Chart Watch
  • “Suit & Tie” by Justin Timberlake featuring Jay-Z enters the Hot 100 at #84, based on just two days of airplay (and no sales activity). It’s likely to vault into the top five next week. It will probably debut at #1 on Hot Digital Songs, with first-week sales in the 330K range.

    It’s will become Timberlake’s 20th top 10 hit on the Hot 100 (counting *NSYNC hits); Jay-Z’s 19th. Jay-Z first hit the Hot 100 in April 1996 with “Ain’t No Nigga,” featuring Foxy Brown. Timberlake first charted with *NSYNC in March 1998 with “I Want You Back.”

    This is the first single from Timberlake’s third solo album, The 20/20 Experience, which is expected to be released in March. Timberlake’s 2002 solo debut album, Justified, reached #2 on The Billboard 200 and spawned two top 10 hits. His 2006 sophomore album, FutureSex/LoveSounds, spent two weeks at #1 and spawned four top 10 hits, three of them #1s.

    Read More »from Week Ending Jan. 13, 2013. Songs: “Suit And Tie” Is Off & Running
  • Chris Tomlin’s Burning Lights enters The Billboard 200 at #1. Tomlin, 40, is a worship leader at Passion City Church in Atlanta. Tomlin isn’t the first artist who has a leadership role in a church to climb high on the chart. Marvin Sapp, the founder and senior pastor of Lighthouse Full Life Center Church, located in Grand Rapids, Mich., debuted and peaked at #2 in March 2010 with Here I Am.

    Burning Lights is Tomlin’s 12th album; his second to make the top 10. Hello Love hit #9 in September 2008. Tomlin won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album for his 2010 album And If Our God Is For Us… He has won 17 Dove Awards (the top honor in the Christian music field).

    Read More »from Week Ending Jan. 13, 2013. Albums: The Worship Leader At #1
  • “Scream & Shout” by will.i.am featuring Britney Spears is the first song to enter the top 10 in 2013. It’s the 14th top 10 hit for will.i.am; the 12th for Spears. Spears first cracked the top 10 in December 1998 with “…Baby One More Time.” will.i.am first cracked the top 10 in August 2003 with the Black Eyed Peas’ “Where Is The Love?” (featuring Spears’ former beau, Justin Timberlake).

    This is will.i.am’s first top 10 hit as a solo artist in the top-billed position. It follows three top 10 hits on which he was the featured artist: Fergie’s “Fergalicious” (#2 in 2007), Flo Rida’s “In The Ayer” (#9 in 2008) and Usher’s “OMG” (#1 in 2010).

    It’s the first time that Spears has held the featured spot on a top 10 hit. (I’m not counting Rihanna’s “S&M” toward Spears’ top 10 tally. Spears was featured on a remix that was popular for a time, but that’s not the same as being featured on the original or most popular version of a song.)

    Read More »from Week Ending Jan. 6, 2013. Songs: The First Top 10 Hit of 2013
  • One Direction’s DVD Up All Night—The Live Tour logs its 29th week at #1 on Billboard’s Top Music Videos chart. This ties Ray StevensComedy Video Classics for the longest run at #1 since this chart originated (as Top Music Videocassettes) in March 1985.

    A total of 44 music videos have logged 10 or more weeks at #1 since 1985. New Kids on the Block has three of these, which is more than any other artist.  Backstreet Boys, Garth Brooks and Michael Jackson have each had two. So have Linkin Park (counting a collabo with Jay-Z), George Michael (counting a video with Wham!) and Snoop Dogg (counting The Up In Smoke Tour video, on which he was featured).

    Here’s a complete list of the music videos that have logged 10 or more weeks at #1 since 1985. Ties are listed in alphabetical order by artist. I also show what records various videos hold and other points of interest.

    Read More »from Chart Watch Extra: One Direction Ties Video Record
  • Les Miserables jumps to #1 in its third week on The Billboard 200. It’s the first soundtrack to a movie that was based on a stage musical to top the chart since Mamma Mia! scored in August 2008. Les Miz has grossed $103,503,000 in its first two weekends at the box-office. It dipped from #3 to #4 in the box-office rankings in its second weekend.

    Les Miz opened on Christmas Day. The movie version of Dreamgirls, which also spawned a #1 soundtrack, opened on Christmas Day in 2006. Les Miz is likely to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture tomorrow.

    The Les Miz Broadway cast album vaults from #171 to #104 (its highest ranking to date). It has sold 1,596,000 copies. The London cast album re-enters the chart at #160. It has sold 887K copies. Putting this together, Les Miz is #1 on Top Soundtracks for the third straight week and holds the top two spots on Top Cast Albums, a neat trick.

    Read More »from Week Ending Jan. 6, 2013. Albums: Les Miz Takes Broadway To The Top
  • Bruno Mars’ “Locked Out Of Heaven” tops the Hot 100 for the fourth straight week, while Taylor Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble.” jumps from #4 to #2. “Locked Out Of Heaven” is now tied with “Just The Way You Are” and “Grenade” as Mars’ longest-running #1 hit to date. “I Knew You Were Trouble.” surpasses its initial #3 peak and now ranks as one of Swift’s four highest-climbing hits to date.

