Eminem Storms Singles Chart as Godsmack Lock Down Top 200

Godsmack locked up the Number One spot on the Billboard 200 album chart this week as their new disc Oracle debuted with 117,000 copies sold according to Nielsen SoundScan. While the band grabbed its third consecutive Number One, following 2003's Faceless and 2006's IV, Eminem made the biggest chart news: his first Recovery single "Not Afraid" will become just the 16th track in Hot 100 history to debut atop the chart in its first week. "Not Afraid" sets the 2010 high for most digital tracks sold in a week with 379,000 downloads. Em had previously prepared fans for the big sales news, writing on Twitter, "The announcement is tomorrow. It's gonna be a big 'hit.' "

As RS previously reported, Eminem gets personal on "Not Afaid," rapping about the addictions he's beaten with a renewed ferocity. He even apologizes to fans for his previous disc, rhyming, "And to the fans, I'll never let you down again, I'm back. I promise to never go back on that promise, in fact let's be honest, that last Relapse CD was 'ehh.' " Recovery is due June 22nd.

Lady Antebellum continued their chart domination as sales of Need You Now rose 28 percent to 97,000 copies to keep the country act at Number Two. A pair of debuts entered the chart at Number Three and Four: MercyMe's The Generous Mr. Lovewell sold 88,000 at Three, followed by Carole King and James Taylor's duets album Live at the Troubadour. Billboard reports that Live at the Troubadour gives Taylor a Top 10 album in every decade dating back to the 1970s. Justin Bieber's My World 2.0 rounded out the Top Five.

Last week's Number One album, B.o.B's The Adventures of Bobby Ray, became the first album since John Mayer's Battle Studies last November to tumble from its Number One debut out of the Top 10 in the span of a week — the rapper landed at Number 12.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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