Blog Posts by Paul Grein

Barbra Streisand's Love Is The Answer enters The Billboard 200 at #1, edging out Paramore's Brand New Eyes, which bows at #2. The two albums were separated by fewer than 5,000 copies, which means that Streisand's uncharacteristic promotional hustle probably made the difference. She appeared on Oprah, CBS's Sunday Morning and NBC's Today. This was the closest race for #1 by two debuting albums since April, when Keith Urban's Defying Gravity beat out Prince/Bria Valente's Lotus Flow3r/MPLSoUND/Elix3r by a little more than 3,000 units.

By hitting #1, Streisand sets all kinds of records. The diva has had at least one #1 album in each of the last five decades. No other individual artist equals this feat, though John Lennon and Paul McCartney manage it if you combine albums by The Beatles with their individual work. (The Beatles didn't have a #1 album in the '80s, but Lennon and McCartney did on their own.)

Streisand, who is 67 and six months, is the second oldest artist ever to have a #1

Michael Jackson's Number Ones regains the #1 spot on the Catalog chart, sending the Beatles' Abbey Road packing after just two weeks on top. I expected the Beatles' catalog resurgence to last longer and I thought Jackson's posthumous sales spurt would subside more quickly. But fans had other ideas. Number Ones sold 39,000 copies this week and would have climbed from #9 to #8 if catalog albums were eligible to compete on The Billboard 200. Abbey Road sold 29,000 and would have dropped from #7 to #17.

Number Ones remains the year's best-selling album, with sales since Jan. 1 of 1,876,000 copies. The hit-studded collection has sold more copies this year than it did from the time of its release in November 2003 through the end of 2008 (1,708,000).

Here are some more amazing stats: Jackson has sold 5,280,000 albums since he died in June. In just three months, he has sold more than half as many albums as he did in the 9-1/2 years between Jan. 1, 2000 and his death. (He sold 10,245,000 albums

Jay-Z's The Blueprint 3 tops The Billboard 200 for the second straight week. Its second-week sales tally was bigger than the first-week totals rung up by such high-profile recent albums as Daughtry's Leave This Town, Kelly Clarkson's All I Ever Wanted and Bruce Springsteen's Working On A Dream.

The Blueprint 3 has sold 774,000 copies in its first two weeks. Only one album so far this year has sold more copies in its first two weeks. That's Eminem's Relapse, which sold 820,000 copies in that time frame. U2's No Line On The Horizon had a slightly stronger first week than The Blueprint 3, but a much slower second week. After two weeks, it had sold 617,000.

The Blueprint 3 is, surprisingly, only the third album so far this year to spend its first two weeks at #1. It follows Relapse and All I Ever Wanted.

Jay-Z has two songs in the top five on this week's Hot Digital Songs chart. "Empire State Of Mind" (featuring Alicia Keys) vaults from #23 to #1 in its second week. "Run This Town"

The Beatles, who have been smashing records on the U.S. charts since 1964, did it again last week. The group had nine of the week's 20 best-selling albums and 12 of the week's 30 best-sellers. Michael Jackson had set the old records in both categories just two months ago. At the peak of his posthumous sales, Jackson had seven of the week's 20 best-selling albums and nine of the week's 30 best-sellers. (Both tallies include Jackson 5 albums.)

The Fab Four sold 626,000 albums last week, the biggest one-week haul by any artist since July, when Jackson topped that mark for three weeks in a row. (His sales peaked the week ending July 12, when he sold 1,096,000 albums in one week.) The difference, of course, is that Jackson had just died. The Beatles dominated the public consciousness without being the subject of such sad and shocking news.

The Beatles' achievements overshadowed Jay-Z's The Blueprint 3, which entered The Billboard 200 at #1. The album sold 476,000 copies, which is the

Whitney Houston's I Look To You enters The Billboard 200 at #1. It's Houston's first album to top the chart since The Bodyguard soundtrack in 1993. It's her first album to debut at #1 since Whitney in 1987 (which was the first album by a female artist to achieve the feat). I Look To You sold 305,000 copies in its first week, which is the biggest weekly tally so far this year for an album by a female artist. It's Houston's biggest tally since The Preacher's Wife soundtrack sold 330,000 copies in the week before Christmas 1996.

This week's total is solid, but not phenomenal. Five albums have sold more copies in their first week so far in 2009. Houston sold slightly more copies than the Black Eyed Peas did in their first week in June (304,000), but only about half as many as Eminem did in his first week in May (608,000). This isn't even the biggest first-week tally of the year by an R&B artist. Maxwell started with sales of 316,000 in July. (Maxwell's tally was probably boosted by the

Second generation stars hold down two of the top three spots on The Billboard 200. Colbie Caillat, the daughter of Grammy-winning record producer Ken Caillat, debuts at #1 with her sophomore album, Breakthrough; Miley Cyrus, the daughter of country hit-maker Billy Ray Cyrus, bows at #3 with The Time Of Our Lives. (Cyrus' EP, a Wal-Mart exclusive, debuted a week earlier than expected because its release date was moved to Friday Aug. 28. Thus, it had only three days to ring up sales.)

Breakthrough sold 106,000 copies this week, which is more than twice the first-week sales (51,000) of Caillat's 2007 debut album, Coco. That album has sold an impressive 1,961,000 copies and spawned two top 20 hits on the Hot 100: "Bubbly" and "Realize."

The first-week tally for Breakthrough includes nearly 43,000 digital copies, which makes it the week's #1 Digital Album. Coco topped the Digital chart twice. Coco has sold 334,000 digital copies, which puts it in 12th place on Nielsen/SoundScan's all time

Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" this week becomes the first song that was released prior to 2000 to sell 3 million downloads. (It's so far in front of the pack, it's the only song released prior to 2000 to sell even 2 million downloads.) This raises an obvious question: Of the tens of thousands of songs that were released prior to 2000, why has "Don't Stop Believin'" sold so well in the digital realm? I have given this question much thought in recent weeks and I believe I have come up with the answer. It's a very catchy song.

You probably want more than that. Well, let's start with this: "Don't Stop Believin'" is a well-constructed song with broad demographic appeal, a built-in sense of optimism and a throbbing pulse.

The song could hardly have broader appeal. The song's arena-pitched dynamics make it a natural for pop and rock fans, while its strong melodic sensibility makes it relatable to older, adult contemporary fans. Moreover, it's highly singable. A generation of students came

In a lot of fields, workers over the age of 50 are not in great demand. That's not the case for top recording stars. This is the second week in a row that an artist over 50 has topped The Billboard 200. Reba McEntire, 54, debuts in the top spot with Keep On Loving You. She displaces George Strait, 57, who debuted on top last week with Twang. McEntire is the second oldest woman ever to have a #1 album on this chart. Barbra Streisand was 55 when she achieved the feat in November 1997 with Higher Ground.

McEntire and Strait aren't the only artists over 50 to have topped the chart this year. In February, Bruce Springsteen, 59, debuted at #1 with Working On A Dream. (And of course Michael Jackson, who was 50 when he died, had the best-selling album in the country for six weeks with Number Ones.) Two other artists in their 50s have peaked at #2 this year. R&B star Charlie Wilson, 56, hit the runner-up spot in February with Uncle Charlie. Prince, then 50, scored in April with Lotus