Remember when Lady Gaga took some flak last May because digital copies of her then-new album, Born This Way, were sold for just 99 cents for two days at Amazon's MP3 store? The album sold more copies in one week than any album had in more than six years, but because some of them were sold for about the price of a candy bar or a newspaper, it diminished the achievement.

That almost seems like a steep price in light of bargain-basement pricing of 25 cents offered in the past week by Google Play (and matched by AmazonMP3) on digital copies of such hit albums as Now 41, Lady Antebellum's Own The Night, Coldplay's Mylo Xyloto, Lil Wayne's Tha Carter IV and Drake's Take Care.

You may remember that Billboard altered its chart policy last fall in the wake of the Gaga incident. So you may be thinking that these 25 cent sales won't count toward this week's Billboard 200 chart (which will be released on Wednesday). Actually, unless Billboard rewrites its policy again in midst of this tracking week (which it almost never does), these sales will count.

Davy Jones' death on Wednesday has put a spotlight on The Monkees, the group that was created to bring the spirit of the Beatles' 1964 movie A Hard Day's Night to network television. No one could have foreseen the success the Monkees would achieve. In 1967, the group became the only first and act in the history of the Billboard album chart (which dates back to 1945) to put four albums at #1 in a calendar year. Even the Beatles never did this.

The group's debut album, The Monkees was #1 for the first five weeks of the year (it had also been #1 for the last eight weeks of 1966). It was followed in the top spot by More Of The Monkees, which remained at #1 for 18 weeks (giving the group a remarkable 31-week lock on the top spot). After a solitary week in which the group was not #1, it returned to the top spot in June with its third album, Headquarters. That album had just one week on top (it spent the next 11 weeks mired at #2 behind the Beatles' blockbuster, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band). The Monkees spent the last five weeks of 1967 back in the top spot with its fourth album, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.

Female solo artists hold down seven of the top 10 spots on this week's Hot 100. Katy Perry leads the charge as "Part Of Me" debuts at #1 with first-week sales of 411K. Adele has three songs in the top 10 (a first for a female lead artist) in the first full week following her Grammy sweep. Whitney Houston, Kelly Clarkson and Nicki Minaj are also listed in the top 10. A female-led collabo, "We Found Love" by Rihanna featuring Calvin Harris, brings the tally up to eight.

Here's another indication of how dominant women are in pop these days. Five of the last six songs to enter the Hot 100 at #1 are by female solo artists: Britney Spears (twice), Ke$ha, Lady Gaga and now Perry.  The only male artist to debut at #1 in the last five years is Eminem.

Only one song by a female solo artist has had a greater first-week digital sales tally than "Part Of Me" rang up this week. Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" started with sales of 448K a year ago. (Britney Spears' "Hold It Against Me" also bowed with

Adele's 21 logs its 21st week at #1 on The Billboard 200, which is the longest that any album has remained on top since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales for Billboard in 1991. The album sold 730,000 copies in its 52nd week, which is more than any album has sold this deep into its chart run. It blows past a record set nine years ago by Norah Jones' Come Away With Me, which sold 621K in its 53rd week in March 2003. Both albums owed their late surges to a Grammy sweep. Jones won five awards; Adele won six.

Other factors fueling Adele's surge: a 60 Minutes profile that preceded the Grammys, Valentine's Day gift-giving and a string of three straight #1 singles.