On the Charts: "High School Musical 2" Still Unstoppable, Yung Joc and Casting Crowns Debut In Top Five

The Big News: In its third week week of release, the High School Musical 2 soundtrack is really slipping -- the tween crack is still number one, but selling 209,996 copies this week, it only bests its nearest competitor by about 80,000 records. Christian soft-rockers Casting Crowns debuted at number two, selling 128,932 albums, while significantly less Christian music from Yung Joc finished at number three in its first week, with 69,078.

Debuts: Besides Casting Crowns and Yung Joc, Cali hard rockers Atreyu entered the chart at number eight, just ahead of the latest from Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals. Further down the chart, Lyle Lovett's latest came in at number eighteen,while another Christian act, Mercy Me, entered at forty-three, pot-rappers Kottonmouth Kings debuted at forty-four, and indie-rap star Aesop Rock finished at fifty.

Last Week's Sales Heroes?: The kiddie contact high from HSM2 is wearing off, as the Hannah Montana 2 soundtrack slips to number four. The irrepressible Fergie is back up to number five, the Hairspray soundtrack drop to six, the Now! 25 compilation to seven, and Nickelback, in its 100th week of release, hangs in at number ten, having sold a mind-bending 5,857,555 copies to date.

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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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