Blog Posts by Paul Grein

If a pop music star put seven albums on The Billboard 200 chart, had a Hot 100 single, won a Grammy, made the cover of Rolling Stone, and inspired several well-known tribute songs, you'd say he had a big-time career. It may surprise you to learn that Dr. Martin Luther King achieved all these milestones of pop success.

Dr. King landed his first chart album in October 1963, two months after he led the historic March on Washington. He landed his seventh in June 1968, two months after he was assassinated in Memphis. Only one public official, President John F. Kennedy, has made the chart with more than seven albums. JFK amassed 10 charted albums, all after his assassination in 1963.

Dr. King's first charted album, The Great March To Freedom, was recorded at a speech he gave in Detroit in June 1963. The album was released on Gordy Records, the namesake label of Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr.

Dr. King received his first Grammy nomination in early 1964 for We Shall Overcome (The March On

This week's Hot 100 includes two songs that feature in their titles what we used to gingerly call "the F word." P!nk's "F****' Perfect" re-enters the chart at #57. It joins Cee Lo Green's former top 10 hit "F**k You (Forget You)," which rebounds from #22 to #21. And that doesn't even count "Tonight (I'm Lovin' You)" by Enrique Iglesias featuring Ludacris, which holds at #6 for the second week. I'm sure you can guess what the edgier version of that song is titled.

Another song on this week's Hot 100 reminds us that it's not 1955 anymore. My Darkest Days' "Porn Star Dancing" re-enters at #98. Two songs on Hot Digital Songs also make the point: Rihanna's "S&M," which jumps from #195 to #138, and Lil Wayne featuring Drake's "Gonorrhea," which drops from #136 to #162.

There's another fairly forward lyric on the Hot 100, but this one is played for laughs. "I Just Had Sex" by the comedy troupe the Lonely Island (featuring Akon) drops to #53, after peaking at #30 two weeks ago. Andy Samberg

Well, it finally happened. For the first time since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales for Billboard in 1991, not one album sold 60,000 copies last week. The week's top-seller, with sales of 52,000, was Taylor Swift's Speak Now. The previous low sales total for an album at #1 was the Dreamgirls soundtrack, which topped the chart with sales of 60,000 four years ago this month.

Whitney Houston's The Bodyguard soundtrack was the first album in the Nielsen SoundScan era to sell fewer than 100,000 copies in a week in which it was #1. It sold 91K in its 20th and final week on top in May 1993. That constituted the "low sales" record for a #1 album until January 2004, when OutKast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below sold 86K in its seventh and final week on top. Dreamgirls inherited the unwanted title in January 2007 when it sold 66K in its first week at #1. It earned it again when it sold just 60K in its second week on top.

While Swift would probably rather not be associated with such a downer

It's hard to imagine now, but it was just four years ago that Daniel Powter's mopey ballad "Bad Day" became the first song to sell 2 million digital copies. Selling 2 million is now a common occurrence.  Seven songs hit that mark this past week alone, bringing the total of 2-million sellers to 206. For the first time, Nielsen SoundScan's running list of the 200 songs with the most paid downloads doesn't include every 2-million seller.

It's a good time to take stock of the artists and songs that have fared best in the digital universe. Who's on top? Fergie has amassed 11 songs that have topped the 2 million mark. This tally combines five hits from her solo debut album, The Dutchess, with six songs she recorded with the Black Eyed Peas.

Rhianna has topped the 2-million mark with 10 songs, counting her featured roles on Eminem's "Love The Way You Lie," T.I.'s "Live Your Life" and Jay-Z's "Run This Town."

Kanye West and will.i.am have each amassed eight 2-million sellers. West's total

Bruno Mars' "Grenade" becomes only the second song in digital history to top 400K in weekly sales more than once. The smash sold 425K copies last week and 559K copies the week before that. The only other song to achieve this feat is Flo Rida's 2009 smash "Right Round," which sold 636K and 460K in its first two weeks. "Grenade" tops the 2 million mark in total sales this week. It's Mars' fourth hit to reach this plateau, counting his featured roles on B.o.B's "Nothin' On You" and Travie McCoy's "Billionaire."

The success of "Grenade" boosts Mars' Doo-Wops & Hooligans album, which jumps from #20 to #7 on The Billboard 200. The album debuted at #3 in October, but dropped as low as #50 the following month. Mars is one of the most successful "singles artists" of the past few years. His four most famous hits have sold a combined total of 10,745,000 copies. Mars' album has sold a less spectacular, but still solid, 458K copies.

Katy Perry's "Firework" and Ke$ha's "We R Who We R" trail Mars'

Expect the third time to be the charm for Eminem. The rap star's smash album Recovery is the front-runner to win Album of the Year on Feb. 13, when the 53rd annual Grammy Awards are presented at Staples Center in Los Angeles. Eminem has been nominated in this category twice before, but lost both times. Ten years ago, The Marshall Mathers LP lost to Steely Dan's Two Against Nature. Two years later, The Eminem Show lost to Norah Jones' Come Away With Me.

The loss to Steely Dan was highly controversial. Many believed that the veteran pop duo won in large part because Grammy voters couldn't bring themselves to give their top award to an artist whose raw lyrics made him a polarizing figure at the time. Since then, Eminem starred in a hit movie and even won an Oscar. He has shown resilience and staying power, which Grammy voters respect.

Also, in the past decade, the Recording Academy has recruited more young voters. Seven years ago, a rap album, OutKast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, won

Current hit songs by Bruno Mars and Katy Perry each sold more than 500,000 copies last week. Mars' "Grenade" sold 559K. Perry's "Firework" sold 509K. This is the first time in digital history that two songs have sold 500K or more copies in the same week. In fact, only two other songs in digital history have ever sold 500K in one week. Flo Rida's "Right Round" sold 636K in its first week in February 2009. Ke$ha's "TiK ToK" sold 610K during Christmas week in 2009.

Eight songs sold 300,000 or more copies this week, more than in any previous week in digital history. Seven songs hit that plateau during Christmas week in each of the past two years.

The news was less encouraging on the album front. Taylor Swift's Speak Now (276K) and Susan Boyle's The Gift (240K) remained in the top two spots. This will be the first December in Nielsen SoundScan history in which no album topped 300K in any week during the month. The last album to sell that many copies in one week was Kanye West's My

In just six weeks of release, Beyonce's I Am...World Tour has become the best-selling music video of 2010. The DVD has sold 139,000 copies, 20,000 more than the year's #2 music video, Rush's Beyond The Lighted Stage. This is the fourth year in a row that Beyonce has had one of the year's top 10 music videos, but first time that she has come out on top.

Michael Jackson has three of the year's top 10 videos. This is the second year in a row that Jackson has made a strong showing on the list. On the year-end chart for 2009, he made a clean sweep of the top four positions. Only one other artist in Nielsen SoundScan history has ever had three or more of the year's top 10 music videos. Backstreet Boys had three of the top four in 1999.

Beyonce and Celine Dion each have two of the top 20 music videos for 2010.

The top 20 includes some historic footage: the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, the Rolling Stones on their Exile On Main St. tour in 1972, and Michael Jackson on his Dangerous