Chart Watch

  • Alicia Keys' Girl On Fire enters The Billboard 200 at #1. It's Keys' fifth #1 album out of six releases. Here's the odd part: Girl On Fire puts Keys back at #1 even though it sold less than half of what her last album, The Element Of Freedom, sold when it debuted and peaked at #2 in December 2009. Girl On Fire sold 159K this week. The Element Of Freedom sold 417K when it bowed. That album had the misfortune of debuting when there was a phenomenon at #1. Susan Boyle's I Dreamed A Dream sold 661K in its fourth week at #1.

    This is the slowest start to date for a Keys album. It sold even fewer copies than Keys' Unplugged album sold (196K) in its first week in October 2005. Of course, overall sales aren't as healthy as they were in 2005. Here a positive note for Keys: The title track (featuring Nicki Minaj) is shaping up as a big hit. It surges from #17 to #3 on this week's Hot Digital Songs chart.

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  • Thirty years after its release, Michael Jackson's Thriller is tied with Eagles' Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 as the best-selling album of all time in the U.S., according to the Recording Industry Assn. of America. Both albums have shipped 29 million copies. (The RIAA measures shipments to stores, not actual sales.)

    No album comes close to Thriller as the all-time international best-seller, but Eagles' hit-studded album has proved to be a surprisingly strong competitor in the U.S. Both albums have extraordinarily broad appeal. Thriller and its key hits brought Jackson Grammys in the pop, rock and R&B fields. Eagles are the only group to have won Grammys in the pop, rock and country fields.

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  • It's hard to believe, but Friday marks the 30th anniversary of the release of Michael Jackson's Thriller, an album that appealed to all audiences—all ages, races and nationalities—like few other recordings in music history.

    Jackson and producer Quincy Jones recorded and mixed the album between April and November 1982. Jones was 49 at the time. Jackson turned 24 during the sessions. The production budget was a reported $750K, which means Epic Records got a pretty good rate of return on its investment.

    Thriller doesn't remotely sound 30 years old. Its best cuts, including "Billie Jean" and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," still sound fresh and vital.

    Happily, Jackson lived to see the album meet the test of time. In 2008, the album was voted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. That same year, a 25th anniversary edition became the second best-selling album in the U.S. for two weeks, a rarity for a catalog album. Also that year, Rihanna's "Don't Stop The Music" (which sampled "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'") became a #3 hit, Fall Out Boy's "Beat It" (featuring John Mayer) made the top 20 and David Cook sang "Billie Jean" in route to his victory on American Idol.

    To mark the anniversary, here are some things you probably know about Thriller—and some you may not.

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  • Phillip Phillips' "Home" jumps from #12 to #8 in its 22nd week on the Hot 100. This is its highest ranking to date. The song debuted at #10 in May following Phillips' victory on American Idol. It dropped off the chart after just three weeks, but started showing signs of life again in July. It vaulted from #84 to #9 in August following NBC's use of the song in its coverage of the Summer Olympics. It then started dropping again, falling as far as #27, but has been resurging in recent weeks as radio support spreads.

    The song was also boosted by the release of Phillips' debut album, The World From The Side Of The Moon, which enters The Billboard 200 this week at #4.

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  • AC/DC storms the digital charts this week in the wake of the band's belated decision to join the digital revolution. Thirteen songs by the Aussie hard rock band enter the 200-deep Hot Digital Songs chart. (In addition, nine sold enough copies to make the Hot Digital Rock Songs chart but not the all-genre survey.) Nine of the band's albums enter the 200-deep Top Digital Albums chart.

    The results confirm what most of us already knew. The band's most popular album is 1980's Back In Black, which was the band's first album with new lead singer Brian Johnson. (He replaced "Bon" Scott, who died of alcohol abuse on Feb. 19, 1980.) Back In Black was AC/DC's first album to reach the top 10 on The Billboard 200. It spawned the band's first two top 40 hits on the Hot 100: "You Shook Me All Night Long" and "Back In Black." The album was voted into the Grammy Hall of Fame this year, a rarity for a hard rock album.

