Chart Watch
  • 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
  • Eminem's Recovery this week becomes the first album to sell 1 million digital copies. But it won't be the only one for long. Adele's 21 is a cinch to reach the 1 million mark in digital sales next week. Recovery has sold 1,001,000 digital copies in 54 weeks. 21 has sold 992,000 digital copies in just 19 weeks.

    Recovery has been a big digital hit from the start. It sold 500,000 digital copies in just six weeks, faster than any other album in digital history to that point. (Lady Gaga's Born This Way broke that record when it sold 622K in its first week in May, aided by a much-debated 99 cent promotion.)

    Digital has accounted for an ever-increasing share of Eminem's album sales, which reflects digital's industry-wide growth in recent years. Digital accounts for no more than 3% of the total sales of any of Eminem's first four studio albums. But it accounts for 5% of the total sales of his 2005 greatest hits set, Curtain Call: The Hits; 16% of the total sales of his 2009 album Relapse; and

    Read More »from Chart Watch Extra: Eminem Makes Digital History
  • "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO featuring Lauren Bennett & GoonRock jumps to #1 on this week's Hot 100. LMFAO is a duo consisting of Stefan "Redfoo" Gordy and Skyler "Sky Blu" Gordy, a son and grandson, respectively, of Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr.

    Another of Gordy's sons, Kennedy Gordy (better known as Rockwell) spent three weeks at #2 in March and April 1984 with "Somebody's Watching Me." That smash, which has become a Halloween perennial, featured an uncredited backing vocal by Michael Jackson, who was then at the white-hot peak of his career. The LMFAO hit has made it to the top without a superstar assist (no offense, Lauren Bennett & GoonRock).

    Berry Gordy Jr. oversaw virtually every hit that came out of Motown in its glory years in the 1960s and 1970s. He had a co-production credit on the Jackson 5's volley of four straight #1 hits in 1970: "I Want You Back," "ABC," "The Love You Save" and "I'll Be There."

    LMFAO doesn't trade on the Gordy name. Their current bio doesn't mention

    Read More »from Week Ending July 3, 2011. Songs: Sons Of A Legend
  • This week, let's zero in on albums by three high-profile female singers. Beyonce's 4 becomes the superstar's fourth consecutive studio album to debut at #1. Adele's 21 becomes the first album to spend its first 19 weeks inside the top three since Backstreet Boys' Millennium did it in 1999. And Lady Gaga's Born This Way drops out of the top 10 after just five weeks. That's one of the briefest initial runs in the top 10 of any of the albums that have sold 1 million copies in one week.

    Beyonce's album sold 310,000 copies in its first week. That tally may look a little skinny, but it trails the first-week totals of only two 2011 albums: Gaga's discount-aided Born This Way (1,108,000) and Adele's Grammy front-runner 21 (352K). B is ahead of Britney Spears' Femme Fatale (276K) and Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. (270K). That said, it's a little behind B's past studio albums: Dangerously In Love (317K in 2003), B'Day (541K in 2006) and I Am...Sasha Fierce (482K in 2008).

    The slower start for the new

    Read More »from Week Ending July 3, 2011. Albums: Watching Three Women
  • To help get you in the mood for the Fourth of July, here's a roundup of notable albums from the past four decades whose covers feature the American flag. The uses range from super-patriotic (John Wayne's America, Why I Love Her and Lee Greenwood's American Patriot) to satiric (Team America: World Police) and even biting (Ice Cube's Death Certificate). All demonstrate the freedom we have in America to editorialize, which is one of the liberties this day is celebrating.

    This gallery doesn't include every significant album to feature the flag on its cover, but it constitutes a healthy cross-section. Is your favorite here? The albums are shown in chronological order.

    Sly & the Family Stone, There's A Riot Goin' On. The group's fourth studio album topped The Billboard 200 for two weeks in December 1971. It included the #1 hit "Family Affair." The waving American flag, with suns in place of stars, seems ironic, given how fractured the country was at the time.

    Don McLean, American Pie.

