On the Charts: Springsteen Takes First In Week Where "Transformers" Empties Wallets

The Big News: The big news was small sales. In a particularly weak week, Bruce Springsteen's Magic reclaimed the top spot after spending the prior seven days looking at the backside of Kid Rock's Rock N Roll Jesus, which dropped from first place to number two. Magic sold a meager-for-chart-topping 77,247 copies. Rascal Flatts remained at number three, while Josh Groban's Noel leapt from ten to four. Jimmy Eat World had the best debut of the week, as their Chase the Light entered at number five with 62,267. Overall, a combined 7.93 million albums were sold last week. Where did all the buyers go? Well, the Transformers DVD sold an estimated 8.3 million copies since its debut last week, more than all albums combined.

Debuts: After Jimmy Eat World, the week was devoid of any noteworthy debuts. Santana's umpteenth greatest-hits collection Ultimate Santana, on the strength of an appearance by Nickelback's Chad Kroeger, joined the charts at number eight with 56,475. Angie Stone's Art Of Love & War narrowly missed the top ten, coming in at eleven with 44,611 copies. R.E.M.'s R.E.M. Live debuted at seventy-two, and a whole bunch of Christmas album debuts scattered the charts.

Last Week's Chart Heroes: Kid Rock battled it out like he was at a Waffle House, but still fell to Bruce by a mere 243 copies, thanks in part to a fifty-five percent sales decline. LeAnn Rimes' Family had the biggest drop, parachuting without the parachute from four all the way down to twenty-three. Let's face it, the only chart hero this week is Transformers director Michael Bay.

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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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