India.Arie's "Testimony" draws convincing verdict

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - For the second week in a row, a best new artist nominee of the 2002

Grammy Awards bows at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. As the soulful India.Arie celebrates the best chart week of her career, the most intriguing aspect of this triumph may well be the race that never developed.

First-day sales reported by chains when her "Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship" reached stores the same day as Dashboard Confessional's "Dusk and Summer" led chart prognosticators to predict that both albums would start in the neighborhood of 150,000, suggesting the two were running neck and neck.

While both acts achieved their best-yet Nielsen SoundScan weeks, this was far from a photo finish.

India.Arie easily exceeded the 150,000 threshold, earning her second No. 1 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and her first on the big chart with a start of 161,000 copies. Dashboard beat its previous best frame by about 10 percent, but closed well shy of first place with 134,000 sold.

Those are the only two albums on the chart to sell more than 100,000, although last week's chart champ,

Nelly Furtado, comes close at 99,000 (No. 3, down 55 percent).

How did India.Arie turn what looked to be a close race into a laugher? The answer boils down, in part, to who buys what and how they buy it.

TOUGH CALL

The simple fact is that for the last few years, the advent of the CD burner, followed closely by peer-to-peer Internet swaps and the eventual introduction of paid digital downloads, have all made it tough to project a rock band's first-week total from its opening-day sales.

While Dashboard courts the rock crowd, a point proved mightily by its radio profile, India.Arie appeals to a more mature consumer who might not race to the music store or iTunes the first day that an album becomes available.

Her fans also have had a longer period of time to learn about the new set. Lead track "I Am Not My Hair" has been on radio since late last year, drawing 157 million audience impressions to date, according to Nielsen BDS, with most of its plays coming from adult R&B radio and other R&B-leaning stations.

In a much shorter window, Dashboard's "Don't Wait" has tallied 23 million impressions, with most of its spins garnered at modern rock stations. During the week both albums came to market, "Don't Wait" pulled 2.7 million in audience from all BDS-monitored stations, compared with 5.1 million for "I Am Not My Hair."

Yet, not surprisingly, Dashboard's song has been the busier digital track. "Don't Wait" has sold 45,000 downloads to date, about double the amount sold so far by India.Arie's song, statistics that probably fit each act's fan profile.

The attention span of the younger rock-leaning consumer is more prone to bite-size purchases, while the older music fan who enjoys the thoughtful themes that have pervaded India.Arie's music since her first album bowed at No. 10 in 2001 is more inclined to buy the whole meal.

Aside from radio, the chart's new queen got a boost from TV. She played the BET Awards June 27 -- with a big plug for her album from show host

Damon Wayans -- and also made release-week stops on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" and "Live With Regis and Kelly," along with big rotation for her "Hair" clip from VH1 Soul.

That exposure helps this third album easily beat the Billboard 200 and SoundScan peaks set by her sophomore "Voyage to India," which started at No. 6 on the big chart with opening sales of 109,000.

Reuters/Billboard