    These songs are in the opposite order on Hot Digital Songs. “I Knew You Were Trouble.” is #1 with sales of 582K copies, which constitutes the fourth highest one-week sales tally in digital history. “Locked Out Of Heaven” is #2 with sales of 497K copies, which is the 10th highest tally in digital history. (Sales traditionally swell in the week after Christmas as fans redeem iTunes gift cards.)

    This is the second biggest one-week tally for both Mars and Swift. Mars’ “Grenade” sold more copies (559K) two years ago this week. Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” sold more (623K) in its first week in August. Mars and Swift are the only artists with two of the all-time top 10 digital tallies.

    Read More »from Week Ending Dec. 30, 2012. Songs: Taylor Knew Bruno Was Trouble.
  • The Les Miserables soundtrack vaults from #33 to #2 in its second week on The Billboard 200. It’s already the highest-charting soundtrack to the movie version of a Broadway musical since Mamma Mia! hit #1 in August 2008. The movie, which stars Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe, was #3 at the box-office in its opening weekend.

    Les Miz first opened on Broadway on May 12, 1987, which means it took 25 years and eight months for the show to spawn a top 10 movie soundtrack. That’s the longest wait since Chicago took 27 years and eight months. Chicago opened on Broadway on June 3, 1975 and finally yielded a top 10 movie soundtrack in February 2003.

    Read More »from Week Ending Dec. 30, 2012. Albums: “Les Miz” Zooms To #2
  • Adele’s 21 is officially the first album to wind up as the year’s best-seller twice since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales for Billboard in 1991. The album sold 4,414,000 copies in 2012. It sold 5,824,000 copies in 2011. It’s one of only four albums in the Nielsen SoundScan era to sell 4 million or more copies in each of two calendar years. It follows Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill (1995-1996), Shania Twain’s Come On Over (1998-1999) and Santana’s Supernatural (1999-2000).

    Even though it was in its second year of release, 21 sold more copies in 2012 than the best-selling albums of 2006 through 2010 did in those years. The album spawned three #1 hits, “Rolling In The Deep,” “Someone Like You” and “Set Fire To The Rain.” It won six Grammys in February, including Album of the Year.

    Read More »from Chart Watch Extra: Top Albums of 2012
  • If you were anywhere near a radio last year, you don’t need me to tell you the titles of the top three hits of 2012: “Somebody That I Used To Know” by Gotye featuring Kimbra, Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” and “We Are Young” by fun. featuring Janelle Monae.

    There are three main things you should know about them. First, none of the five artists involved had ever cracked Billboard’s Hot 100 before. Second, all three hits are nominated for Grammys as Record and/or Song of the Year, which shows an unusual degree of fan and industry agreement. Third, each of the three songs sold more copies than any song had sold before in a calendar year in digital history.

    Read More »from Chart Watch Extra: Top Songs of 2012
  • Everybody knows that Elvis Presley was the top hit-maker of the 1950s, but who was the top female hit-maker of the decade? Move to the front of the class if you know that it was Patti Page, who died yesterday at age 85. Page had four #1 hits in that decade, including “The Tennessee Waltz,” which was one of the decade’s biggest hits. Page’s other chart-toppers were “All My Love (Bolero),” “I Went To Your Wedding” and the novelty tune “The Doggie In The Window,” which did little to enhance her artistic reputation, but remains one of her best-known songs.

    Just last month, Page was announced as one of this year’s recipients of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Remarkably, she is the second recipient to have died since the announcements were made on Dec. 10. World music legend Ravi Shankar died the day after the announcements. (Both awards will be made posthumously next month.)

    Read More »from Chart Watch Extra: Patti Page, R.I.P.

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News for You

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Actress Amanda Bynes appeared disheveled in a long blond wig and sweats Friday in a criminal court where she was charged with reckless endangerment after police said she heaved a marijuana bong out the window of her 36th-floor Manhattan apartment.

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    NEW YORK (AP) — ABC's newest "Bachelorette," Desiree Hartsock, says it's not hard to keep the details of her experience on the show a secret from her friends.

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    SEASIDE HEIGHTS, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey rolled out some of its big guns Friday to proclaim that the shore is back following Superstorm Sandy, using Gov. Chris Christie and the cast of MTV's "Jersey Shore" to tell a national audience the state is ready for summer fun.

  • Takei says Cho good choice for latest 'Star Trek'

    SINGAPORE (AP) — Portraying USS Enterprise helmsman Hikaru Sulu in the latest "Star Trek" movie comes with big shoes to fill, but the man who played the part in the TV series and six films has given his blessing to the actor currently playing the role.

  • Rare Superman comic found in house insulation

    MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — It's considered the Holy Grail of comic books: Action Comics No. 1 from 1938, featuring the debut of Superman. And David Gonzales found one mixed in with old newspapers insulating a house he was renovating in a small town in Minnesota.

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