On the Charts: E=Domination for Mariah Carey

The Big News: Mariah Carey enjoyed the highest-selling debut of her career as her E=MC² equaled 462,971 copies, an easy ride to the top of the chart and the best opening week performance in 2008. Leona Lewis' history-making Spirit dropped from one to two, selling one fifth the albums that Carey did. Thanks to an appearance on Idol Gives Back, Miley Cyrus and her alter ego Hannah Montana's Best of Both Worlds in Concert rocketed from thirty-one to three. Rookie country act Lady Antebellum landed in the fourth position with their self-titled debut album, while NOW 27 clung to the five spot. Encouraged by the DVD release, the Juno soundtrack leapt from forty-six back into the top ten.

Debuts: Thrice's The Alchemy Index Vol. III & IV entered at seventeen, one spot ahead of Rush's Snakes & Arrows Live. Children of Bodom's Blooddrunk and the Naked Brothers Band's I Don't Want To Go To School sat uncomfortably next to each other at twenty-two and twenty-three. The Kooks' Konk did surprisingly well, claiming spot number forty-one, and Rock Daily favorite M83's Saturdays = Youth slotted at 107.

Last Week's Heroes: The previous week's top ten stayed largely the same, with only Ray J and P.O.D. dropping considerably. Last week's number three, James Otto's Sunset Man, fell to twelve. Perhaps fueled by that backwards track, Gnarls Barkley's The Odd Couple climbed from twenty-seven to twenty, and the bulletproof Alvin and the Chipmunks soundtrack maintained its death grip at number seven.

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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.”

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