Chart Watch
  • You've probably seen Katy Perry's commercials for Proactiv, a popular skin care product, in which she says that regular use of this miracle potion solved her breakout problems. I don't know if nerves can cause skin breakouts, but if they can, Perry might want to keep a container of the stuff on hand. She's vying to become only the second artist to land five #1 hits from one album, but it's not coming easily. Her current hit, "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)," holds at #2 for the second straight week. It's once again stuck behind "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO featuring Lauren Bennett & Goon Rock, which logs its fifth week at #1.

    Michael Jackson is the only artist to land five #1 hits from one album. He achieved the feat in 1987-1988 with Bad, which was his follow-up to Thriller.

    "Last Friday Night" jumps to #1 on Billboard's Pop Songs chart, which is different from (and far less historic and prestigious than) the Hot 100. It's the fifth #1 on that chart from Teenage Dream, which constitutes

    Read More »from Week Ending July 31, 2011. Songs: Perry Chases A Record
  • Amy Winehouse's Back To Black jumps from #9 to #7 on The Billboard 200 in the first full week following the singer's death. This is the highest posthumous ranking by any artist since Michael Jackson's MICHAEL debuted at #3 in December. (Note: Nielsen SoundScan first reported that the Back To Black jumped from #9 to #4, but the chart was revised on Thursday.)

    Winehouse's death received more media attention than any other in pop music since Jackson's in June 2009. In both cases, the deaths were jolting but not totally surprising. Both artists were tremendously gifted and deeply troubled, qualities that often, cruelly, go hand-in-hand.

    Back To Black is doing even better in Winehouse's native England, where it vaults from #59 to #1. This is the album's fourth total week on top in the U.K. Winehouse's 2005 debut album Frank re-enters the U.K. chart at #5, which surpasses its initial #13 peak.

    Frank vaults from #57 to #33 on The Billboard 200. Winehouse's two albums are #1 and #3 on the Top

    Read More »from Week Ending July 31, 2011. Albums: Amy & Michael
  • "Party Rock Anthem"  by LMFAO featuring Lauren Bennett & GoonRock has been the #1 song in the country for the past four weeks. It will probably log a fifth week on top when Billboard's Hot 100 is released on Wednesday. LMFAO took its name from a popular computer message, which stands for (and I'll have to use asterisks here) "Laughing My F***ing A** Off."

    This is hardly the first time that an act with initials in its name has topped the Hot 100. There have been many such cases over the years. You probably remember most of their songs, but do you still know what the initials stand for? Most of you will get AWB, R*S*F and SWV, but then it gets harder. Much harder.  Will anybody out there remember what the "G&B" in Santana featuring the Product G&B stands for?

    I show the answers below, but first see how many you remember. You may surprise yourself.

    (If you read my Chart Watch blogs for albums and songs which hit the site every Wednesday, you know that I often run quick, one-question Pop

    Read More »from Chart Watch Extra: Alphabet Soup
  • "Lighters" by Bad Meets Evil featuring Bruno Mars jumps from #17 to #10 in its sixth week on the Hot 100. This is the sixth top 10 hit Mars; the first for Bad Meets Evil, the duo consisting of Eminem and Royce da 5'9''. Eminem has now cracked the top 10 under three artist identities. He has amassed 14 top 10 hits under his own name. In 2004, he scored with D12's "My Band."  And now he's got this hit.

    Mars' top 10 hits are split evenly between featured credits (behind B.o.B, Travie McCoy and now Bad Meets Evil) and his own headlining hits.

    This marks the second time that Eminem has reached out to one of the most ubiquitious voices on pop radio for an assist. Last year, he featured Rihanna on "Love The Way You Lie."

    "Lighters" ranks even higher on Hot Digital Songs, where it jumps from #12 to #5. Radio airplay has been lagging behind, but it is starting to catch up. The song jumps from #35 to #20 on the Radio Songs chart.

    "Lighters" entered the Hot 100 at #16 five weeks ago. It tumbled

    Read More »from Week Ending July 24, 2011. Songs: Bad Meets Bruno
  • Amy Winehouse's 2007 album Back To Black re-enters The Billboard 200 at #9 in the wake of her death on Saturday. It sold 37,000 copies this week, almost all of them between the time the sad news broke mid-day Saturday and the close of the tracking week on Sunday night. This is the album's third stint in the top 10. It spent 12 weeks in the top 10 between March and September 2007 peaking at #6. Following the Grammys in February 2008, where Winehouse won five awards, the album spent four more weeks in the top 10, reaching a new high of #2.

    Back To Black is #1 on this week's Catalog Albums chart, displacing Adele's 19. It's the first catalog album to appear in the top 10 on The Billboard 200 since the Rolling Stones' 1972 classic Exile On Main St spent two weeks in the top 10 in May 2010 (peaking at #2).

