February 19, 2009

By By Paul Sexton, London

Bruce Springsteen equals the achievement of his last album "Magic" in 2007 by starting a third week atop Billboard's European Top 100 Albums chart with "Working On A Dream" (Columbia/Sony Music Entertainment). James Morrison's "Broken Strings" (Polydor), featuring Nelly Furtado, scores a second week at No. 1 on Eurochart Hot 100 Singles.

The Springsteen album makes a sharp descent in the United Kingdom, 1-7 on second-week sales of 21,000, but leads the way again in Austria, Sweden and Norway and climbs 2-1 in Switzerland and Denmark. It's also new at No. 3 in Greece but drops 1-2 in Germany, Holland, Ireland and Finland and 1-3 in Italy and the Belgian region of Flanders.

"Dream" prevents English pop singer-writer Lily Allen from a chart-topping pan-European debut with her sophomore set "It's Not Me, It's You" (Parlophone/EMI). That's new at No. 2 despite a best-selling start in the United Kingdom with sales of 112,000, way ahead of the 62,000 that brought a No. 2 entry for her first album "Alright, Still" in 2006. "It's Not Me" is also new at No. 3 in Ireland.

The next three titles hold steady on the pan-European chart, Seal's "Soul" (Warner Bros.) at No. 3, Kings of Leon's "Only By The Night" (Hand Me Down/Sony Music Entertainment) at No. 4 and Pink's "Funhouse" (LaFace/Sony Music Entertainment) at No. 5. Seal climbs 5-2 in Flanders and remains at No. 1 in neighboring Wallony as well as in France. "Night" is steady at No. 2 in the United Kingdom, where sales passed 1.4 million copies this week, up 2-1 in Flanders and at No. 3 again in Holland. The band won two BRIT awards last night (Feb. 18). Pink's highest European ranking of the week is at No. 5 again in Germany.

Peter Fox's "Stadtaffe" (Downbeat/Warner Music) makes a 10-6 climb overall, after moving 2-1 in Germany (where the single "Haus Am See" is up 12-9) and 6-3 in Austria. The "Twilight" soundtrack (Atlantic/Warner Music) and "Tonight: Franz Ferdinand" (Domino) slip 6-7 and 2-8 respectively on Top 100 Albums, with the soundtrack down 1-2 in Greece but steady at No. 2 in Austria and No. 4 in Germany. Franz Ferdinand's set is new at No. 6 in Greece but down 4-9 in France and 21-38 in the United Kingdom.

Morrison's "Songs For You, Truths For Me" album is up 11-9 on the composite chart, matching its debut position last October. That's helped by a 7-5 climb in the United Kingdom, while "Broken Strings" is at No. 1 again in Germany and Switzerland. Another soundtrack joins the pan-European album top ten, as "Camp Rock" (Hollywood/EMI) climbs 15-10.

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