Blog Posts by Paul Grein

David Bowie’s The Next Day enters The Billboard 200 at #2, becoming the rock icon’s highest-charting album to date. It tops Station To Station, which peaked at #3 in February 1976. Even so, it was no match for Bon Jovi’s What About Now, which debuts at #1. It’s the band’s fifth #1 album.

Bowie is one of the most celebrated artists of the rock era. He made the cover of TIME in 1983, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006. Bon Jovi hasn’t received any of those accolades. The band just sells albums (and concert tickets) year in and year out.

What About Now is the band’s third consecutive studio album to hit #1. It follows 2007’s Lost Highway and 2009’s The Circle. This marks the first time that the band has hit #1 with three consecutive studio albums.

Bon Jovi is the third act from New Jersey to amass five or more #1 albums. The band trails Bruce Springsteen, who has had 10 #1 albums between 1980 and 2012, and Frank Sinatra, who had six between 1946 and 1966. Whitney Houston is in fourth place. She had four #1 albums between 1986 and 2009. (Bon Jovi, which demonstrated its state pride by titling its 1988 album New Jersey, is from Sayreville, N.J. Springsteen was born in Freehold, Sinatra in Hoboken and Houston in Newark.)

This marks the second time that Bon Jovi has annoyed rock critics by debuting at #1 ahead of a critically-lauded act. Lost Highway debuted at #1 in June 2007, beating out the White Stripes’ Icky Thump, which debuted and peaked at #2.

“Thrift Shop” by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Wanz, which last week became the first song in digital history to top 300K in weekly sales eight times, breaks its own record this week, topping 300K for a ninth week. (It sold 306K copies this week.) “Thrift Shop” is #1 on Hot Digital Songs for the ninth straight week. It’s the first song to log that many weeks at #1 since the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling,” which held on for 10 weeks in 2009. In addition, “Thrift Shop” jumps to #1 on the all-genre Radio Songs chart, dethroning Taylor Swift’s mass-appeal smash “I Knew You Were Trouble.,” which had been #1 for four weeks.

With all that going for it, “Thrift Shop” really should be #1 on the Hot 100 as well. Instead, it holds at #2 for the fourth week behind Baauer’s “Harlem Shake.” The reason, of course, is that Billboard altered its chart formula three weeks ago to incorporate YouTube streaming activity. “Harlem Shake” is #1 on Streaming Songs, with 48 million streams this week. That’s a little more than five times as many as second-ranked “Thrift Shop” (9.2 million streams). Still, the streaming tally for “Harlem Shake” is down from its peak. The song amassed 54 million streams last week and 98 million the week before.

Jimi Hendrix’s People, Hell And Angels enters The Billboard 200 at #2, just behind Luke Bryan’s Spring Break…Here To Party. This puts the rock legend back in the top five 42-1/2 years after he died at age 27. No other artist in chart history has cracked the top five this long after his death. Elvis Presley is in second place. His Elvis: 2nd To None debuted at #3 in October 2003, a little more than 26 years after his death.

This is the highest ranking for an album by a performer who had passed away since Whitney Houston’s Whitney: The Greatest Hits logged three weeks at #2 in the weeks following her death in February 2012. The last album by a deceased performer to reach #1 was Michael Jackson’s This Is it soundtrack, which debuted at #1 in November 2009.

People, Hell And Angels is, incredibly, Hendrix’s 35th posthumous album to make The Billboard 200. The album consists of 12 previously-unreleased studio recordings which Hendrix recorded between 1968 and 1970.

Hendrix was a star for just three years, from June 1967, when he played the Monterey International Pop Festival, to September 1970, when he died in London of a drug overdose. Here’s a sign of just how long Hendrix has been gone: All of the other artists in this week’s top 10 were born after Hendrix died.

“Thrift Shop” by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Wanz this week becomes the first song in digital history to top 300K in weekly sales eight times. The old record was held by “We Are Young” by fun. featuring Janelle Monae, which topped 300K in weekly sales seven times.

In addition, “Thrift Shop” tops the 4 million mark in digital sales this week. It has sold more than 3 million copies since the beginning of the year. This marks the first time in the digital era that a song has sold 3 million copies this early in a calendar year. The previous record was set last year when “We Are Young” topped 3 million in the week ending April 8.

“Thrift Shop” was also the first song to sell 1 million copies in 2013 and the first to sell 2 million copies.

