On the Charts: Leona Lewis Makes History With "Spirit"-ed Debut

The Big News: Aided by the collective powers of Simon Cowell and Oprah, Artist to Watch Leona Lewis' first album Spirit rocketed to the top of the chart, selling 204,841 copies on its way to becoming her the first British solo artist to ever have a debut album open atop the U.S. charts. A pair of country artists occupied two and three, with George Strait's Troubadour and James Otto's Sunset Man selling in the 50Ks. NOW 27 clung to number four, while R.E.M.'s Accelerate hung around at five after debuting last week at two.

Debuts: R&B artist/sex tape star Ray J and his All I Feel came in at number seven. The physical release of Nine Inch Nails' Ghosts I-IV debuted at fourteen with 25,807 copies. Nick Cave's Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! took sixty-fourth, the Breeders' Mountain Battles slotted ninety-eighth, Tapes N Tapes' sophomore set Walk It Out seeded 116 and, for some reason, 8,078 people bought Punk Goes Crunk.

Last Week's Heroes: Diddy's Day26 suffered the biggest fall, stumbling from four to eighteen. It what's becoming an ongoing joke, Alvin & the Chipmunks soundtrack remained in the upper tier despite dropping from five to six. And Carrie Underwood's Carnival Ride joined the double platinum club after twenty-five weeks.

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

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.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter