Blog Posts by Paul Grein

P!nk's "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" vaults from #58 to #9 in its second week on the Hot 100. It's P!nk's third top 10 hit with an edgy title, following "U + Ur Hand" (#9 in 2007) and "F**kin' Perfect" (#2 in 2011). Paula Abdul had a #6 hit in 1991 titled "Blowing Kisses In The Wind." P!nk took that traditional romantic notion and turned it on its head. But while the "can-you-say-that?" title helped attract attention, the record's solid pop-rock craftsmanship is bringing it home.

The song is P!nk's 12th top 10 hit. She first cracked the top 10 in April 2000 with "There You Go." Billboard's Gary Trust notes that P!nk is in third place among female artists for most top 10 hits since January 2000. She trails only Rihanna (with 22) and Beyonce (with 14.) This week's move puts her ahead of Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, who have each had 11 top 10 hits.

Ask a few musically aware people to guess which album by a group or duo has sold the most copies in any one week so far this year. I bet very few people will get it right. Here's the right answer: Zac Brown Band's Uncaged, which enters The Billboard 200 at #1 this week with sales of 234K copies. The runners-up (and your most likely wrong guesses) are Linkin Park's Living Things (223K), Maroon 5's Overexposed (222K), Van Halen's A Different Kind Of Truth (187) and One Direction's Up All Night (176K).

Uncaged sold more than 100K more copies than Frank Ocean's Channel Orange, which may be this year's most buzzed-about album. Uncaged even sold more digital copies than Channel Orange, which was an iTunes exclusive. Uncaged sold 139K digital copies (to rank #1 on Top Digital Albums). Channel Orange sold 128K digital copies. (More on Ocean in a minute.)

Kitty Wells, who died on Monday at 92, was the original "Queen of Country Music." She first lay claim to the title in 1952, long before Reba McEntire and Dolly Parton, before Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette, even before Patsy Cline.

In  August 1952, Wells became the first female solo artist to, all by herself, land a #1 hit on Billboard's country chart. She achieved that feat with "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonky Angels."

Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" has sold 4,310,000 copies, and it's still #1 on both the Hot 100 (for the fifth week) and Hot Digital Songs (for the eighth week). This is the first time that a song has rung up such a massive sales tally while it was still #1 on the digital sales chart. "Somebody That I Used To Know" by Gotye featuring Kimbra was the first song in digital history to have sold 4 million copies while it was still on top of the digital sales chart. It had sold 4,042,000 copies as of its final week at #1.

"Somebody…" is already up to #14 on Nielsen SoundScan's running list of the best-selling digital hits of all time. "Call Me Maybe" is #51 on that list. But the impressive records they have set suggests that they will wind up very near the top of the list.

Luke Bryan's "Rain Is A Good Thing" this week become the 100th country song to sell 1 million digital copies. It's Bryan's fifth million-seller, which puts him in a tie with Jason Aldean for the most among male country solo artists. Taylor Swift accounts for 15 million-sellers, more than any other country artist. Carrie Underwood is in second place, with 10. Zac Brown Band is next in line, with seven.

Everybody knows Swift and Underwood, but Bryan has just broken wide open in the past year. His current album, Tailgates & Tanlines, has sold a healthy 1,246,000 copies. His current single, "Drunk On You," is his first top 20 hit on the Hot 100, after a couple of near-misses.

Chris Brown lands his second straight #1 album as Fortune debuts in the top spot. It follows F.A.M.E., which went on to win a Grammy as Best R&B Album of 2011. Since the February 2009 incident in which Brown assaulted his then-girlfriend Rihanna, Brown has landed two #1 albums. Rihanna has yet to reach the top spot. That doesn't seem right, but those are the facts.

But let me hasten to add that Rihanna's six studio albums have sold substantially more copies overall (8,392,000) than Brown's five studio albums have (5,598,000).

The best-selling album that either artist has had is Rihanna's 2007 smash Good Girls Gone Bad (2,750,000), followed by Brown's 2005 debut Chris Brown (2,199,000) and his 2007 sophomore album Exclusive (2,014,000). The worst-selling album that either artist has had is Brown's Graffiti, which has sold just 362K. That album was released just 10 months after the assault, when Brown supporters were hard to find.

Who's the biggest recording star to come out of American Idol? I really think we should call it a tie. Carrie Underwood has sold more albums, but Kelly Clarkson has sold more individual songs.  Just this week, Clarkson's #1 smash "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)" pulled ahead of Underwood's 2007 hit "Before He Cheats" to become the best-selling song by an Idol alumnus. "Stronger" has sold 3,510,000 copies, 1K more than Underwood's sassy revenge fantasy.

(Want to know what's in third place? It's "No Air," the melodramatic 2008 collabo by Jordin Sparks & Chris Brown, which has sold 3,437,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks sales for Billboard.)

Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" this week surpasses Nickelback's 2007 smash "Rockstar" to become the best-selling song by a Canadian act in digital history. "Call Me Maybe," which is in its fourth week at #1 on the Hot 100, has sold 4,067,000 copies. "Rockstar," which reached #6 in September 2007, has sold 4,019,000.

Jepsen is one of three female solo artists from Canada on Nielsen SoundScan's running list of the 200 best-selling songs in digital history. The others are Avril Lavigne, whose "Girlfriend" has sold 3,509,000 copies, and Nelly Furtado, whose "Promiscuous" (featuring Timbaland) has sold 2,833,000. Both of those songs also reached #1.