• The New York Times, Thursday, November 8, 2007 12:31 PM

Billboard magazine decided on Tuesday--the day before weekly sales data is released--to reverse its policy of not counting the sale of albums sold exclusively through one retailer, effectively anointing the Eagles' new release, "Long Road Out of Eden," as the No. 1 album of the week. The two-disc set is being sold exclusively through Wal-Mart.

One reason cited was that mass merchants now account for a far larger slice of the market than previously. Big merchants have accounted for about 39% of sales so far this year--far more than conventional CD stores or digital services like iTunes, although the balance may shift as more music is purchased in digital form.

Many record executives privately criticized the unexpected shift, and some expressed fears that it might provide new incentive for artists to sell straight to retail chains like Wal-Mart and Starbucks. Geoff Mayfield, the Billboard analyst who oversees the charts, says he made the change amid worries that the brand-name charts, regarded as the industry's gold standard, were in danger of appearing out of sync with the music market.

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