sold less than 100,000 copies, Jack Johnson says, "Cut it out."

Not only does his new "Sleep Through the Static" represent a career-best frame of 375,000 copies, it also sets a new benchmark for the number of digital albums sold in a week: 139,000 downloads.

Johnson's prior-best sales week was 229,000, when "In Between Dreams" bowed at No. 2 in 2005. The following year he earned his first chart-topping album when his soundtrack to "Curious George" started with 163,000 copies.

Like "Curious George," "Sleep" shows Johnson's clout in the digital market. When that soundtrack topped the chart, downloads accounted for 26 percent of the title's first-week sales, the largest digital share recorded to date by a No. 1 album. He now rewrites the record book with digital sales accounting for 37 percent of the new album's opening sum.

The previous high for album downloads was 133,000 for Kanye West's "Graduation," but with that album starting at 957,000 copies, downloads made up only 14 percent of its first-week tally.

This is the third time in the first six weeks of calendar year 2008 that the total at No. 1 is larger than it was during the same week of 2007. But, with the opening frames of last year including the 405,000-unit start for Norah Jones' "Not Too Late" and the 260,000 debut for Fall Out Boy's "Infinity on High," the average at No. 1 for the first six weeks, 164,816, was higher then than the 2008 figure of 125,636.

According to Nielsen SoundScan's February 13 Building chart, which reflects sales through Tuesday in more than 79 percent of the U.S. market, Johnson's "Sleep" stands a good chance to lead the big chart for a second week.

Next week's chart will also reflect spikes motivated by the Grammy Awards and Valentine's Day shopping, with Herbie Hancock and Amy Winehouse certain to be among the beneficiaries of the former. Also expect a fast start by Michael Jackson's "Thriller 25," a reissue of the all-time best-selling studio album, with newly recorded duets of five of the original nine songs.