'Glee' Robs Stone Temple Pilots of Number One Debut

Stone Temple Pilots' first album in nine years wasn't strong enough to stop the Glee juggernaut. Scott Weiland and Co. had to settle for a Number Two debut on the Billboard 200 with their self-titled comeback record, which sold 62,000 copies in its first week. STP fell a mere thousand copies behind the Glee: Showstoppers compilation, and the Fox hit show claimed the top spot for the second consecutive week despite a 54 percent sales drop, according to Nielsen SoundScan. A trio of chart mainstays rounded out the Top Five: Justin Bieber's My World 2.0, Lady Antebellum's Need You Now and Usher's Raymond v Raymond, with its Hot 100-topping "OMG."

It was a slow week for new releases as only Stone Temple Pilots managed to crack the Top 10. Marc Anthony's Iconos debuted at Number 11, followed closely by the Sex and the City 2 soundtrack at 13. The weak sales across the board — album sales were down 11 percent compared to the same week a year ago — helped push veteran jam band Widespread Panic to their best-ever chart debut: their new album Dirty Side Down entered the Billboard 200 at Number 27, besting the band's previous peak of Number 48 with 2006's Earth to America.

Despite two powerful weeks at the top, Glee's run at Number One will undoubtedly come to an end this time next week when Jack Johnson's To the Sea hits the charts: early estimates have the folkie moving 250,000 copies. Check out Rolling Stone's recent chat with Johnson — and video clips of his newest tracks — in our To the Sea preview.

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Song Stories

“Tonight's the Night”

The Shirelles | 1960

The lead cut and title track from this girl group's debut album, "Tonight's the Night" was written by 19-year-old bandmember Shirley Owens, who sings lead, and producer Luther Dixon. The band from Passaic, New Jersey met in high school, first calling themselves the Pequellos. The song's frank thoughts about sexual and emotional surrender was racy for the time, but that didn't stop the Chiffons from cutting a similar version immediately after the original came out. "We were the first female group to write some of our own material," band member Beverly Lee recalls. "We did have some say-so in our writing."

More Song Stories entries »

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