Nearly 40 years after he became an A-list rock star (and, for a time, a tabloid mainstay due to his head-turning marriage to Cher), Gregg Allman finally lands his first top 10 solo album on The Billboard 200. Allman achieves the feat as Low Country Blues debuts at #5. Allman's highest-charting solo album before this was Laid Back, which hit #13 in 1973. (You may remember the album's bluesy hit, "Midnight Rider.")

Low Country Blues is Allman's first solo album in 14 years. Grammy winner T Bone Burnett produced the album, which features covers of songs by such blues greats as Muddy Waters and B.B. King. The album enters the Top Blues Albums chart at #1. It dethrones Buddy Guy's Living Proof.

Allman was a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band, which reached its commercial peak in 1973 when Brothers And Sisters logged five weeks at #1. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.

The group's biggest hit was the classic single "Ramblin' Man." That song peaked at

For the second week in a row, an album has broken the record for the slimmest sales tally by an album at #1 in the Nielsen SoundScan era. Cake's Showroom Of Compassion tops The Billboard 200 with sales of just 44,000 copies. Last week, Taylor Swift's Speak Now earned the unwelcome distinction with sales of 52,000.

Here's a sign of how bad the current album market is. Each of Cake's last two albums sold more copies in their opening week than Showroom just did, even though they debuted considerably lower on the chart. Pressure Chief sold 46K when it debuted at #17 in 2004. Comfort Eagle sold 72K when it debuted at #13 in 2001.

In fact, Showroom sold just 100 or so more copies in its first week than the band's 1998 album Prolonging The Magic did when it debuted at #33. (Pressure Chief and Prolonging The Magic both came out in October, when sales are brisker than they are in January, but still...)

You might well ask: If an album can sell just 44K and finish #1, what does it mean? Keep in

Well, it finally happened. For the first time since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales for Billboard in 1991, not one album sold 60,000 copies last week. The week's top-seller, with sales of 52,000, was Taylor Swift's Speak Now. The previous low sales total for an album at #1 was the Dreamgirls soundtrack, which topped the chart with sales of 60,000 four years ago this month.

Whitney Houston's The Bodyguard soundtrack was the first album in the Nielsen SoundScan era to sell fewer than 100,000 copies in a week in which it was #1. It sold 91K in its 20th and final week on top in May 1993. That constituted the "low sales" record for a #1 album until January 2004, when OutKast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below sold 86K in its seventh and final week on top. Dreamgirls inherited the unwanted title in January 2007 when it sold 66K in its first week at #1. It earned it again when it sold just 60K in its second week on top.

While Swift would probably rather not be associated with such a downer

It's hard to imagine now, but it was just four years ago that Daniel Powter's mopey ballad "Bad Day" became the first song to sell 2 million digital copies. Selling 2 million is now a common occurrence.  Seven songs hit that mark this past week alone, bringing the total of 2-million sellers to 206. For the first time, Nielsen SoundScan's running list of the 200 songs with the most paid downloads doesn't include every 2-million seller.

It's a good time to take stock of the artists and songs that have fared best in the digital universe. Who's on top? Fergie has amassed 11 songs that have topped the 2 million mark. This tally combines five hits from her solo debut album, The Dutchess, with six songs she recorded with the Black Eyed Peas.

Rhianna has topped the 2-million mark with 10 songs, counting her featured roles on Eminem's "Love The Way You Lie," T.I.'s "Live Your Life" and Jay-Z's "Run This Town."

Kanye West and will.i.am have each amassed eight 2-million sellers. West's total