Years from now, it may become an interesting trivia question: Name the only American band in the SoundScan era to have a No. 1 album in England and never appear on the U.S. sales chart despite being released day and date in the two countries?
Answer: The Eagles.
Now we might be getting ahead of ourselves as the Eagles first album since 1979 might someday be available in the States at an outlet other than Wal-Mart, where it went on sale last week. In the U.K., "Long Road Out of Eden" was released by Universal and opened at No. 1, besting Britney Spears' "Blackout."
In the U.S., though, the exclusivity of the Wal-Mart situation will keep it off SoundScan's chart and the suburban mega-store is not about to release sales data. (They were mum about Garth Brooks sales figures when his catalog went under their roof). Wal-Mart and Eagles management have already said "Long Road" would be No. 1 were they to report sales figures, but that is, of course, pure speculation at this point.
Hits has the Eagles disc hitting 700,000 in sales in its first week.