| Thursday 23 December 1993 |
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Carey tops holiday music boom
It was another big holiday week for the nation's music retailers as superstar releases fueled an across-the-board sales bonanza. Aside from two albums - the new Ice Cube set, "Lethal Injection", in its second charting week, and Vince Gill's Christmas issue - all of the titles in SoundScan's top 100 listing saw significant sales increases over the last chart.
Figures are provided by a record industry source. Album sales increased 28% over last week and were up 37% over the same period last year. At the top of the tally for the second straight week is Mariah Carey's fourth Columbia release, "Music Box". The week's largest sales gainer sold more than 392,000 copies, up nearly 100,000. Carey's current single, "Hero", is also No. 1.
Pearl Jam moved back into the runner-up spot as the Epic album "Vs." found its way into nearly 330,000 stockings, up from 246,000. Rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg slipped to No. 3, his Interscope debut "Doggystyle" selling 297,000 copies. Marquee acts enjoying big weeks included Frank Sinatra at No. 4 with the Capitol-issued "Duets", which sold more than 285,000 units; Columbia's Michael Bolton, who sold 270,000 copies of his "One Thing", good enough for No. 6.
Janet Jackson's "janet" (Virgin) sits at No. 7 with sales of 252,000, and Billy Joel came in at No. 9, with 196,000 deliveries of his Columbia-released "River of Dreams". The only notable chart debut of the week belongs to the soundtrack from the movie "Wayne's World 2". The Warner Bros. album, featuring a mix of '70s "stoner" tunes and new, alternative-rock tracks, enters at No. 126. (Variety)
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