For the second week in a row, country singer Taylor Swift tops the Billboard 200, despite new releases from Keyshia Cole, Jamie Foxx, Plies, and Soulja Boy.

However, Cole's newest and third album A Different Me lands at no. 3 on this week's charts, selling 322,000 copies, the best sales week of her career to date. Her 2007 album, Just Like You, also debuted at no. 2, but sold just 281,000 units.

Right behind Keyshia Cole is a new one from actor Jamie Foxx. His album, Intuition, scanned 265,000 units to put it at no. 3 during its first week. His previous album, Unpredictable, opened at no. 2 two years ago with 598,000 copies, but rose to no. 1 the following week.

Singer Anthony Hamilton returned to the charts with The Point of It All, selling 133,000 copies to put him at no. 12.

At no. 14 is Florida rapper Plies, and his third album, Da REAList, selling 114,000 copies This is Plies' second album this year. In June, he released Definition of Real, which debuted at no. 2 with 215,000 copies sold.

That's it for the top 20.

Later down the line, Soulja Boy Tell'em opens at a disappointing no. 43 with iSouljaBoyTellEm, despite launching his "Let's Go Platinum In A Week Campaign" in November. The new album sold just 46,000 copies. His 2007 debut, SouljaBoyTellEm.com, began at No. 4 with 117,000, thanks to the runaway success of his hit single "Crank That."

According to Billboard.com, album sales this week are up 33% over last week but down 33% from the same week in 2007, when 25.57 million albums were sold.

-- Edited by Shem at 01:28, 2008-12-26