Given all these facts, you might expect that “Thrift Shop” is also #1 on the Hot 100, but that distinction goes, for the third week in row, to Baauer’s viral phenomenon “Harlem Shake.” “Harlem Shake” is the first song to capitalize on Billboard’s decision to add You Tube streaming data to the Hot 100 formula. If this policy had been in place two years ago, Rebecca Black’s “Friday” might have had a shot at #1 (it peaked at #58 in April 2011). And if it had been in place last summer, PSY’s “Gangnam Style” would undoubtedly have hit #1 (it spent seven weeks at #2).

Even so, it seems to me that the You Tube element is being given too much weight. “Thrift Shop” has been #1 on Hot Digital Songs for eight straight weeks. “Harlem Shake” spent one week (last week) at #2 on that chart. (It has sold 816K copies to date.) “Thrift Shop” is #2 on the all-format Radio Songs chart for the second week (just behind Taylor Swift’s mass-appeal smash “I Knew You Were Trouble.”) “Harlem Shake” doesn’t yet appear on the 75-position Radio Songs chart.

Bruno Mars’ Unorthodox Jukebox took an “unorthodox” path to #1 on The Billboard 200. The album has been in the top 10 since it debuted in December, but a one-day sale at Amazon’s MP3 store on Feb. 26 gave it the boost it need to go all the way. Unorthodox Jukebox was one of 20 digital albums that were on sale that day for just $1.99. We’ve seen one-day 99-cent sales boost the fortunes of older compilations by Frank Sinatra, Bee Gees and Phil Collins, among others, but it’s rare to see such a steep discount on a superstar album that’s just three months old.

The Amazon sale also boosted, among others, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ The Heist, which rebounds from #16 to #4 in its 21st week; the hit-studded 2006 compilation Joel Whitburn Presents: Billboard #1s: The '70s, which finally enters the chart at #11; Muse’s The 2nd Law, which jumps from #55 to #12 in its 22nd week; and Tegan & Sara’s Heartthrob, which jumps from #75 to #20 in its fifth week.

If a song is potent enough to enter the Hot 100 at #1, you might expect that it’s likely to settle in for a long run in the top spot. In recent years, for whatever reason, it hasn’t worked out that way. Of the last 10 songs to debut at #1, just two have snagged a second week on top: Lady Gaga’s 2011 smash “Born This Way” (which spent its first six weeks at #1) and Baauer’s “Harlem Shake” (which holds at #1 for the second week).

“Harlem Shake” debuted at #1 last week, concurrent with Billboard’s decision to add YouTube video streaming data to the Hot 100 mix. The song amassed 98 million streams this week (down 5% from last week’s staggering total of 103 million). Still, that’s more than 10 times as many streams as the song at #2: “Thrift Shop” by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis (featuring Wanz), which amassed 9.5 million streams. Streaming data is just one element in the Hot 100 mix, but it’s obviously going to be an ever-more-important one.

“Americana” music—an industry term for rootsy, guitar-based music—accounts for three of the top six albums on this week’s Billboard 200. Mumford & Sons’ Babel holds at #1 for the fifth week, The Lumineers’ The Lumineers jumps from #6 to #5 its 47th week and Alabama Shakes’ Boys & Girls leaps from #20 to #6 in its 43rd week. (Sales of Boys & Girls jumped by 10% compared to last week. It’s the only album in the top 15 to show a sales increase.)

Babel and The Lumineers were both nominated for Best Americana Album at the Grammys on Feb. 10. (They lost, in a big surprise, to Bonnie Raitt’s Slipstream.) Boys & Girls had also been entered in that category, but it wasn’t nominated. (It doubtless would have made the finals if the voting had occurred just a few weeks later).

“Harlem Shake,” the viral smash by Brooklyn producer Baauer, enters the Hot 100 at #1 this week. It’s the 21st song to debut at #1 since 1995, but the first by an artist who was unknown prior to charting. Three early American Idol contestants (Clay Aiken, Fantasia and Carrie Underwood) debuted at #1 with their first chart singles, but they were, by that point, household names. Likewise, Lauryn Hill debuted at #1 with her first solo chart hit, but she had reached #2 on the Hot 100 Airplay chart as the featured singer on Fugees’ “Killing Me Softly.”

By contrast, Baauer (real name: Harry Rodrigues) was unknown to the general public just a couple of weeks ago. Last week, “Harlem Shake” entered Hot Digital Songs at #123, with sales of 18K. This week, it vaults to #3 on that chart, with sales of 262K.

Baauer is the beneficiary of a major shakeup in Hot 100 methodology. You Tube streaming data is being counted for the first time. Nielsen will count all official videos on YouTube, including Vevo on YouTube, as well as user-generated clips that utilize authorized audio. That information joins these other factors that are already part of the chart mix: digital download track sales (and physical singles sales, where applicable), terrestrial radio airplay, on-demand audio streaming and online radio streaming.