Jones on top in lackluster week

THE Valentine’s Day flowers have all wilted, and the Grammy Awards are ancient history – at least, that’s the story on the nation’s pop charts, where the mid-February sales surge was long gone by the final day of the month.

The No. 1 album in the country is “Not Too Late” by Norah Jones, but the CD claimed that top spot by selling just under 100,000 more copies, which is respectable but a far cry from the 211,000 copies the album sold in the previous week.

The artists who enjoyed a big bump thanks to their appearances at the Grammy telecast on Feb. 11 also came back down to Earth: Dixie Chicks, Justin Timberlake, Carrie Underwood, Corinne Bailey Rae and John Mayer each saw their sales total drop more than 40%.

The top newcomer on the chart this week is “Kidz Bop 11,” the latest in the series that features an ever-changing crew of youngsters belting out the radio hits of the day. This time around they are singing songs by Gnarls Barkley, KT Tunstall, the Fray and others. This edition debuted at No. 4 and sold 75,000 copies. It’s the fifth consecutive “Kidz Bop” release to premiere in the Top 10, according to Billboard.com.

At No. 10 this week is another debut, “Portable Sounds,” from tobyMac, which is the stage moniker of Toby McKeehan, the Christian music star best known for his membership in the group dc Talk. “Portable Sounds” sold 51,000 copies.

The only other Top 40 debut this week is “Cities,” the new album from Anberlin, another Christian music act, which sold 34,000 copies to reach No. 19 on the tally of sales data compiled by Nielsen SoundScan.

geoff.boucher@latimes.com