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  • This is one of those weeks where the downward moves and slow starts are more interesting than the upward moves. Susan Boyle's Standing Ovation: The Greatest Songs From The Stage drops from #12 to #31 in its second week, suggesting that her appeal owed a great deal to her compelling back story (the frumpy woman with the golden voice), a hook that is no longer fresh. The Rolling Stones' GRRR! drops from #19 to #64 in its second week, proving that a 50th anniversary hook isn't enough to sell a three-disk album in this market and/or that even with name-checks in #1 hits by Ke$ha and Maroon 5 featuring Christina Aguilera, Mick Jagger is still a distant figure to today's record buyers.

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  • Adele's 21 performs two miracles this week. It tops the 10 million mark in U.S. sales, a milestone that most had figured was out of reach for newer releases, given the diminished sales of recent years. And it reached the 10 million mark in less than two years (92 weeks, to be exact), faster than any other album since *NSYNC's No Strings Attached hit 10M in its 43rd week in January 2001.

    *NSYNC's album was released in 2000, when album sales were at a dizzy peak. Record stores were still prevalent back then, if you can imagine that. The fact that 21 has reached 10M in a markedly more challenging sales environment is extraordinary.

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  • Rihanna lands her 12th #1 hit on the Hot 100 with "Diamonds." Only two other female solo artists have amassed 12 or more #1 hits. Mariah Carey leads the pack with 18. Rihanna is now tied with Madonna for second place with 12. Remarkably, even after all these hits, Rihanna has yet to turn 25. By contrast, Madonna turned 25 two months before she landed her first Hot 100 hit, "Holiday."

    If you combine solo and group hits, Diana Ross ties Carey with 18 #1 hits. If you throw in group members, Mary Wilson (who sang alongside Ross in the Supremes) ties Rihanna with 12 #1 hits. But that's it. No other female artists (soloists or group members) have amassed 12 #1 hits.

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  • Rihanna has a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving holiday. Her current smash, "Diamonds," jumps to #1 on Billboard's Hot 100. It's her 12th #1 hit, a tally equaled by only 10 other individuals since 1955. And that counts the Beatles as four individuals. This dramatizes how rapidly Rihanna, who is still just 24, has scaled the list of all-time chart champs.

    Rihanna's tally of #1 hits consists of seven hits on her own plus collaborations with Jay-Z ("Umbrella"), T.I. ("Live Your Life"), Eminem ("Love The Way You Lie"), Drake ("What's My Name?") and Calvin Harris ("We Found Love").

    Paul McCartney has had more #1 hits than any other artist since 1955, a total of 29. (Surprisingly, he has never had a #1 hit strictly on his own. His highest-charting hit strictly on his own was his first post-Beatles chart hit, "Another Day," which reached #5 in 1971.)

    Elvis Presley had more #1 hits strictly on his own than any other artist. He had 17 #1 hits, without one collabo. Mariah Carey has had more # 1 hits strictly on her own than any other female artist—a total of 15. (In addition, she has had three #1 collabos.)

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  • Christina Aguilera's Lotus enters The Billboard 200 at #7 with first-week sales of 73K.  That's a lower debut position and first-week sales tally than Aguilera's last album, Bionic, which bowed at #3 in June 2010 with first-week sales of 111K. Here's the puzzling part: Aguilera's visibility was low back then. She has since starred in a movie, Burlesque, with Cher (which grossed just under $40 million); landed a #1 hit as a featured artist on Maroon 5's "Moves Like Jagger" and become a TV star on The Voice. Given all that, you might have expected her new album to, at the very least, improve on the showing of Bionic.

    The album's first single, "Your Body," peaked at a disappointing #34 on the Hot 100. "Just A Fool," a collabo with Blake Shelton, her fellow judge on The Voice, is expected to debut this week.

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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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