On the Charts: Pearl Jam's "Backspacer" Locks Up Band's First Number One Since 1996

The Big News: As expected, Pearl Jam's ninth album Backspacer stormed to the Number One spot on this week's Billboard Top 200, selling 189,000 copies according to Neilsen SoundScan. While Backspacer gave Pearl Jam their first Number One since 1996's No Code, the album sold roughly 90,000 less copies than its predecessor Pearl Jam did in its opening week in 2006. After two weeks at the top, Jay-Z's Blueprint 3 nestled into Two with another 134,000 copies sold. Three Days Grace enjoyed their best debut yet as Life Starts Now reached Number Three, while Whitney Houston's I Look to You and Miley Cyrus' Time of Our Lives EP rounded out the Top Five.

Over on Billboard's Top Catalog Chart, where the Fab Four and the King of Pop continue to battle it out, Michael Jackson reclaimed his top spot as Number Ones surpassed Abbey Road, which was the chart's top seller for two consecutive weeks. The Beatles' remasters take up 13 of the top 16 spots on the Catalog charts, with Jackson occupying the other three. Only the remaster for Yellow Submarine finds itself outside the Top 20 Catalog, coming in at 24.

Debuts: Three more artists managed to crack the Top 10, as Brand New's Daisy, Five Finger Death Punch's War is the Answer and Harry Connick, Jr.'s Your Songs ended up at Six-Seven-Eight respectively, even though none of the releases managed to sell over 50,000. Mika's The Boy Who Knew Too Much bowed in at 19, while Sean Kingston — whose "Beautiful Girls" topped the Hot 100 and whose self-titled album peaked at Number Six in 2007 — saw his second album Tomorrow debut meekly at 37 with only 13,000 copies.

Last Week's Heroes: Despite losing the top spot, The Blueprint 3 and Jay-Z proved resilient in its third week with another 100+K sales week and inevitable platinum status by this time next week. Speaking of platinum, congratulations all around to the Zac Brown Band, as The Foundation exceeded a million copies sold 45 weeks after it was released. Kid Cudi's Man on the Moon: The End of Day could be considered the week's biggest loser, dropping from Four to 17 thanks to a 73 percent sales decline.

Next week, we'll find out who wins the battle of the divas: Mariah, Madonna or Paramore.

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Song Stories

“1999”

Prince | 1982

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.

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