Blog Posts by Paul Grein

Susan Boyle is proving once again that December is the best month of the year to have a hit album. Album sales surge around this time every year as people search for last-minute Christmas and Hanukkah gifts. Some people who haven't bought an album all year long will pick up a CD or two every December.

Boyle's I Dreamed A Dream is certain to wind up as the month's best-selling album. It has a good chance of toppling Taylor Swift's Fearless as the best-selling album of the entire year. This will be the 14th time in the past 18 years that the album that is the best-seller for the month of December has wound up in the top 10 for the year.

Because Nielsen/SoundScan publishes precise weekly sales totals, I was able to go back and determine which album sold the most copies in the month of December for every year since 1992, the first full year that Nielson/SoundScan tracked sales for Billboard.

The Beatles' 2000 smash 1 and Whitney Houston's 1992 colossus The Bodyguard are the biggest

Taylor Swift had the top-selling album of 2009 after all. But, boy, was it close. Fearless edged out Susan Boyle's I Dreamed A Dream by just 113,000 copies. That's the second closest margin of victory in Nielsen/SoundScan history. (The Lion King soundtrack squeaked past Ace of Base's The Sign by just 17,000 copies in 1994.)

2009 was the first year in which female solo artists had both of the year's top two best-sellers since 1996, when Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill and Celine Dion's Falling Into You led the way.

Fearless is the first country album to emerge as the year's best-seller since Billy Ray Cyrus' Some Gave All in 1992. Fearless, which was the third best-seller of 2008, is only the third album in Nielsen/SoundScan history to rank among the year's top three albums twice. It will follow Whitney Houston's The Bodyguard soundtrack (#3 for 1992, #1 for 1993) and Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill (#3 for 1995, #1 for 1996).

 Even though I Dreamed A Dream didn't take the

Chris Brown began 2009 as one of the hottest stars in pop and R&B. Both of his first two albums had made the top five and he had piled up an impressive string of seven top 10 hits on the Hot 100, including such massive hits as "Kiss Kiss" (featuring T-Pain), "No Air" (with Jordin Sparks) and "Forever." (And that tally doesn't even count top 10 hits by Bow Wow and Lil Mama on which he was merely "featured.")

But then came the heavily-publicized Feb. 8 incident in which he battered his then-girlfriend Rihanna. This week, Brown's first album since the incident arrives on The Billboard 200. Graffiti debuts at #7 with first-week sales of 102,000. That's about one-third of what Brown's previous album, Exclusive, sold (294,000) when it debuted at #4 in November 2007. It's even below the first-week sales of Brown's debut album, Chris Brown, which started (at #2) with 154,000 in December 2005.

Brown was probably hurt more than some other artists would have been because his actions were

What's the best-selling single of all time? That's a simple question with no easy answer. Or rather, two easy answers and one that was hard to arrive at. Let me explain. Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" is estimated to have to sold at least 30 million copies since its release in 1942. For decades, the song was widely regarded as the all-time best-seller. But 11 years ago, Elton John's "Candle In The Wind 1997" quickly sold a comparable number.

Both songs were massive chart hits.

"White Christmas" topped the Billboard pop chart for 11 weeks in 1942 and returned to the top spot in 1945 and 1946. It's the only song ever to reach #1 in three separate chart runs. The song was a chart fixture in nearly every holiday season through 1962. It amassed a total of 77 weeks on the chart, more than any other single ever.

"Candle In The Wind 1997" entered the Hot 100 on Oct. 11, 1997 (55 years to the week after "White Christmas" debuted). It opened at #1 stayed on top for 14 consecutive weeks. The

Susan Boyle's I Dreamed A Dream sold 527,000 copies this week, on top of the 701,000 copies it sold last week. It's the first album to top the 500,000 sales mark in each of its first two weeks since 50 Cent's The Massacre in March 2005. It's the first album to top the 500K mark more than once (ever during its run, not just in its first two weeks) since Josh Groban's Noel, which topped 500K in four straight weeks in December 2007. (Incidentally, Noel rebounds from #26 to #14 this week.)

After just two weeks, I Dreamed A Dream has sold 1,224,000 copies in the U.S. It's the first album to reach the 1 million mark in just two weeks since AC/DC's Black Ice 13 months ago. That hard rock smash sold 1,055,000 copies in its first two weeks. I Dreamed A Dream is the first album to reach the 1.2 million mark in its first two weeks since Lil Wayne's rap smash Tha Carter III, which sold 1,316,000 in its first two weeks in June 2008. These three albums could hardly be more different, which is a good

You read all about the Grammy nominations last week. You know who was saluted and who was snubbed. You may think you know everything there is to know about this year's nominations. Wanna bet? Here are eight facts about this year's noms I bet you don't know.

1. Beyonce is only the second female artist in Grammy history to receive four or more Record of the Year nominations. Barbra Streisand (whom Beyonce saluted at last year's Kennedy Center Honors) was the first. But Beyonce has surpassed Streisand in one respect. Beyonce is just 28. Streisand was 37 when she received her fourth Record of the Year nomination.

Beyonce's four Record of the Year finalists are "Say My Name" (with Destiny's Child), "Crazy In Love" (which featured her future husband Jay-Z), "Irreplaceable" and this year's "Halo." Streisand's five Record of the Year finalists are "Happy Days Are Here Again," "People," "Evergreen (Love Theme From A Star Is Born)," "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" (with Neil Diamond) and "Woman In

Andrea Bocelli's My Christmas is virtually certain to wind up as the best-selling holiday album of 2009. The album, which has been #2 on The Billboard 200 for three straight weeks, has sold nearly three times as many copies as this year's #2 seasonal seller, Sting's If On A Winter's Night (which celebrates winter if not Christmas specifically).

This is the second time that Bocelli has been part of the year's top-selling holiday album. He teamed with Celine Dion to sing "The Prayer" on her smash 1998 album These Are Special Times.

Christmas is still three weeks away, but it's not too early to scroll back through the best-selling new holiday albums of each of the past 17 years. These best-sellers reflect a wide range of styles, from country (Garth Brooks) to new age (Enya). Two pop/jazz performers have had the top-selling new holiday album more than once. Kenny G led the pack three times. Harry Connick Jr. scored twice.

Holiday albums have a part of the season since 1945, when Bing

Beyonce and Taylor Swift, as expected, were the leading nominees for the 52nd annual Grammy Awards. Beyonce received 10 nominations; Swift pulled in eight. Both women are up for the "Big Three" awards-Album, Record and Song of the Year. But so, in a surprise, is dance/pop sensation Lady Gaga. The Recording Academy, which bestows the Grammys, has been slow to embrace mainstream dance/pop in the past. Madonna didn't receive a nomination in one of the "Big Three" categories until 1999, after 15 years of hits, when she was cited for her Ray Of Light album and single.

The other big surprise in the nominations was the poor showing, at least in the marquee categories, of Kanye West. West's first three albums were all finalists for Album of the Year, but his fourth release, 808s & Heartbreak, was passed over for that award. (It didn't even get a nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album. West's first three albums won as Best Rap Album, but this one was slotted in the pop field.) West's smash