The top spot on this week's Billboard album chart belongs to Chrisette Michele. Never heard of her? Neither have many other people because Michele has scored the lowest first-week sales total in Nielsen SoundScan's 18-year history.
Her second album, Epiphany, only sold 83,000 copies in its initial week of sales. Only two other albums have debuted at No. 1 with less than 100,000 copies sold: the Notorious B.I.G.'s #1s (99,000 copies in November 2005) and the previous lowest first-week sales record holder Johnny Cash's American V: A Hundred Highways (88,000 July 2006).
Michele doesn't hold the record for lowest single-week sales by a No. 1 album, plenty of other artists have ascended to the top of the chart, after floating around at lower positions, with less than 83,000 copies sold in one week, including Taylor Swift on one of her many appearances at No. 1 with her latest album Fearless.
It seemed as if album sales were improving slightly as they were only down 9% in April year over year, compared to 17.9% and 11.5% in February and March. But Michele's first-week total is a disappointing start to May for the music industry. Will Green Day's piracy-afflicted 21st Century Breakdown be able to help the industry rebound?
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译文:
音乐行业走入低谷： 83,000张专辑便跻身销售榜首
本周专辑销售排行榜榜首的歌星是克里斯赛蒂·米歇尔，以前没听过这个名字吧。克里斯赛蒂·米歇尔以及其他歌星的销量创下了尼尔森唱片市场调查公司十八年来首周销量最低点.。他们因此而倍受非议。
她的第二套专辑《顿悟》，首发销售量仅到83,000 张。除此之外，仅有其他两个唱片没有突破十万大关便已跻身榜首的：声名狼藉的B.I.G的第一章专辑（在2005年11月中销售量为99,000张）以及上次最低首周销售量的歌手约翰尼·卡什的《American V: A Hundred Highways》(2006年7月销售量为88,000张)
米歇尔并没有因低迷的音乐时期独占鳌头而在未来的竞争中蝉联榜首，很多歌手迅速追上来。自那以后，她的销量都在每周流行音乐排行榜上下浮动，但都没能夺回榜首的位置，周销量也没能突破83,000张（包括在她的最新专辑 《天生不怕》的那首票房收入最高的《泰勒·斯威夫特》）。
四月份销量比上月销量才下降9%，与二月下降的17.9%和三月下降的11.5%，似乎有回升的趋势。
但是米歇尔的首周销量对音乐产业来说是一个走向低谷的开始。最近出台的绿色唱片日，严打盗版，不知是否能将低迷的音乐事业带出低谷。
