On the Charts: Kelly Clarkson Hangs On to Number One, U2 Climb to Two

The Big News: As expected, Kelly Clarkson's All I Ever Wanted spent its second consecutive week atop the charts with another 90,000 copies sold, a 65 percent sales drop from its debut week. U2's No Line on the Horizon rose up one slot to Number Two with 75,000 copies. Thanks to the Twilight-mania that helped sell at least three million DVDs, the film's soundtrack had a sales renaissance, leaping from 14 to three with 74,000 units moved. The-Dream's Love Vs. Money and Lady Gaga's The Fame rounded out the Top Five.

Debuts: Part of the reason it was such a poor sales week was the lack of big-name debuts. Gorilla Zoe's Don't Feed the Animals was the lone rookie to crack the Top 10, coming in at eight. Twiztid's W.I.C.K.E.D. (or Wish I Could Kill Every Day) came in at 11 while the Decemberists' prog-concept album Hazards of Love bowed at 14. Further down the charts, Bonnie "Prince" Billy's Beware entered at 114 and the White Lies' To Lose My Life scored 146.

Last Week's Heroes: With no big debuts, the Top 10 remained stagnant with the exception of Twilight and Gorilla Zoe. J. Holiday's Round 2 had the biggest tumble, falling from four in its debut week to 20. Thanks to her return to American Idol last week, Carrie Underwood's Carnival Ride had a resurgence, hopping from 42 to 15. And congratulations to Beyoncé's I Am... Sasha Fierce for surpassing the two million plateau in its 18th week.

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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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