In a pop world filled to the brim with urbanized techno-beats and, to a lesser extent, industrialized grunge, The Beatles’ 1 continues to outsell all other albums in the U.S. and numerous countries around the world, despite being taken from the top in Great Britain after a 9-week run. It again outpaced Shaggy’s Hotshot album in the U.S., 215,000 to 203,000 according to SoundScan, Inc., and remains in the #1 spot for the 7th consecutive week (8th overall) on The Billboard 200™, the nation’s premiere album survey.

Interesting to note that 1 is also the first album by a British artist to possess the #1 position in the U.S. for this long since July 1989, when Fine Young Cannibals held on for 7 weeks with The Raw And The Cooked.

There are several reasons to expect that domestically this will be 1’s final week in the top spot, as well. Its win this week was its narrowest to date, and both Hotshot and the Save The Last Dance motion picture soundtrack album stand extremely good chances of obtaining more sales this week, as does Jennifer Lopez’s new album, J.Lo, which hit stores this past Tuesday.

Whether it can remain on top for another week or not, if 1 sells another 190,000 copies this week, it will surpass the 6 million mark in the U.S, and it has already sold well over 7 million copies in Europe. Not bad for an album released only 11 weeks ago, yet containing already-best-selling recordings that are between 30 and 40 years old. ...some of them are actually nearing their fifth decade of existence!

Few people expected 1 to sell as well as it has, even those within the industry. John Artele, director of purchasing for National Record Mart, recently observed, “Here it is, four weeks after the holidays, and the compilation is still on top.” Artele expected the album to fall from grace the week after Christmas, but, as he said, “it turned out to have legs. It looks like it’s settling into being a pretty healthy catalog piece.”

Some have even speculated that 1, which has already sold over 20 million copies worldwide, may have the “legs” to eventually compete for best-selling album in U.S. history, an honor currently held in a virtual tie by Eagles: Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 and Michael Jackson’s Thriller, both selling over 27 million copies domestically, according to the RIAA’s tallies. (For those of you interested, the RIAA’s top 7 continues with the biggest double album, Pink Floyd’s The Wall in the #3 spot [23.3M], followed by Led Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album #4 [22M], and Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits Volume I & II #5 [21.2M]. The Beatles’ own eponymous double set, best known as The White Album, is currently 7th overall and is closely chasing Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours [both just over 18M].)

Beatles spokesperson Geoff Baker points out that having all the group’s 27 #1 hits from both sides of the Atlantic chronologically compiled in one nice concise package has certainly helped sell a few copies. “I think the simplicity of that attracted a hell of a lot of people, bizarrely,” he stated. Plus, “It’s just 27 very good songs, for fifteen quid, which is not the norm.”

The Beatles may not be the central focus of popular music anymore as they were the 1960’s, and since that time pop culture has become incredibly diverse and decentralized, but no one can deny that their music still commands (and deserves) a great deal of attention.

In related link(www.billboard.com/,Billboard) chart news, Madonna this week ties The Beatles for second place on the all-time list for most top 10 hits of the rock era, as her current hit, “Don’t Tell Me” storms from #16 to #4 on the Hot 100™ to become the 34th top 10 hit of her career. Maddy Mom is now relatively well poised to chase the all-time mark of 38, held by Elvis Presley.