Chart Watch
  • A hip-hop duo that many of you have probably never heard of has this week's top new entry on The Billboard 200. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis debuts at #2 with The Heist. The album debuts higher than new albums by such household names as Kiss (which was hoping to finally land its first #1 album) and Barbra Streisand (who was hoping to extend her streak of a #1 album in each decade).

    Macklemore (real name: Ben Haggerty) and Ryan Lewis first teamed for an EP in 2009. Two of their songs entered the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart last week: "Thrift Shop" (featuring Wanz) and "Same Love" (featuring Mary Lambert). (The latter song expresses support for the legalization of gay marriage.)

    Read More »from Week Ending Oct. 14, 2012. Albums: “Unknowns” Beat Kiss, Streisand
  • Adele's "Skyfall" enters this week's Hot 100 at #8. The elegant ballad is the seventh (let's say 007th) opening-titles song from a James Bond movie to reach the top 10. It's the first to crack the top 10 since Madonna's "Die Another Day" 10 years ago. It's also the first to debut in the top 10.

    Even casual fans know that opening-titles sequences are often the best part of Bond movies. They're sexy and clever. The opening songs, too, have been generally good, and have covered a broad range of pop and rock styles.

    Thirteen opening-titles songs from "official" Bond movies (those produced by Eon Productions, the company founded by Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli and Harry Saltzman) have reached the Hot 100. Another has "bubbled under" the chart. Yet another failed to register on the pop chart, but cracked the R&B and adult contemporary charts.

    Here are those 15 songs, listed in order of chart impact. Adele's song may continue to move up this list. Stay tuned.

    Read More »from Chart Watch Extra: The Word Is Hit. Bond Hits.
  • One Direction's "Live While We're Young," the first single from the U.K. boy band's upcoming sophomore album, Take Me Home, is the top new entry on the Hot 100 at #3 (just behind Maroon 5's "One More Night" and PSY's "Gangnam Style"). "Live While We're Young" is the first song by a boy band to enter the chart inside the top five since Jonas Brothers' "Burnin' Up" debuted at #5 in July 2008.

    "Live While We're Young" is One Direction's highest-charting hit to date, surpassing its breakthrough smash "What Makes You Beautiful," which peaked at #4 in April. It's vying to become the first song by a boy band to top the Hot 100 since *NSYNC's "It's Gonna Be Me" headed that chart for two weeks in the summer of 2000.

    "Live While We're Young" enters Hot Digital Songs at #1.  It's the first song by a boy band to top the digital chart (which originated in June 2003, two months after the opening of the iTunes store). "Live Like We're Young" sold 341K copies in its first week. That's the biggest

    Read More »from Week Ending Oct. 7, 2012. Songs: One Direction’s Hot Debut (OMG!!!)
  • Last week, you'll remember, Mumford & Sons' Babel trounced new albums by such heavyweights as Green Day and No Doubt. This week, Babel stays on top of The Billboard 200 for a second week, but the big surprise is that Green Day's Uno! and No Doubt's Push And Shove both drop out of the top 10. Uno! drops from #2 to #11. Push And Shove drops from #3 to #13.

    It's increasingly common for albums to fade quickly after big (or even not-so-big) first weeks. Of the five albums that debuted in the top 10 last week, only Babel remains. Albums by Lupe Fiasco and Deadmau5 also drop out this week.

    This is particularly bad news for Green Day and Lupe Fiasco, whose albums have sequels scheduled for release. If the first installment drops out of the top 10 after one week, that doesn't exactly bode well for the series.

    Read More »from Week Ending Oct. 7, 2012. Albums: Green Day, No Doubt Tumble
  • This is pitiful: Just three albums have topped the 1 million mark in U.S. sales so far this year. But the tally will be more like 12 before the year ends, which would nearly equal the tally of 13 in each of the last two years. The three albums that have sold 1 million or more copies already this year are Adele's sophomore album, 21 (4,027,000); One Direction's debut album, Up All Night (1,254,000) and Lionel Richie's surprise comeback hit, Tuskegee (1,020,000).

    Four albums that have already been released will probably make it over the 1 million threshold before the year is out. They are Justin Bieber's Believe (which has sold 902K copies so far this year), Carrie Underwood's Blown Away (823K), Luke Bryan's 2011 release Tailgates & Tanlines (802K) and Mumford & Sons' Babel, which sold 600K this week and will probably sell another 155K next week.

    Read More »from Chart Watch Extra: Getting A Jump On The Year-End Album Chart
  • Maroon 5's "One More Night" tops the Hot 100 for the third straight week, holding off PSY's novelty smash "Gangnam Style," which holds at #2 for the second week. But it was close. In fact, you could borrow the equine imagery of PSY's video and say it was "a real horserace." Billboard's Gary Trust reports that fewer than 500 overall chart points separated the two songs, down from about 3,000 points last week. Trust further notes that was the closest race for #1 since the week ending Feb. 5, when Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger (What Doesn't Kiss You)" dislodged Adele's "Set Fire To The Rain."

    Read More »from Week Ending Sept. 30, 2012. Songs: A Real Horserace For #1
  • Mumford & Sons' sophomore album Babel sold 600K copies in its first week, which is the biggest first-week total by any album since Drake's Take Care sold 631K in its first week in November. Babel sold more copies than the next seven albums on The Billboard 200 combined. That's especially impressive because those seven albums include new releases by such heavyweight acts as Green Day and No Doubt.

    "If you (had) told me in the '90s that I'd be in a chart battle with Green Day, I probably would have just laughed at you," Mumford & Sons' member Ted Dwane told the British rock publication NME. Mumford & Sons is not only in such a battle, it is winning it with ease. Babel outsold Uno! in its first week by a margin of more than four-to-one in the U.S. and more than three-to-one in the U.K.

    Babel posted the biggest first-week tally for a rock album since AC/DC's Black Ice debuted with sales of 784K in October 2008. (Mumford & Sons, which blends strains of contemporary folk and alternative music, and hard rock veterans AC/DC are at opposite ends of the rock spectrum, to be sure.)

    Read More »from Week Ending Sept. 30, 2012. Albums: Mumfordmania!

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