On the Charts: "Twilight" Has the Teeth to Take Top Spot

The Big News: You know a movie is going to be huge when the soundtrack tops the sales charts before the film is even released. Twilight mania begins early as the Paramore-lead soundtrack unseated AC/DC's Black Ice after a two week reign, selling 165,000 copies before the film even hits theaters next Friday. Black Ice fell short of the top spot by a mere 5,000 copies and settled in at number two. Another soundtrack, High School Musical 3, claimed third for the second consecutive week, while Hinder's Take It To The Limit discovered that the limit would be 81,000 copies and a spot at number four. Rounding out the top five was Pink's Funhouse, which dropped down from two last week thanks to a 60% sales decline.

Debuts: Outside of the vampire flick and Hinder, Q-Tip's The Renaissance debuted at 11. Further down the chart, the Shiny Toy Guns' Season of Poison checked in at 47, mope rockers Travis entered at 122 with Ode To J. Smith and a handful of Christmas-related releases eager to annoy you this holiday season were also scattered throughout the charts.

Last Week's Heroes: As is customary, the majority of last week's big debuts — Pink, John Legend, Ryan Adams, Lady Gaga — all saw the sales of the albums decrease by half. The result was a slow week on the charts, as the entire the Top 200 only managed to sell 2.3 million copies all together, which is exceptionally low. Thankfully help is on the way, because if the success of Twilight and High School Musical 3 has taught us anything, it's that tweens still actually buy music, and they'll have new albums by Taylor Swift and David Archuleta to purchase this week.

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Song Stories

“Is It True”

Brenda Lee | 1964

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."

More Song Stories entries »

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