On the Charts: "Crazy Love" Survives "Sonic Boom" as Buble Outsells Kiss

The Big News: The Kiss Army proved unable to defeat Michael Buble, as the Canadian crooner's Crazy Love topped the Billboard Top 200 with 132,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Kiss and their Walmart-only Sonic Boom had to settle for second place with 108,000 copies, improving on the Number Three debut for Psycho Circus that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees scored in 1998. That album sold 110K in its first week, proving that the number of "Knights In Satan's Service" haven't diminished.

Toby Keith's American Ride cracked 90K to finish in third, one spot ahead of last week's champ, Barbra Streisand's Love is the Answer. Rounding out the Top Five, and officially breaking into platinum status, was Jay-Z's The Blueprint 3, which topped a million in sales in its fifth week thanks to another 65,000 sold.

Debuts: Country musician Luke Bryan entered the charts at Six with Doin' My Thing, selling 58,000 along the way. Other notable first weeks include the Backstreet Boys' This Is Us, which bowed at Nine with 42,000 copies. Backstreet might be back, but it's not alright: This Is Us sold a little over half the first-week copies of 2007's Unbreakable. The week's biggest disappointment was reserved for Tokio Hotel, however, as Humanoid could only muster a Number 35 debut and 17,000 copies sold.

Last Week's Heroes: Even though Paramore's Brand New Eyes topped Mariah Carey's Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel when both debuted last week, Carey's new album proved to be the more resilient of the two. Memoirs fell from Three last week to Seven, while Paramore plummeted from Two to out of the Top Ten after seven days, settling for 11 after more than three-quarters of its first week sales dropped off. Alice in Chains' Black Turns to Blue followed suit, falling from five to 12 thanks to a 71 percent sales drop.

• 
  MUSIC The Top 25 Teen Idol Breakout Moments
• 
  MOVIES & TV 'Game of Thrones': The Show Vs. the Books
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Facebook IPO vs. Shareholders
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive: Garbage Rip Through 'I Think I'm Paranoid'

Song Stories

“Weird”

Hanson | 1997

Accomplished tunesmith Desmond Child co-wrote "Weird" with the three brothers that make up Hanson. Credited for dozens of cuts, including songs by Kiss, Cher, Bon Jovi and Aerosmith, Child told Rolling Stone that "Weird" holds a special place in his heart, "because it's about being different--and I grew up poor, I grew up being Latin, I grew up being gay, and now I'm fat!" The song was included on Hanson's 1997 album Middle of Nowhere, which sold more than ten million units.

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter