With the Grammy Awards achieving their highest ratings in a decade, it figures that this week’s Billboard Chart is one of the busiest in recent memory. Artists who performed on the show, won awards, and even artists that presented on the show have marked increases in sales. Of course, it helps when you not only perform on the show, but release a new album in the same week.
Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never-Remixes bows on top of Billboard’s album chart with 161,000 copies. It’s this year’s biggest sales week so far, and Bieber has the first remix album to top the charts in almost a decade, with the last one being Jennifer Lopez’s J To Tha L-O back in 2002. The Biebs, who is also currently on the cover of Rolling Stone and has a movie performing well at the box office, has three albums in the Top 20. The year-old My World 2.0 is #8 this week, while My Worlds Acoustic sits at #18.
Bieber’s total is more than enough to fend off Grammy breakout stars Mumford & Sons. The British quartet hangs on at #2 for a second week. However, sales of their Sigh No More nearly triple in the week following their performance on the Grammy show with The Avett Brothers and Bob Dylan. Their debut album sells 133K this week, putting it within striking distance of the platinum sales mark. It’s also one of several albums that posts a gain of over 100% from the previous week.
The biggest percentage gainer on the chart is Best New Artist winner Esperanza Spalding. Her most recent album, Chamber Music Society, re-enters the album chart at #34 with a 476% gain over the previous week’s sales, while an earlier album, simply entitled Esperanza, posts a 557% increase to land at #138. Proving my earlier hypothesis regarding lesser-known artists potentially getting the biggest jumps at the Grammys, the other artists with eye-popping percentage gains are Album of the Year winners Arcade Fire (#12, +238%) and performers/winners for Best Rock Album Muse (#66, +157%).
Among debuts, Bright Eyes scores the second highest ranking for a new album this week, behind Bieber. People’s Key starts at #13 with 41K. He’s joined by religious outfit Hillsong United at #17, R&B vet Ginuwine at #30 (I swear I didn’t know he had a new album out…I wouldn’t have bought it anyway), British rocker PJ Harvey at #32 and alt-country unit Drive-By Truckers at #35.
Over on the digital song charts, Lady GaGa actually posts an increase after her historic debut week. “Born This Way” hangs on for a second week at the top with an eye-popping 509,000 paid downloads. Not only is there a general hysteria surrounding GaGa, but there was a (wait for it) Grammy performance as well as an incredibly bizarre “60 Minutes” interview with a bemused Anderson Cooper. Each of this week’s Top Five songs was performed on the Grammy ceremony: Cee-Lo Green’s “The Song Otherwise Known as Forget You” jumps back to #2, Dr. Dre’s “I Need a Doctor” is at #3, Justin Bieber’s “Never Say Never” is at #4, and Bruno Mars’ “Grenade” rounds out the top 5.
Next week, things will die down a little. A second week decrease for the Biebs might open the door for Mumford to hit #1, but they’ll likely be foiled again by the new album from Adele (which I’m listening to right now, and is excellent). 21 has debuted at the top of the charts in almost every other country in the world, “Rolling in the Deep” has turned into something of a surprise hit, and the reviews have been rapturous. Something tells me we’ll be talking about Adele a year from now when we do our 2012 Grammy wrap-up.
Here’s this week’s Top 20 albums:
1) Never Say Never-The Remixes, Justin Bieber
2) Sigh No More, Mumford & Sons
3) Now That’s What I Call Music 37, Various Artists
4) Need You Now, Lady Antebellum
5) Doo-Wops & Hooligans, Bruno Mars
6) Recovery, Eminem
7) 2011 Grammy Nominees, Various Artists
8) My World 2.0, Justin Bieber
9) Pink Friday, Nicki Minaj
10) Loud, Rihanna
11) Teenage Dream, Katy Perry
12) The Suburbs, Arcade Fire
13) People’s Key, Bright Eyes
14) Greatest Hits…So Far, P!nk
15) Speak Now, Taylor Swift
16) My Kinda Party, Jason Aldean
17) Aftermath, Hillsong United
18) My Worlds Acoustic, Justin Bieber
19) Lungs, Florence & the Machine
20) Love Letter, R. Kelly
2 comments
GG says:
Feb 23, 2011
Has Bruno Mars’ album gone platinum yet?
blerd says:
Feb 23, 2011
Nah. I think it’s at about 700K right now. One more single should put it over the top.