On The Charts: Bob Dylan Earns Fifth Career Number One

The Big News: As expected, Bob Dylan's Together Through Life cracked the 100,000-sold mark easily, scanning nearly 125,000 copies during its first week in stores, and earning the 67-year-old songwriter his fifth chart-topping debut. While our current cover star failed to replicate the sales showing of 2006's Modern Times (which sold 192,000 copies), he did manage to fend off stiff competition from Rick Ross and Miley Cyrus, who posed the biggest threat, as the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack held at Number Two (with sales reported at 86,000). Meanwhile, Lady Gaga's The Fame climbs two spots to Number Five, selling another 40,000 units on the strength of the songstress' latest hit single, "Poker Face."

Debuts: After Dylan, the week's biggest debut belongs to Heaven and Hell (or, for you metal purists, the Dio-era Black Sabbath). The band's set The Devil You Know enters the chart at Number Eight, debuting with just over 30,000 units sold. Opening at Number 10 with 26,000 scans is the Starbucks-powered world music compilation Playing For Change.

Last Week's Heroes: As is often the case, the second-week sales slump took its toll on last week's chart champ Rick Ross. His Deeper Than Rap suffered a 68 percent dip at retail, and falls this week to Number four with 51,000-plus sold. And after spending her first week outside of the Billboard Top 10, country crossover Taylor Swift returns to the fold at Number Nine, as her Fearless LP sold close to 49,000 units, for a grand, 25-week sales tally of more than 3.1 million.

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

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.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter