Slipknot Strangles Game's Shot at No. 1
Who knew The Game and Al Gore had so much in common?
Sadly for them, both have now wound up on the wrong end of a recount.
This morning, the rapper appeared to have a Phelpsian tip-of-the-finger win on the album charts as initial figures showed his LAX topping Slipknot's All Hope Is Gone by 13 copies—238,285 to 238,272—prompting sites such as RollingStone.com to declare the Game the biggest seller of the week.
But before you could say hanging chad, the tallies were rerun, resulting in a stunning reversal of fortunes.
Slipknot ended up with its first ever No. 1 album, selling a revised 239,516 copies, per what we hope are the final, official numbers from Nielsen SoundScan. The Game, who hoped to go 3-for-3 with chart-topping albums, instead got downgraded to No. 2 with sales of 238,382.
The SoundScan folks do realize this guy's got felony weapons charges on his rap sheet, don't they?
T.I. "Likes" Making Hot 100 History
House arrest has paid off big time for T.I.
The rapper, who recorded his forthcoming Paper Trail while confined to his Atlanta-area home, made chart history as his album single "Whatever You Like" rocketed 70 spots to No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100. This sets a new record for the biggest jump to the top slot, besting Maroon 5's record-setting 63-spot jump for "Makes Me Wonder" back in May 2007.
T.I.'s track rocketed to No. 1 thanks to downloads, selling 205,000 copies in its first week in online stores. That gives "Whatever You Like" the biggest digital sales debut by a rap artist since Nielsen SoundScan started tracking downloads five years ago.
Jonas Brothers Wipe Out Staind
Forget OxyClean, it's the Jonas Brothers who have the real Staind-fighting power.
Staind was making a play to top the charts with The Progress of Illusion, thereby joining U2, Metallica and the Dave Matthews Band as the only modern rock bands to land four consecutive No. 1 albums. Instead, Staind got wiped out by the clean-cut Jonases.
The siblings' A Little Bit Longer sold 147,000 copies for the week ended Sunday, per Nielsen SoundScan, to hold their place at the top of the Billboard 200. In contrast, The Illusion of Progress sold just 92,000 copies at No. 3, trailing Kid Rock's Rock N Roll Jesus at No. 2 with 101,000 discs.
Idol Wild: Archuleta "Crushes" Cook on Charts
David Cook topped David Archuleta in their American Idol showdown, but now the little D has gotten some extra-large revenge.
The 17-year-old Archuleta's "Crush" has debuted at No. 2 on the Hot 100 singles chart, besting the No. 3 opening of Cook's "The Time of My Life" in June.
In fact, Archuleta just netted the biggest bow since Fall Out Boy's "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race" also debuted at No. 2 back in January 2007.
Archuleta is the first runner-up to outperform the reigning champ since the head-to-head matchup between Clay Aiken's "This Is the Night" and season-two victor Ruben Studdard's "Flying Without Wings." Aiken topped Studdard with what became the best-selling single of 2003.
O Jonas Brothers, Where Art Thou? No. 1
Keeping up with the Joneses is nothing compared to keeping up with the Jonases.
The Jonas Brothers—Joe, Kevin and Nick—just landed the third-biggest opening week of the year. Their latest album sold a whopping 525,000 copies to debut at No. 1, one of three Jonas-powered joints in the top 10.
A Little Bit Longer, which sold north of 200,000 on its first day in stores last week, trails only Lil Wayne's million-plus Tha Carter III and Coldplay's 721,000-copy Viva la Vida as the year's biggest debuts, per Nielsen SoundScan.
If that weren't enough, the Jonas boys are just the second sibling act to top the charts since the Bee Gees reigned supreme in the 1970s. (The Isley Brothers' Body Kiss accomplished the feat in 2003.)
The Jonases were all over the place. The Disneyfied band's eponymous sophomore album, released just over a year ago, inched its way back up the charts to No. 10, selling 31,000 copies. This marks the first time in nearly a decade that a group simultaneously claimed two top 10 spots. ('N Sync did it last in January 1999.)
Rihanna Gives Katy Perry the Kiss-Off
This week Rihanna's a bad girl gone good.
Her new single "Disturbia" just gave the singer a third No. 1 hit from Good Girl Gone Bad and ended Katy Perry's seven-week chart-topping streak for "I Kissed a Girl."
