Music Thread #1 For 2/17/10: Soldier Of Album Solds As Sade Goes Gold In One Week

Talk about a way to pronounce your comeback and have every excuse to go back into seclusion. Ms. Mysterious has gone gold in just one week on the charts.

Nearly 10 years after the group's last studio effort, Sade is back with "Soldier of Love," blasting in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart with 502,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

"Solder of Love" gives Sade its first No. 1 debut and its best sales week since SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991. On top of that, it's the best sales week for an album by a group since AC/DC's "Black Ice" bulldozed into the chart at No. 1 on the chart dated Nov. 8, 2008, with 784,000.

"Soldier" is Sade's second No. 1 album. Its first, "Promise," spent two weeks at the top of the chart in 1986. The new album is also the first studio effort from the band -- led by vocalist Sade Adu -- since "Lovers Rock" was released in November of 2000. That set debuted and peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 with 370,000 sold in its first week. Since its release, "Lovers Rock" has sold 3.9 million in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Thanks to Sade, Lady Antebellum failed to No. 2 but are clearly on their way to platinum status with 897,000 CD's approximately sold.

A nice debut for Jaheim, as he placed the third spot on the charts with his "Another Round" album, totaling 112,000 units sold.

The rest of the Top 10 includes Lil Wayne's "Rebirth" album sliding to 4th, as it looks to be on pace to go at least "gold" despite all the pushbacks and mediocre quality of the album. Country artist Josh Turner debuts his "Haywire" at #5, right in front of another first week entrant in TobyMac at #6 with "Tonight".

Lady Gaga's "The Fame" comes through at #7, Black Eyed Peas' "The E.N.D" at #8, Susan Boyle continues her quiet dominance at "I Dreamed a Dream" at #9, and Taylor Swift's "Fearless" to round it out.

That spells a lot of trouble for the likes of Rihanna, Kesha, Chris Brown, 50 Cent, and other high profile releases that have fallen right off the map of legitimate album sales.

And with the success of Susan Boyle and now Sade in this supposed "Nobody buys albums anymore" era, maybe most artists should change their citizenship to being a Brit.

Or maybe they should just make better or standout music (because some standout music isn't all that good, it just stands out), because being British sure didn't help Jay Sean.

Update: And Alicia Keys has gone platinum now based on this week's sales, as another 40,000 units pushed has placed "The Elements of Freddom" over the magic million mark.