On the Charts: Chris Brown's "Graffiti" Settles for Seventh as Boyle Continues Reign

The Big News: Chris Brown tweeted that retailers were trying to "blackball" Graffiti, but his new album managed to just barely pass the 100K mark, selling 102,000 copies and entering the Billboard 200 at Number Seven. The LP is Brown's first since he pleaded guilty to assaulting his ex-girlfriend Rihanna, and as evidence of how the public regards him following the incident, Graffiti sold just over a third of the 294,000 copies Brown's Exclusive sold in its debut week in 2007.

Susan Boyle's I Dreamed a Dream locked up the Number One spot for a third consecutive week, adding another 582,000 copies to her history-making and record-breaking debut, according to Nielsen SoundScan. For the third straight week, Andrea Bocelli's My Christmas had to settle for Number Two behind Boyle, selling 400,000 copies this week. Glee's quick rise to popularity helped the show soundtrack's second volume debuted at Three with 173,000 copies. Taylor Swift's Fearless — which is on the cusp of going five times platinum — and Carrie Underwood's Play On rounded out the Top Five.

Debuts: Only one more new album managed to infiltrate the Top 10, with Gucci Mane's The State vs. Radric Davis entering at 10. Roughly 68,000 parrotheads checked into Jimmy Buffett's Buffett Hotel to give the album a Number 16 debut. Other notables include 30 Seconds to Mars' This Is War at 18 and Snoop Dogg's Malice in Wonderland at 21 with 59,000. Timbaland's Shock Value 2 showed up at 32 and Clipse's Til the Casket Drop dropped in at 41.

Last Week's Heroes: Boyle has proven to be an unstoppable force on the charts as the former Britain's Got Talent runner-up continues outsell American Idols and everyone else. If you thought Lady Gaga was a phenomenon, consider that both I Dreamed a Dream and The Fame are primed to reach double platinum by next Wednesday, with Boyle accomplishing in four weeks what it took Gaga to do in 60 weeks. And I Dreamed a Dream shows no signs of slowing down as sales were actually up 10 percent over last week. With nine more days until Christmas, there's a good chance Boyle could usurp both Swift's Fearless and Michael Jackson's Number Ones as the top-selling album in 2009.

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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