On the Charts: Coldplay's "Viva" Hangs On to Number One

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The Big News: For the second consecutive week, Coldplay's Viva La Vida held off Lil Wayne to grab the top spot. Despite a 66% sales decrease from its debut week, Viva La Vida still sold 249,000 copies as the album edged closer to a million copies sold. Tha Carter III remained at number two, selling another 200,000 copies, while the Camp Rock soundtrack hung around at three for another week. Mötley Crüe's comeback album Saints of Los Angeles debuted at four with 99,000 units, and Three 6 Mafia's Last 2 Walk rounded out the top five in its debut week.

Debuts: Jacksonville hard-rockers Shinedown and their third album The Sound of Madness came in at eight, Sigur Ros' Meo suo í eyrum vio spilum endalaust entered at 15 and Fueled by Ramen recruits Cute Is What We Aim For debuted at 21 with their sophomore album Rotation. Further down, RZA/Bobby Digital's "fun" Digi Snacks got 6,800 parties started on its way to 111 and Alejandro Escovedo's Real Animal placed at 122.

Last Week's Heroes: No one sold over 700,000 copies this time around, but last week's heroes still occupied the upper-tier of the charts. The only big drop out of the top ten was the Offspring, whose Rise & Fall, Rage & Grace fell from 10 to 24. Congratulations to Amy Winehouse, as her Back to Black reached double platinum status stateside. With no major releases out this week (sorry G Unit), look for Chris Martin and Weezy to duke it out for the top spot once again.

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Song Stories

“The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”

The Joy Formidable | 2011

The opener off the Welsh group’s The Big Roar album was an epic one, but the band was worried that track had polarized fans. “The first song is eight minutes long,” Rhydian Dafydd, the Joy Formidable bassist, said. “If you did that in the Seventies people would be, ‘Whatever.’ You do it now, people think, ‘Holy s---!’ Some people think it’s the f---ing greatest track on the entire album, and some people think it’s f---ing boring. It’s that element of needing to challenge people.” The band concluded through the song’s lyrics that love was the “everchanging spectrum of a lie.”

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