Perry was the first female artist to hold the top spot for seven straight weeks since, ironically, Rihanna did it last summer with "Umbrella."
Rihanna's latest single made the two-spot jump to No. 1 after selling a week-best 148,000 digital downloads. Impressively, her previous chart-topper "Take a Bow" remains atop the Hot 100 Airplay chart, making this one of the rare times in which an artist simultaneously dominates the regular Hot 100 and the Hot 100 Airplay chart with different songs.
Charts: Mamma Mia Said Knock You Out
It's big Mamma's house on the charts.
With no monster debuts this week, it became a battle of the holdovers, and the Mamma Mia! soundtrack rose to the top by actually losing the least. Miley Cyrus and Sugarland sales skidded 37 and 47 percent respectively between weeks, but the ABBA-charged Mamma Mia! dipped just 5 percent on its way to its first chart crown.
Mamma Mia! ruled the week ended Sunday by selling another 131,000 copies, per Nielsen SoundScan. The five-week-old soundtrack has sold 576,000 total copies to date, and as of Monday, the film topped $104 million at the box office after originally scoring the biggest opening weekend ever for a musical.
Miley Can't Withstand Sugar Rush
The charts have a new sugar daddy.
After finishing second to Miley Cyrus last week, Sugarland is enjoying sweet revenge. In a rematch, the country duo's Love on the Inside leapfrogged Cyrus' Breakout to land at No. 1.
For the week ended Sunday, Love on the Inside moved 171,000 to Breakout's 163,000, per Nielsen SoundScan.
This is the first No. 1 album for the tandem of Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush. Their lead single, "All I Want to Do," has also topped the country charts, making it their third chart-lording single to date.
Cyrus, who hosted last weekend's Teen Choice Awards and took home a raft of trophies, saw her solo debut's sales slide by 56 percent from its opening week. Sugarland, on the other hand, was down 45 percent.
From Beatles to Michael to Mariah, 50 Years of Counting Down the Hits
The Hot 100 just turned the big 5-0.
The seminal singles chart turned a half-century-old today, having made its Billboard magazine debut on Aug. 4, 1958. Ricky Nelson's "Poor Little Fool" topped the inaugural Hot 100 chart, which covered the week ended Aug. 9, and nearly a 1,000 songs have graced its perch since.
In celebration of its silver anniversary, here's our own hit list of Hot 100 highlights:
Vanessa Hudgens: Forever Young?
Vanessa Hudgens is in no hurry to grow up.
Even though her run with High School Musical ends with the upcoming HSM3, the 19-year-old Hudgens still knows where her bread is buttered.
“Your fans are the ones who support your movies," the singer-actress says in the new issue of Teen Vogue about her screaming-teen fanbase. "Without them, your career is over. I'm turning 20 this year, so of course I'm going to have to grow up. But I'll do it when the time is right."
Update
Hannah-Less Miley Breaks Out Big on Charts
Who needs Hannah Montana? Apparently not Miley Cyrus.
The tween queen's new, non-Hannah album, Breakout, broke onto the charts at No. 1, selling 371,000 copies for the week ended Sunday, according to Nielsen SoundScan data released today.
Her two previous studio releases, both Miley-Hannah combo jobs, also topped the Billboard 200. But Breakout is an official solo release (she cowrote eight of the 13 cuts). It also represents her best sales week, topping last summer's Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus by 45,000, and the second-best week for a female artist this year.
Despite the big numbers, Cyrus' album didn't come close to Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III, which sold 1 million copies for the biggest sales week of the year, or even Mariah Carey's E=MC2, which sold 463,000 copies its debut week—the best for a female artist this year. Cyrus does have bragging rights over Madonna, though. The Material One's Hard Candy opened with 288,000.
Cyrus faced some stiff competition from Sugarland. The countrified duo moved 314,000 of Love on the Inside to land at No. 2.
Should Chris Brown Worry About Adam & Rihanna?
Rihanna could be doing some summer lovin' with Adam Levine.
"The possibilities are endless,” Levine says.
We're talking about work, people!
The Maroon 5 frontman says there's a definite possibility that the Barbadian beauty could be a surprise guest during their upcoming Skittle and Starburst-sponsored nationwide tour with Counting Crows and Sara Bareilles.
Yeah, but what would Chris Brown think of all that?




















