Chart Watch
  • Katy Perry has two reasons to celebrate this week. "E.T.," her collabo with Kanye West, tops the Hot 100 for the third straight week. And her previous smash, "Firework," tops the 4 million mark in digital sales. It's her fourth song to reach that plateau, which is more than any other artist in digital history. Lady Gaga, Rihanna and will.i.am have each had three 3-million-sellers. (will.i.am's total includes two Black Eyed Peas hits and his featured role on Usher's "OMG.")

    "Firework" has sold 4,051,000 copies as of this week. Perry's other 4 million-sellers are "I Kissed A Girl" (4,011,000), "Hot N Cold" (4,821,000) and "California Gurls" (with Snoop Dogg, 4,753,000).

    This is the fifth straight week that "E.T." has ranked #1 on Hot Digital Songs. "E.T." is the first hit to head that chart for five or more consecutive weeks since "Love The Way You Lie" by Eminem featuring Rihanna led the way for six straight weeks last summer.

    This is the second week in a row that "E.T." has topped 300K

    Read More »from Week Ending April 10, 2011. Songs: It’s Katy’s World
  • Adele's 21 returns to #1 on The Billboard 200 for a fourth week. That's the longest run at #1 since Taylor Swift's Speak Now topped the chart for six weeks starting in October. 21 also becomes the first album to sell 1 million copies in the U.S. this year. The album has sold 1,030,000 copies in its first seven weeks. That's slightly more than Adele's previous album, 19, has sold in its entire run. That album (which is #1 on the Catalog Albums chart for the seventh week) has sold 1,015,000 copies since its release in June 2008.

    21 is performing even more impressively in the U.K., where it holds at #1 for the 11th week. This puts it in a tie with Shania Twain's Come On Over and Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill as the longest-running #1 album by a female solo artist in the 55-year history of the U.K. album chart.

    An all-female group and a duo with a female lead singer had even longer runs at #1 in the U.K. than these three female solo artists. The Spice Girls' Spice logged 15 weeks

    Read More »from Week Ending April 10, 2011. Albums: Adele Is Everywhere
  • Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now" this week surpasses Taylor Swift's "Love Story" as the best-selling country hit in digital history. "Need You Now," which won Grammys for Record and Song of the Year in February, has sold 4,971,000 copies. "Love Story" has sold 4,962,000.

    Both songs were big crossover hits. "Need You Now" reached #2 on the Hot 100. "Love Story" hit #4. The poignant "Need You Now," which blends elements of pop-rock, country and adult contemporary, evokes 1970s hits by such acts as Eagles and England Dan & John Ford Coley.

    Though she loses bragging rights to the top-selling country song in digital history, Swift has four of the top 10 on Nielsen SoundScan's running list of the 200 best-selling country songs in digital history. That's more than any other artist. Rascal Flatts has three of the top 10. Lady A, Carrie Underwood and the Zac Brown Band each have one of the top 10.

    Swift also still has the top-selling country album in digital history. In fact, she has the top

    Read More »from Chart Watch Extra: Lady A Makes Country History
  • Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" tops the 2 million mark in digital sales in its eighth week of release, the fastest that any of her songs has reached this plateau. Gaga's old personal-best was "Bad Romance," which took 10 weeks to top 2 million.

    Only four other songs in digital history have sold 2 million copies in as few as eight weeks. Flo Rida's "Right Round" did it in just five weeks. "California Gurls" by Katy Perry featuring Snoop Doggand "Love The Way You Lie" by Eminem featuring Rihanna both took seven weeks. The Black Eyed Peas' "Boom Boom Pow" also took eight weeks.

    "Born This Way" is the second song to top the 2 million in digital sales so far this year, following Cee Lo Green's "F***k You (Forget You)." Green's smash is still a bit ahead for the year-to-date, having sold 2,153,000 copies in this calendar year, to 2,107,000 for Gaga's hit.

    This marks the first time in Nielsen SoundScan history that two songs have sold 2 million copies in the first quarter of the year. No song

    Read More »from Week Ending April 3, 2011. Songs: Born Hot
  • Britney Spears this week becomes the first female solo artist in the history of Billboard's pop album chart to amass six #1 albums before her 30th birthday. Spears, 29, achieves the feat with her new album, Femme Fatale, which enters the chart at #1. Until this week, Mariah Carey was the youngest female solo artist to gather six #1 albums. She was 38 when she picked up her sixth #1 album, E=MC2, in 2008.

