Blog Posts by Paul Grein

K-Pop star PSY has the week’s top new entry on the Hot 100 as “Gentleman” debuts at #12. That’s much higher than PSY’s breakthrough smash, “Gangnam Style,” which debuted at #64 in September. (The phenomenal hit shot to #11 in its second week and reached #2 in its third week.) Of course, YouTube streaming data wasn’t a factor in the Hot 100 back then, as it is now. The fact that such a massive hit as “Gangham Style” wasn’t able to make #1 (it logged seven weeks at #2) was no doubt a key reason that Billboard realized they needed to adjust their Hot 100 methodology.

“Gangnam Style” was the first video ever to reach 1 billion YouTube views worldwide. It’s now up to 1.5 billion. “Gentleman” set a You Tube record by notching 18.9 million views in its first 24 hours on the site. It’s now up to 125 million. (Note: the Hot 100 takes only U.S. activity into account.)

Incidentally, this is the first song titled “Gentleman” to hit the Hot 100. By contrast, eight different songs titled “Lady” have charted, including four that have made the top 10—by Kenny Rogers (#1 in 1980), Styx (#6 in 1975), Little River Band (#10 in 1979) and D’Angelo (#10 in 1996).

Right about now, Brad Paisley is probably wondering what he has to do to land a #1 album. His new Wheelhouse enters The Billboard 200 at #2 (behind Paramore’s new album). Unless it moves up to #1 in a subsequent week, which rarely happens, it will be his fourth album to peak at #2, following Time Well Wasted, American Saturday Night and This Is Country Music. Only one other artist in chart history has had as many as four #2 albums without reaching #1. Sheryl Crow reached the runner-up spot with four consecutive releases from 2002 through 2008: C’mon, C’mon, The Very Best Of Sheryl Crow, Wildflowers and Detours.

Here’s an irony for you: A price reduction to 69 cents enabled Bruno Mars’ “When I Was Your Man” to bump “Thrift Shop”—a song about hunting for 99-cent bargains—out of the #1 spot on the Hot 100. Mars’ song was discounted to that price in both the iTunes and Amazon MP3 stores, which put it far below the standard $1.29 price of most current hits. This was a shameless (and effective) bid to give Mars’ hit the final push it needed to reach #1. The song sold 340K copies during the week, which represents a 45% gain over the previous week. “Thrift Shop,” which is the only song in digital history to top 300K in weekly sales nine times, sold 211K during the week, a 25% drop from the previous week.

“When I Was Your Man” is Mars’ fifth #1 on the Hot 100. Mars has amassed his first five #1 hits faster than any male solo artist since Elvis Presley. Mars first charted on Feb. 13, 2010 as the featured artist on B.o.B’s “Nothin’ On You.” Thus, he has piled up five #1 hits in three years and two months. Presley amassed his first five #1 hits in less than a year (March 3, 1956 to Feb. 9, 1957, when “Too Much” bumped Guy Mitchell’s “Singing The Blues” out of the top spot).

Only two other artists have amassed five or more #1 hits since January 2010. Rihanna leads with seven in this young decade. Katy Perry has had six. Among male solo artists, Mars is way out front. Eminem is in second place with two #1 hits since January 2010.

(Wanna know who else has had two or more #1 hits in this decade? Adele has had three. Ke$ha, LMFAO and Maroon 5 have each had two.)

Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience sold 139K copies last week, bringing its three-week total to 1,426,000. It’s the first album by a male pop vocalist to get off to such a fast start since Ricky Martin’s English-language debut album, Ricky Martin, which sold 1,519,000 copies in its first three weeks in May 1999.

While Martin had been known for years in the Latin music world, the broad pop audience discovered him on the night of Feb. 24, 1999. He sang “La Copa De La Vida (The Cup Of Life)” on the Grammy telecast and literally stole the show.

His subsequent single “Livin’ La Vida Loca” raced to #1 on the Hot 100 in just four weeks, which allowed Ricky Martin to build up this impressive sales tally.

Both Timberlake and Martin started out in boy bands. Timberlake was 14 in 1995 when he co-founded *NSYNC; Martin was 13 in 1984 when he joined Menudo.

