Blog Posts by Paul Grein

Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" jumps from #2 to #1 on the Hot 100, displacing the biggest hit so far this year, "Somebody That I Used To Know" by Gotye featuring Kimbra. That smash dips to #2, ending an eight-week run at #1. Jepsen is the first female artist to reach #1 with her first Hot 100 hit (as a lead artist) since Ke$ha scored with "TiK ToK" in January 2010.

"Call Me Maybe" tops the 3 million mark in U.S. sales this week. This week, it becomes the best-selling hit by a lead female solo artist so far this year. It swipes the title from Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)."

The surprise success this year of Lionel Richie's Tuskegee (which is the #2 best-seller so far this year) shows that veteran artists have an advantage in the chart wars. Older fans are probably the most loyal and reliable album buyers. This week, two albums debut in the top five by acts that have been around even longer than Richie. The Beach Boys' That's Why God Makes The Radio enters The Billboard 200 at #3. Neil Young & Crazy Horse's Americana debuts at #4. The Beach Boys first charted in November 1962; Young (with The Buffalo Springfield) in March 1967.

This week's lofty debut gives the Beach Boys a 49-year span of top five albums. The group first made the top five on the mono chart with Surfin' U.S.A. on June 22, 1963. (The current chart will appear in the Billboard issue dated June 23, 2012.) Only Frank Sinatra has had a longer span of top five albums. Sinatra's top five albums span 62 years and two months, from The Voice Of Frank Sinatra (March 23, 1946) to Nothing But The Best (June 7, 2008). FYI, Tony Bennett is in third place, just a couple of weeks behind the Beach Boys. His top five albums span nearly 49 years, from I Left My Heart In San Francisco (Nov. 24, 1962) to Duets II (Nov. 5, 2011).

Despite the controversy that ensued after the Recording Academy cut the number of Grammy categories from 109 to 78 last year, the academy has made only minor tweaks to its award structure for next year. It has added three new categories, merged two others and split an existing category in two. That will mean that 81 awards will be presented when the 55th Grammy Awards are presented at Staples Center in Los Angeles on Feb. 10, 2013. That's a routine number of year-to-year changes. Last year's 31-category drop was the biggest one-year revamp in academy history.

Rihanna lands her 22nd top 10 hit as "Where Have You Been" jumps from #11 to #9 in its seventh week on the Hot 100. Only four female solo artists have amassed more top 10 hits in the history of the Hot 100 (which dates to 1958). Madonna leads the pack with 38, followed by Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson (27 each) and Whitney Houston (23).

But Rihanna is just 24, far younger than these other women were when they landed their 22nd top 10 hits.

Nobody sets out to hit #2, much less set a record for the most weeks at #2, but that's what Adele's 21 does this week. The album logs its 24th week at #2 on The Billboard 200 album chart. This enables it to tie Bruce Springsteen's 1984 album Born In The U.S.A. for the most weeks at #2 since 1963, when Billboard combined its separate mono and stereo charts into one comprehensive chart.

Both albums, of course, also hit #1. Born logged seven weeks at #1. 21 has spent 23 weeks on top.  Adele's still active album will doubtless add to its tallies of weeks at #1 and #2. (In fact, it's expected to return to #1 next week.) But for now at least, it has spent more time at #2 than it has at #1. For an album that has had been so charmed in every way, that's a surprise.

onedirection-upallnightthelivetourOne Direction's Up All Night: The Live Tour sold 76,000 copies in its first week, enabling it to enter the Top Music Videos chart at #1. In the past four years, only one other DVD has sold this many copies in any one week. That's Adele's Live At The Royal Albert Hall, which topped 80K in each of its first four weeks of release in December.

Up All Night even outsold Michael Jackson's videos in the wake of his death in June 2009. Jackson's top-seller in those weeks, Live In Bucharest: The Dangerous Tour, sold 74K in the week ending July 12.

This week, for the first time, the week's #1 music video outsold the week's #1 album. One Direction's Up All Night: The Live Tour DVD sold 76,000 copies in its first week, which is more than the week's #1 album, John Mayer's Born And Raised (65K).

Up All Night: The Live Tour sold more copies this week than any other DVD has in any one week so far this year. The last DVD to sell this many copies in one week was Adele's Live At The Royal Albert Hall, which topped 80K in each of its first four weeks of release in December.

Justin Bieber's "Boyfriend" tops the 2 million mark in digital sales in just its ninth week. It's by far Bieber's fastest-selling hit. "Baby" (featuring Ludacris) took 20 weeks to top the 2 million mark in June 2010. "One Time" took more than 13 months to top the 2 million mark in August 2010.

"Boyfriend" has appeared in the top 10 on the Hot 100 for all nine of its weeks. It regains its bullet this week for the first time in four weeks.

Even more impressive than the sales has been the well-executed stylistic shift from the bouncy bubblegum of "Baby" to the slinky and sexy "Boyfriend." Female singers can get away with sounding younger than their years (it's hard to believe that Carly Rae Jepsen is 26, given the giddy, breathless nature of "Call Me Maybe"), but guys in pop need to act their age.