Fan Fare

TLC are still busy answering their fan mail. The R&B trio's new album remains the country's bestseller for the second straight week. According to SoundScan, Fanmail sold 226,000 copies for the week ending March 7. That put TLC comfortably ahead of hip-hop queen Lauyrn Hill, who was still basking in her Grammy-grab from two weeks back. Her award-winning album actually moved up from No. 3 to No. 2.

Meanwhile, country bedrock George Strait, who's released more than twodozen album in eighteen years, added to his long list of Top Ten hits. His latest, Always Never the Same, debuted at No. 6 last week.

Hill wasn't the only Grammy winner who saw sales jump following national exposure on the Grammys. Pre-Grammys, Sheryl Crow's Globe Sessions was at No. 71. Post-Grammys, it climbed back up to No. 46. Likewise, Madonna's Ray of Light, recently down at No. 60, came in at No. 49.

But the two clear winners were Shania Twain and Latin star Ricky Martin. Twain, who was reportedly peeved backstage for not winning Best Country Album, is having the last laugh as Come On Over climbed to No. 5, with weekly sales up 42 percent. Martin, a former member of Menudo who took advantage of his network tube time with a much-talked about performance, also continued tosell well. His album Vuelve, which was selling less than 4,000 copies a week right before the Grammy's, sold 18,000 copies last week and came in at No. 79.

From the top, it was TLC's Fanmail, followed by Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill(selling 201,000); Eminem's The Slim Shady LP (198,000); Britney Spears' ...Baby One More Time(178,000); Twain's Come On Over (154,000); Strait's Always Never the Same (122,000);Cher's Believe (113,000); the Dixie Chicks' Wide Open Spaces (109,000); the Offspring's Americana (95,000); and the Roots' Things Fall Apart (82,000).

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Song Stories

“Is It True”

Brenda Lee | 1964

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."

More Song Stories entries »

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