On The Charts: Grammy Victories Not Enough To Dethrone Jack Johnson

The Big News: Grammy wins helped propel Amy Winehouse and Herbie Hancock into the top five, but it wasn't enough to unseat last week's champ and Rolling Stone cover star Jack Johnson. Johnson's new album Sleep Through the Static sold 179,545 in its second week, while Winehouse's Back to Black sold 115,309 to jump from number twenty-four to number two. But the biggest mover was Herbie Hancock's Album of the Year-winning River: The Joni Letters which witnessed a sales jump of 967% from the previous week to catapult from 159 to five. Other albums getting Grammy boosts: Foo Fighters' Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, Taylor Swift's self-titled debut and Eagles' Long Road Out of Eden.

Debuts: Besides WOW Gospel 2008, there were only two noteworthy debuts: Simple Plan's self-titled third album at fourteen, and Widespread Panic's Free Somehow at seventy-eight.

Last Week's Heroes: Last week's top ten got all sorts of mixed up by the Grammy resurrection set, with only Johnson, Alicia Keys' As I Am (three) and Juno (six) holding their ground. Sheryl Crow's Detours and Lenny Kravitz's It Is Time For a Love Revolution dropped in the week following their debuts. In platinum news, Keys' As I Am went triple platinum, while Kanye West's Graduation crossed into double platinum territory.

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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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