    Read More »from Chart Watch Extra: Showing The Flag
  • The fourth single from a 2010 album is the best-selling hit at the midway point in 2011. Katy Perry's "E.T." (featuring Kanye West) has sold 4,120,000 copies since the beginning of the year, more even than Adele's monster hit "Rolling In The Deep" (4,089,000).

    In a cover story on Perry in the current issue of Rolling Stone, Erik Hedegaard reports that Perry's record company pushed for the super-catchy "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" to be released as the fourth single from Teenage Dream. But Perry wanted the  moody, spacey "E.T." to come out first, even though it isn't as obviously commercial. Perry's stubborn faith in the song was rewarded when "E.T." set a record for the most radio spins in a single week.  

    Perry has a second song in the mid-year top 10. "Firework" ranks #10. It would have placed even higher but its sales were split between two years. It was the #28 seller of 2010.

    Bruno Mars and Pitbull each have two songs in the mid-year top 20. Mars is represented with "Grenade" at

    Read More »from Chart Watch Extra: Top 20 Songs At Mid-Year
  • How slow were album sales in the first half of 2011? Only two albums have sold 1 million copies so far this year, and one of those famously had a little help from a near-giveaway promotion. The paucity of hits makes Adele's achievement all the more remarkable. Her sophomore album, 21, has sold 2,517,000 copies, which would be considered a solid total in any sales climate.

    Three of the five best-selling albums so far this year never reached #1 on The Billboard 200, which shows that topping the charts isn't everything. Mumford & Sons' Sigh No More and Jason Aldean's My Kinda Party both peaked at #2. Bruno Mars' Doo-Wops & Hooligans peaked at #3.

    Three tracks appear on two albums each in the mid-year top 10. Bruno Mars' "Just The Way You Are," Chris Brown's "Yeah 3X" and Rihanna's "Only Girl (In The World)" all appear on Now 37, as well as those artists' studio albums. "Just The Way You Are" and "Only Girl (In The World)" both won Grammys in February, for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance

    Read More »from Chart Watch Extra: Top 10 Albums at Mid-Year
  • NBC's surprise hit The Voice has been good for its contestants, but it's been great for its judges. All four of the show's judges have hits in the top 40 on this week's Hot 100. The key contestants are also on the chart, but a little lower.

    "Moves Like Jagger" by Maroon5 featuring Christina Aguilera debuts at #8. It's the fourth top 10 hit for the pop group fronted by judge Adam Levine, following "This Love," "She Will Be Loved" and "Makes Me Wonder." It's Aguilera's ninth. In addition, Blake Shelton jumps from #21 to #15 with his country crossover hit "Honey Bee" while Cee Lo Green drops from #29 to #35 with his inexhaustible "F**k You (Forget You)."

    As for the contestants, Javier Colon's version of Coldplay's "Fix You" debuts at #52, Dia Frampton's version of R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" bows at #54 (and her version of Kanye West's "Heartless" drops from #57 to #82 in its third week), Vicci Martinez's version of Florence + the Machine's "Dog Days Are Over" bows at #68 and Xenia's

    Read More »from Week Ending June 26, 2011. Songs: A Twist At The Voice
  • "Weird" Al Yankovic's Alpocalypse enters The Billboard 200 at #9, just a beat behind Lady Gaga's Born This Way, which drops to #8 this week. The two albums are just 5,000 copies apart in sales. The key track on Yankovic's album is "Perform This Way," a parody of Gaga's #1 smash "Born This Way."

    Alpocalypse is Yankovic's highest-charting album to date.  Straight Outta Lynwood debuted and peaked at #10 in 2006. Yankovic has owned his little piece of the pop-music pie for a very long time. He's been around long enough that he tweaked Madonna in 1985 when she was the attention-grabbing pop-dance megastar. Yankovic reached #47 that year with "Like A Surgeon," a parody of Madonna's #1 smash "Like A Virgin."

    Yankovic first "bubbled under" the Hot 100 in March 1981 with "Another One Rides The Bus," a parody of Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust." His career went into high gear in April 1984 went he reached #12 with "Eat It," a parody of Michael Jackson's "Beat It." Yankovic been good about

    Read More »from Week Ending June 26, 2011. Albums: Real And Parody

Pagination

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