    Back To Black has sold 2,333,000 copies, including 457,000 digital copies. It's #1 on this week's Top Digital Albums chart. It sold 36K digital copies (all but 1K of its total for the

    Read More »from Week Ending July 24, 2011. Albums: Amy & Adele
  • Demi Lovato's "Skyscraper" enters the Hot 100 at #10. It's the teen star's highest-charting solo hit to date, surpassing "Here We Go Again," which peaked at #15 in 2009. Lovato and her Camp Rock co-star Joe Jonas teamed in 2008 for "This Is Me," which reached #9. (The billing was Camp Rock Cast.)

    Lovato has been overshadowed on the Hot 100 by fellow Disney Channel stars Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez & the Scene. But she is finally having her moment.

    "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO featuring Lauren Bennett & GoonRock tops the Hot 100 for the third straight week. The smash spent four weeks at #1 in the U.K. in April and May. It's the first song to spend three or more weeks at #1 in both countries since "Just Dance" by Lady Gaga featuring Colby O'Donis, which held the top spot for three weeks on both sides of the Atlantic.

    Lil Wayne's "How To Love" jumps from #7 to #6, tying "A Milli" from 2008 as his highest-charting strictly solo hit to date. Lil Wayne has amassed 15 top 10 hits since 2004,

    Read More »from Week Ending July 17, 2011. Songs: Demi’s Breakthrough
  • And the winner of the first season of The Voice is Blake Shelton. The veteran country singer, who boosted his profile with his role as a judge on the hit NBC series, lands his first #1 album on The Billboard 200 with Red River Blue. Shelton's last full-length album, Startin' Fires, peaked at #34 in late 2008.

    The new album sold 116,000 copies this week, which is a personal best for Shelton. His 2003 album The Dreamer started with sales of 77K. The new album sold more than three times as many copies as Shelton's last release, the EP All About Tonight, sold in its first week in August (33K).

    Two of Shelton's fellow judges on The Voice, Adam Levine and Christina Aguilera, have also felt the show's impact. Maroon 5's snazzy single "Moves Like Jagger" (which features Aguilera), entered the Hot 100 at #8 last month.

    Shelton's marriage in May to Miranda Lambert has also boosted his profile. Incidentally, Shelton lands a #1 album before Lambert. Her highest-charting album, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,

    Read More »from Week Ending July 17, 2011. Albums: This Is No BS
  • Adele's "Rolling In The Deep" this week surpasses "E.T." by Katy Perry featuring Kanye West as the best-selling song so far in 2011. "Rolling In The Deep" has sold 4,227,000 copies so far this year, compared to 4,193,000 for "E.T." The Perry/West collabo became the year's top-seller since in May, when it pulled ahead of  Cee Lo Green's "F**k You (Forget You)."

    "Rolling In The Deep," a late 2010 release which has sold 4,335,000 copies overall, is the best-selling song by a female British artist in digital history. Last week, it pulled ahead of Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love," which has sold 4,188,000 copies. Only two songs by British artists (male, female or group) have sold more digital copies than "Rolling In The Deep." Taio Cruz's "Dynamite" has sold 5,183,000. Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" has sold 5,026,000.

    "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO featuring Lauren Bennett & GoonRock tops the Hot 100 for the second straight week. The smash spent four weeks at #1 in the U.K. in April and May. This is

    Read More »from Week Ending July 10, 2011. Songs: Rolling Over Everybody
  • Pop pundits have been declaring "the year of the woman" since roughly 1972, when Helen Reddy hit #1 with the instant anthem "I Am Woman." But this might really be the year. Female solo artists have held the top spot on The Billboard 200 18 times so far this year, to just four weeks for male solo artists. (Male groups and duos held the top spot for an additional four weeks.)

    Female artists or female-led groups hold down the top three spots on this week's chart for the first time since December. Beyonce's 4 and Adele's 21 repeat in the top two spots. Selena Gomez & the Scene's When The Sun Goes Down jumps from #4 to #3. In addition, females account for six of the top 10. 4 is the third album by a female artist to spend multiple weeks at #1 this year. It follows 21 (10 weeks) and Lady Gaga's Born This Way (two weeks). No male solo artist has stayed on top for multiple weeks since Eminem's Recovery a year ago.

    Given the dominance of women this year, it's ironic that Beyonce's "Run The

    Read More »from Week Ending July 10, 2011. Albums: Step Aside, Boys
  • Most of the record-setting achievements spotlighted in Joel Whitburn's newly-published reference book Top Pop Singles 1955-2010 are positive: artists with the most chart hits, singles that spent the most weeks at #1, and the like. But there's one list in the book that no artist would want to appear on: the "one-hit wonders" of the rock era. These are artists who had one top 10 hit and then never returned to (or even bubbled under) the Hot 100. And who's the biggest one-hit wonder of all? Daniel Powter, whose 2006 smash "Bad Day" topped the chart for five weeks. Powter is the only artist in the rock era to spend as many as five weeks at #1 with his first and only chart hit.

    Rather than go all the way back to 1955, let's zero in on the more recent past. And let's raise the bar a little and focus on artists who had top five hits. Here are the 22 artists who cracked the top five on the Hot 100 from 1985 through 2010 and have yet to return to (or even "bubble under") the chart. Some of

    Read More »from Chart Watch Extra: One Hit Wonders

Pagination

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