People Still Buy Music: Nickelback and Michael Buble battle for the soul of a nation

By Steven Hyden | November 30, 2011 | 7:23pm

Aux Features Music

It turns out that Americans prefer Christmas to Nickelback, but not by much. In what has been called (by Nickelback's label) one of the closest margins ever between No. 1 and 2 on the Billboard albums chart, Michael Buble's Christmas just barely edged out Nickelback's Here And Now for the top spot this week. Christmas outsold Here And Now by a mere 419 units, finishing with just over 227,000 total. The .18 percent difference between the two albums is the closest finish since November 2007, when Bruce Springsteen's Magic bested Kid Rock's Rock N Roll Jesus by .3 percent.

Other debuts this week include Rihanna's Talk That Talk, which came in at No. 3 with 197,000 copies sold, Mary J. Blige's My Life II: The Journey Continues, Act I at No. 5 with 156,000 sold, and Daughtry's Break The Spell—possibly the Ralph Nader to Nickelback's Al Gore—which came in at No. 8 with 129,000 sold. The other notable news item from this week's chart: For the first time during its 40-week chart run, Adele's 21 has dropped out of the top 5, landing at No. 7 with 140,000.