Tagged: charttalk

A small shift at the top of the charts this week -- snoozy country act Lady Antebellum retakes the top spot, with Need You Now selling 126,000 copies to the smoky Sade album Soldier Of Love's 79,0... Continue reading "Explaining the Success of Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, Which Has Sold More Copies Than 50 Cent's Before I Self-Destruct and That Joanna Newsom Record Combined" >

Last week's chart column focused on the persistent album-chart presence of rock bands like Shinedown and Theory of a Deadman, and the numbers caused me to get pinged by Bubbles Burujas, a dancer ... Continue reading "Are Strip Clubs the Reason Bad Mainstream Rock is a Chart Staple? An Interview With Stripper Tweets" >

This week's Billboard album charts stayed pretty static, all things considered; Sade's Soldier Of Love held on at No. 1 for a second week, selling 190,000 copies (a 62% drop from its first-week ... Continue reading "Meet the Terrible Rock Bands Who Lurk on the Album Charts For Years at a Time" >

A fine addition to Idolator's music-industry coverage back in the halcyon days of Maura (who's doing her own weekly chart wrap for us these days), the freshly resurrected "101 and Single" is an... Continue reading ""100 And Single," Chris Molanphy's Rad Column About The Billboard Hot 100, Has Returned" >

This week's album charts were topped by Sade's Soldier Of Love, the smoky soul singer's sixth full-length and first since 2000's Lovers Rock. Soldier accomplished the rarer-than-ever feat of goi... Continue reading "On Sade and the Virtues of Scarcity" >

This week's Billboard 200 is headed once again by Lady Antebellum, the milquetoast country trio whose second album Need You Now moved 481,000 copies in its debut week, and 209,000 copies in the s... Continue reading "So Was Lil Wayne's Rebirth a Modest Success Or a Total Commercial Failure? Maura Johnston Reads the Charts" >

All bands should be so lucky as to play the Grammys the week their record hits shelves. For instance: charmingly trite, light country trio Lady Antebellum, who just sold 481,000 fucking copies of ... Continue reading "The Grammys Work: Lady Antebellum's Need You Now Is #1; Lady Gaga Is Back at #3" >

Turns out that a #1 record in January is no more complicated than Justin Timberlake singing "Hallelujah." Vampire Weekend's short, terrifically fun reign at the top is now over, a week after it b... Continue reading "Hope For Haiti Is #1; Spoon's Transference Debuts at #4; Vampire Weekend Slips to #6; Surfer Blood Takes #119" >

Certainly a victory for something or other, one would sort of have to think. Contra sold 120,000 copies on its way to topping the charts, only the 12th time a nominally indie-distributed record ha... Continue reading "It's Official, World: Vampire Weekend's Contra Is America's #1 Record" >

So says Billboard, who we consider credible on this topic. Maura notes that a January release date surely helps, and just now Ke$ha did the grunt work of knocking off Susan Boyle. But still: Vampi... Continue reading "Vampire Weekend May Very Well Have the #1 Album In The Country Next Week" >

It took six weeks and over 3 million records sold, but Susan Boyle has finally bowed out of the #1 spot. Please welcome your new chart overlord, Ke$ha. Her Animal sold a modest 152,000 copies, goo... Continue reading "Ke$ha Takes Out Susan Boyle (Finally!), Claims the #1 Spot" >

It's official--singer-to-the-olds Susan Boyle, despite a fearsome late run, didn't quite overcome Taylor Swift for the 2009 sales crown. The final tally? 3,216,000 for Fearless, 3,103,000 for I D... Continue reading "America Opts For Taylor Swift Over Susan Boyle By a Terrifyingly Thin 113,000 Record Margin" >

Or something like that. For the fifth, face-obliterating week, the UK siren Susan Boyle is #1 on our charts, selling 510,000 records this week, and 2,982,000 overall--proof if there was ever proo... Continue reading "Buy 175,000 More Copies of Susan Boyle's I Dreamed a Dream and Win A Free Punch in the Face from Taylor Swift " >

Yes that's right America, you've purchased a whopping 2,465,000 copies of Susan Boyle's I Dreamed A Dream in just four short weeks. How close is that to Taylor Swift, industry darling and seeming... Continue reading "Susan Boyle Now Making a Run at Taylor Swift for 2009's #1 in Sales" >

Matthew Perpetua posts the numbers behind one of the more visible/influential year-end lists out--so what do they mean? Well, for one thing, the once and future Brooklyn triumvirate of Animal Coll... Continue reading "Parsing the Record Sales of Pitchfork's Top 10 Albums of the Year" >

He's no Susan Boyle (#1 for the third straight world beating week, for a grand old-people-still-buy-records total of 1.8 million copies of I Dreamed a Dream sold), but Gucci Mane does have his fir... Continue reading "Hey, Gucci Mane's The State Vs. Radric Davis Is #10 in the Country! " >

527,000 copies. She is a commercial juggernaut no one can touch, not least because in all likelihood the vast majority of her fans have no idea how to pirate and/or steal I Dreamed a Dream--the 10... Continue reading "Susan Boyle Bypasses Young, Illegal Downloaders En Route To A Second #1" >

And so the 2009 Taylor Swift Memorial Award for single-handedly saving the record industry goes to Susan Boyle, who last week sold north of 700,000 copies of her debut, I Dreamed a Dream. Boyle ea... Continue reading "Susan Boyle Is the New Eminem" >

The lady-lonely John Mayer, the man with the audacity to tell the New York Times, on the record, "I should be fucking more girls," has America's #1 record this week. His Battle Studies, which some... Continue reading "John Mayer Is #1; 50 Cent Is Definitely Not" >

Sometimes there's just not a lot to live for when it comes to the week in record sales. Bon Jovi's The Circle took #1 with a pretty lackluster 163,000 copies sold (about half of what Carrie Underw... Continue reading "Speaking of Wale, Bon Jovi's The Circle is #1" >