    Only two male solo artists have notched six #1 albums before turning 30. Elvis Presley nabbed his sixth #1 album (1961's Something For Everybody) when he was just 26. Elton John landed his sixth (1975's Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy) when he was 28.

    Only four other female solo artists have amassed six or more #1 albums (no matter their age). Barbra Streisand leads the pack with nine, followed by Madonna with seven and Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson with six each.

    Femme Fatale sold 276,000 copies in its first week, which is the second biggest one-week total so far in 2011.

    Read More »from Week Ending April 3, 2011. Albums: A Female First
  • Katy Perry's "E.T." (featuring Kanye West) jumps to #1 on the Hot 100. It's the fourth consecutive #1 hit from Perry's sophomore album, Teenage Dream. It follows "California Gurls" (featuring Snoop Dogg), "Teenage Dream" and "Firework." Perry's album is the first since Usher's Confessions in 2004 to spawn four #1 singles. It's the first by a female artist to yield four #1 hits since Mariah Carey's eponymous debut album in 1990-1991.

    Only six other albums have spawned four or more #1 hits on the Hot 100. Michael Jackson's Bad, which generated five #1 hits in 1987-1988, leads the pack. Albums that have spun off four #1 hits are the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack (1977-1978), Whitney Houston's sophomore album Whitney (1987-1988), George Michael's solo debut Faith (1987-1988), Paula Abdul's debut album Forever Your Girl (1989-1990) and Janet Jackson's second album as a major star, Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 (1989-1991).

    These nine albums all but define the term "mass appeal."

    Read More »from Week Ending March 27, 2011: Songs: Katy Moves Up
  • Chris Brown's fourth album, F.A.M.E., enters The Billboard 200 at #1 with first-week sales of 270,000. That's nearly triple the first-week sales of Brown's last album, Graffiti, which debuted and peaked at #7 in December 2009 with first-week sales of 102,000. (That was just 10 months after his assault on then-girlfriend Rihanna.) F.A.M.E. is Brown's first #1 album. His debut album, Chris Brown, debuted and peaked at #2 in December 2005, with first-week sales of 154K. His sophomore album, Exclusive, debuted and peaked at #4 in November 2007 with first-week sales of 294K.

    This is the second biggest one-week total of 2011, topped only by Adele's 21, which sold 352K in its opening week. (But Britney Spears' Femme Fatale will probably eclipse Brown's total when it debuts next week. It is expected to start with sales between 275K and 300K).

    F.A.M.E stands, gracelessly, for Forgiving All My Enemies. (Brown has also suggested that the title stands for Fans Are My Everything. I guess you can

    Read More »from Week Ending March 27, 2011: Albums: Chris Brown’s Recovery

Pagination

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News for You

  • The new consoles from Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony

    NEW YORK (AP) — Microsoft is the last of the three big video game console makers to unveil its latest gaming system. The unveiling comes nearly eight years after the Xbox 360 went on sale. It follows last fall's debut of Nintendo's Wii U and a preview in February of the upcoming PlayStation 4 from Sony.

  • Singer Kellie Pickler named new 'Dancing' champ

    LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kellie Pickler came into the final "Dancing With the Stars" episode in second place but finished in first.

  • Woman on Trump: 'Somebody had to stand up to him'

    CHICAGO (AP) — An 87-year-old woman who alleges Donald Trump cheated her in a skyscraper-condo sale told jurors Monday she had qualms about suing the real estate mogul and TV celebrity. But, she quickly added, "Somebody had to stand up to him."

  • Disney-owned ESPN cutting hundreds of jobs: source

    By Liana B. Baker (Reuters) - ESPN, the sports channel that is Walt Disney Co's most profitable unit, is cutting 300 to 400 jobs across the company and closing a small Denver office, a person with knowledge of the cuts said. The job cuts, comprising 4 to 6 percent of ESPN's staff of 7,000, include open positions that will not be filled, said the source, who asked not to be named because the information is not public. But ESPN will continue hiring for other open positions, the person said. The channel has recently won rights to exclusive coverage of the U.S. ...

  • Man pleads guilty in Picasso vandalism case

    HOUSTON (AP) — A man accused of vandalizing a 1929 Pablo Picasso painting in a Houston museum — an act that was caught on cellphone video — agreed Tuesday to a two-year prison term as part of a plea deal with prosecutors.

  • NY Cuomo letter warns Kardashian over T-shirt logo

    ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's sent a letter to Khloe Kardashian informing the reality star the logo on her T-shirt line may be violating copyright law.

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