In just six weeks of release, Beyonce's I Am...World Tour has become the best-selling music video of 2010. The DVD has sold 139,000 copies, 20,000 more than the year's #2 music video, Rush's Beyond The Lighted Stage. This is the fourth year in a row that Beyonce has had one of the year's top 10 music videos, but first time that she has come out on top.

Michael Jackson has three of the year's top 10 videos. This is the second year in a row that Jackson has made a strong showing on the list. On the year-end chart for 2009, he made a clean sweep of the top four positions. Only one other artist in Nielsen SoundScan history has ever had three or more of the year's top 10 music videos. Backstreet Boys had three of the top four in 1999.

Beyonce and Celine Dion each have two of the top 20 music videos for 2010.

The top 20 includes some historic footage: the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, the Rolling Stones on their Exile On Main St. tour in 1972, and Michael Jackson on his Dangerous

Eminem made history in 2010. He became the first artist to have the year's best-selling album twice since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales for Billboard in 1991. Eminem's seventh album, Recovery, sold 3,415,000 copies in the year that just ended, which was more than any album sold in a calendar year since 2007. The rap star's third album, The Eminem Show, was the best-seller of 2002.

[Photos: Dramatic photos of Eminem] 

The total for Recovery includes 852,000 digital copies. That's more digital copies than any album has ever sold in a calendar year. The old record was held by Coldplay's Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends, which sold 617,000 digital copies in 2008.

Recovery has headed Nielsen SoundScan's year-to-date chart since Sept. 26, when it pulled ahead of Lady Antebellum's Need You Now. That country/pop smash is #2 for the year. Taylor Swift's Speak Now is #3. This marks the third time in Nielsen SoundScan history that country acts have been responsible for two of

Susan Boyle's The Gift returns to #1 for the third time in its four-week run. This represents sweet vindication for Boyle, whose first-week sales tally a few weeks ago was pooh-poohed by some because it wasn't up to the blockbuster level of her 2009 debut, I Dreamed A Dream. It also suffered by comparison because it was released just two weeks after Taylor Swift's Speak Now. But Boyle's album has held its ground nicely. It has sold 250K or more copies in each of its first four weeks. The album is already #9 for the year-to-date. This will be the second year in a row that Boyle has ranked in the top 10 on Nielsen/SoundScan's year-end chart. I Dreamed A Dream was the #2 seller of 2009.

The Gift is the first album by a female solo artist to log three weeks at #1 since I Dreamed A Dream. And it's expected to stay on top next week, giving it a fourth week in the lead. Swift's Speak Now has spent two weeks on top. Ke$ha's Animal, Katy Perry's Teenage Dream and Sara Bareilles' Kaleidoscope

John Lennon died 30 years ago December 8, but his impact, both on his own and with the Beatles, remains strong. Several Beatles songs that were written chiefly by Lennon have been among the group's most active in the three weeks since the band belatedly joined the digital revolution. These include "Come Together" and "All You Need Is Love."

Lennon's best-selling album since 1991, when Nielsen/SoundScan began tracking sales for Billboard, is the 1998 compilation Lennon Legend-The Very Best Of John Lennon, which has sold 1,876,000 copies.

Lennon's 1971 classic Imagine is his top-selling original studio album of the Nielsen/SoundScan era, with sales of 497,000 since 1991.

Of course, Lennon's greatest and most enduring legacy is with the Beatles. The group has sold 61,712,000 albums in the U.S. since 1991. Only Garth Brooks has sold more albums (68,502,000) in this period.

The Beatles were also the second best-selling act of the 2000s, with sales in that decade of 30,477,000 albums. Only