It's the final week in August. Do you know where your record buyers are?
They're certainly not in stores, as retail doldrums continue, with Universal Republic's Colbie Caillat album Breakthrough the top debut, on track for between 95-100k in sales, based on one-day reports from whoever's selling music these days.
Atlantic Christian rock band Skillet is the week's big surprise, with a total that could be even more than 55-60k, when all the Christian book store returns come in.
RCA's Imogen Heap, a Best New Artist Grammy nominee several years back, returns with Ellipse, her follow-up for the label, which looks on track for 45-50k in first-week sales, not bad at all.
Sony's Now Country 2 is in the 35-40k range, while the rest of the list of newcomers looks like this:
Letoya (Capitol) 25-30k; Arctic Monkeys (Domino) 23-27k; Ingrid Michaelson (Cabin 24) 20-25k, battling back and forth for #1 at iTunes today with Caillat; Collective Soul (Roadrunner) 18-22k; Matisyahu (Epic) 15-18k; Love & Theft (Hollywood) 15-18k; Jet (Real Horrorshow/EMM) 15-18k; Queen Latifah (Flavor Unit/Verve) 15-18k; Needtobreath (Atlantic) 12-15k, and David Guetta (Astralwerks) 10-12k.