Dylan Soars Up Charts Following Grammy Win

Last week's Grammy telecast may have been one of the highest rated in years, but the commercial repercussions were pretty weak.

Each year, record store owners and label executives look forward to the post-Grammy bump. That's when Grammy winners, or even acts that simply perform on the prime time show, see sales explode on their albums as viewers rush out to record stores in the days following the telecast.

It did work this year for Bob Dylan. (Soy Bomb be damned!) His Time Out of Mind, winner of Album of the Year, jumps all the way from No. 122 to No. 27, for the week ending March 1, according to SoundScan. But overall, the Grammy bumps were relatively modest as the top ten remained virtually unchanged.

From the top, it was the soundtrack of Titanic at No. 1 (selling 505,000 copies); followed by Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love (260,000); Silk the Shocker's Charge It 2 Da Game (141,000); Savage Garden (101,000); the soundtrack to the Wedding Singer (97,000); Backstreet Boys (90,000); Usher's My Way (89,000); K-Ci & JoJo's Love Always (87,000); Matchbox 20's Yourself or Someone Like You (79,000); and Pearl Jam's' Yield (73,000).

Among those thanking Grammy are Paula Cole (This Fire moves from No. 40 to 20); Sarah McLachlan (Surfacing jumps from No. 45 to 28); Hanson (Middle of Nowhere is up from No. 47 to 39); Fiona Apple (Tidal climbs from No. 76 to 61); Erykah Badu (Baduizm jumps from No. 173 to 103) and Shawn Colvin (A Few Small Repairs re-enters the chart at No. 111). (Do you get the sense women scored well at the Grammys this year?)

Interestingly, a band that reportedly rejected its offer to perform on the Grammys, Radiohead, continues its impressive sales climb. In just the last two weeks the band's critically acclaimed album,O.K. Computer, has jumped from No. 75 to No. 37. It seems mainstream record buyers are finally catching up with music writers who had O.K. Computer atop many of last year's "Best Of" lists.

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Song Stories

“Satisfied”

Tom Waits | 2011

Only the genius of Tom Waits could combine the subject of mortality, a reoccurring theme in his work, with wordplay that name checks both Mick and Keith, whom he calls "Mr. Jagger" and "Mr. Richards," and the title of their magnum opus, "Satisfaction." And to show just how cool Waits really is, he even got Mr. Richards to play along, one of nine guest appearances the guitarist has made on three Waits albums. "This growling roadhouse stomp is a late-breaking response to the Stones' greatest hit," Rolling Stone said of the track.

More Song Stories entries »

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