First-week sales for Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" were as unambiguous as its title. The song sold 623K copies, which is the second-highest one-week total in digital history. It trails only Flo Rida's "Right Round," which sold 636K in its first week in February 2009.

This enables Swift to set new records for the largest one-week digital sales tally by a female artist (eclipsing Ke$ha's "TiK ToK," which sold 610K in December 2009); by a country artist (eclipsing Swift's own "Love Story," which sold 360K in December 2008); and by any artist in 2012 (eclipsing "Somebody That I Used To Know" by Gotye featuring Kimbra, which sold 542K in the week ending April 15).

"We Are Never Ever…" is the first single from Swift's fourth studio album, Red, which is due Oct. 22. Swift's last studio album, Speak Now, sold 1,047,000 copies in its first week of release in October 2010.

Phillip Phillips' "Home" rebounds from #84 to #9 in its sixth week on the Hot 100. This represents a new peak for the song, which debuted at #10 in May. The song received a big boost from NBC's Olympics coverage. It was used as the backdrop to women's gymnastics, which always draws high ratings.

"Home" leaps from #47 to #1 on Hot Digital Songs (which measures only sales, whereas the Hot 100 also factors in radio airplay and on-demand streaming activity.) This marks the first time than an American Idol champ has had the best-selling song in the U.S. in the year of his or her coronation since David Cook's "The Time Of My Life" debuted at #1 in May 2008, right after his victory.

There's a saying in the music business that the worst places to peak on the Hot 100 are #2, #11 and #41. The reason, of course, is that an artist came so close to #1, or the top 10 or the top 40, and just missed. The artist won't get the headlines, congratulatory messages and (most important) credit for the greater hit in posterity. Maroon 5 knows what I'm talking about. "Payphone" (which features Wiz Khalifa) spent six weeks at #2, but wasn't able to overtake Carly Rae Jepsen's smash "Call Me Maybe" and become the group's third #1. This week, "Payphone" slips to #3. Barring a miracle, it won't follow the group's "Makes Me Wonder" or "Moves Like Jagger" (featuring Christina Aguilera) to #1.

This got me thinking: What records spent the most weeks at these and other "unlucky" positions without moving up that last crucial notch? Here are the records since 1955 that came the closest to #1, the top five, the top 10, the top 20, the top 40 and the Hot 100 without getting there.

Zac Brown Band's Uncaged returns to #1 in its third week on The Billboard 200, displacing Nas' Life Is Good, which debuted on top last week. Uncaged sold just 48K copies, the fourth lowest total in Nielsen SoundScan history for an album at #1. And it's the lowest total outside of winter when it's cold and people don't want to go out (a reason that had more validity before the Internet came along and allowed fans to download or have a CD shipped to their door.)

The only albums to rank #1 with slimmer sales tallies were Amos Lee's Mission Bell, which debuted at #1 in January 2011 with 40K, Cake's Showroom Of Compassion, which debuted at #1 that same month with 44K, and Nicki Minaj's Pink Friday, which climbed to #1 in February 2011 with 45K.