The 20/20 Experience is the first album by any artist to sell this many copies in its first three weeks since Taylor Swift’s Red, which sold 1,749,000 copies in its first three weeks last fall. It’s the first album by a male solo artist to sell this many this soon since Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III, which sold 1,526,000 copies in its first three weeks in June 2008.

“Thrift Shop” by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Wanz sold 4,178,000 copies in the first quarter of 2013. That’s more, by far, than any song has sold in the first quarter of a calendar year in digital history. The old record was set last year, when “We Are Young” by fun. featuring Janelle Monae sold 2,753,000 copies in the first quarter.

“Thrift Shop” logs its sixth week at #1 on the Hot 100. That’s the longest run since Bruno Mars’ “Locked Out Of Heaven” spent six weeks on top in December and January. It’s the longest run by an ongoing duo (not just a one-time collabo) since LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem” (featuring Lauren Bennett & Goon Rock) had six weeks on top in the summer of 2011.

“Thrift Shop” tops Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs for the 12th week. That enables it to surpass Robin Thicke’s 2007 hit “Lost Without U” for the longest run at #1 by a white artist since the chart originated (as Harlem Hit Parade) in October 1942. (Mariah Carey, whose “We Belong Together” logged 14 weeks at #1 on the R&B chart in 2005, is biracial. Her father was of African American and Venezuelan descent. Her mother is of white Irish descent.)

Two other songs by the duo are moving up the Hot 100. “Can’t Hold Us” jumps from #27 to #15 in its eighth week. “Same Love” (featuring Mary Lambert) re-enters the chart at #93. The latter song has already climbed as high as #89.

The Voice has been very good for Blake Shelton. The country star’s Based On A True Story… sold 199K copies in its first week, which is more than any previous Shelton album has sold in any one week. (He achieved his previous best when Red River Blue sold 116K copies when it debuted at #1 in July 2011). Prior to the launch of The Voice in April 2011, Shelton had never sold more than 77K copies of an album in one week.

Based On A True Story enters The Billboard 200 at #3, behind Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience, which holds at #1 for the second week, and Lil Wayne’s I Am Not A Human Being II, which debuts at #2. Shelton’s album enters Top Country Albums at #1. It’s Shelton’s third #1 album on the country chart. It follows the 2010 EP All About Tonight and Red River Blue.

Fifty years ago this week, an original, audacious and gifted singer from Brooklyn entered the Billboard album chart for the first time. Barbra Streisand, who was not yet 21 when her debut album charted, was unconventional from the start, from the quirky way she altered the spelling of her first name to the defiant way she refused to alter the shape of her nose.

Those characteristics—originality, audacity and blazing talent—have made Streisand the most successful female singer of all time.

In 1963, when the year’s top three hits by female solo artists were the Singing Nun’s “Dominique,” Little Peggy March’s “I Will Follow Him” and Lesley Gore’s “It’s My Party,” Streisand released an ironic ballad version of the rousing 1930 smash “Happy Days Are Here Again.” The sound of the record was so elegant, so grown-up, it made those other hits seem like trifles.

“Thrift Shop” by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Wanz returns to #1 on the Hot 100 after logging five weeks at #2 behind Baauer’s viral phenomenon “Harlem Shake.” It’s the first song to return to #1 after such a long absence since Chubby Checker’s “The Twist,” which returned to #1 in January 1962, 16 months after it first topped the chart.

“Thrift Shop” rises to #1 even though it falls to #2 on both Hot Digital Songs (behind “Just Give Me A Reason” by P!nk featuring Nate Ruess) and Hot Radio Songs (behind Bruno Mars’ “When I Was Your Man”). How’d that happen? “Harlem Shake” fell off even more sharply. Billboard’s Gary Trust reports that “Thrift Shop” dropped by 6% in overall chart points, while “Harlem Shake” dropped by 28%.

“Thrift Shop” tops the 5 million mark in digital sales this week. The song sold 5 million copies in 30 weeks. Just three songs in digital history have reached 5M faster: “Somebody That I Used To Know” by Gotye featuring Kimbra (23 weeks), Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” (24) and “We Are Young” by fun. featuring Janelle Monae (28).