On the Charts: Chesney Takes Top Spot, LaMontagne Debuts Big

The Big News: Kenny Chesney took over the sales throne, selling 176,000 copies of his Lucky Old Sun and ending T.I.'s two-week reign as Paper Trail dropped to second place. Ray LaMontagne enjoyed his best debut ever as Gossip in the Grain placed at number three. Despite a sales decrease from last week, Metallica's Death Magnetic rose from five to four, switching places with Jennifer Hudson's self-titled debut.

Debuts: U.K. mope rockers Keane and their Perfect Symmetry took seventh place and Lucinda Williams' Little Honey rounded out our top ten debuts at number nine. Further down the list, Ingrid Michaelson's Be OK entered at 35, Copeland's You Are My Sunshine grabbed 48 and Christian metal act Haste the Day settled in at 68 with Dreamer.

Last Week's Heroes: It was another slow week for sales as the music world braced for the arrival of AC/DC's Black Ice and the unofficial kickoff to the blockbuster album season. The biggest casualties from last week? Oasis' Dig Out Your Soul plummeted from five to 36 and Rise Against's Appeal to Reason dropped fell from three to 19.

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Song Stories

“I'm Yours”

Jason Mraz | 2008

Jason Mraz re-emerged after his disappointing second album with this lead single, a Jack Johnson-esque ditty about giving yourself fully to someone else. The success of the reggae-tinged song (it earned two Grammy nods and a spot on the Billboard singles chart for well over a year) was something the folk-pop singer never predicted when he wrote it in 15 minutes at home. "I played a happy-hippie chord progression that would probably work without 50 different Bob Marley songs," he told Rolling Stone. "I thought, 'It's too novelty. This is a nursery rhyme,'" concluding that "you can never guess what's gonna be a hit."

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