The Sara Bareilles single ‘Brave’ was a mover on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week ending August 18th, going from 66 to 46 and reaching the highest position since its release in April. The sales lift seems to be linked to the release of Katy Perry’s single ‘Roar’, which sold 557,000 copies in its first week out. Several have noted that the two songs sound similar, prompting Sara to tell her Twitter followers (@SaraBareilles): “All love, everybody. All love.”
Ellie Goulding has scored her first UK chart topping single with her song ‘Burn’. The track sold 117,000 copies for the week, besting Avicii’s ‘Wake Me Up’ and last week’s number one, ‘We Can’t Stop’ by Miley Cyrus, which dropped to #3.
The 26-year-old’s previous high chart position was in 2010 when her cover of Elton John’s ‘Your Song’ peaked at #2.
“It means the world to me to be number one at the moment,” Ellie said about the sales achievement. “It was always my dream to have a UK number one single and it’s been a long time coming.”
Goulding also told her Twitter followers (@elliegoulding):
Number one. Fu**. First UK number one… Thank you to all the fans for supporting me THE WHOLE TIME, overwhelmed and so happy x
Forbes hears from sources that sales of Madonna’s new album ‘MDNA’ will drop by 88 percent from its opening week of 359,000 copies sold. Madge is on track to sell around 46,000 units of her twelfth studio album in its second week in stores. The sales drop would make it the largest second week drop in history. The Hollywood Reporter says the first week sales were boosted by 185,000 copies of ‘MDNA’ being included with a concert ticket package deal.
With 56% of sales in at HitsDailyDouble and Madonna currently at 35,000 copies of ‘MDNA’ sold for the week, that 46k number may be light. Nicki Minaj and Adele’s ’21’ are in a battle for the top spot at 119k and 114k respectively.
Former ‘Canadian Idol’ contestant Carly Rae Jepsen topped the UK singles chart for the week with her song ‘Call Me Maybe’, which got a huge publicity boost thanks to Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez creating a viral video dancing to the track that has so far accumulated 30 million YouTube views. According to the UK’s Official Charts Company, ‘Call Me Maybe’ sold more than 100,000 in one week. The chart topping honor adds to Jepsen’s pole position in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Elliott Yamin checked in with his Twitter followers (@elliottyamin) on Monday (June 20) after receiving a recognition for album sales for his contribution to the compilation album ‘Now That’s What I Call Music 25’. The UTV Records release includes his song ‘Wait For You’, which was the ‘American Idol’ alum’s most successful single, peaking at #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2007. Yamin writes:
just got home from the gym, and look what was waiting by the door.. my 1st and probably my last platinum plaque http://lockerz.com/s/112632843
Ha, sorry y’all.. I wasn’t being an ungrateful bastard… I’m actually honored AND thrilled 2 get that plaque!.. thanks 2 Universal.. and wasn’t selling myself short. It’s just that… it’s extremely hard 2 sell a million albums these days… and I did it with the help of 15 other hits!…ha! #NOW!
Katy Perry is celebrating the #1 debut of her second album ‘Teenage Dream’, which HitsDailyDouble.com reports had sales of 194,000 units for its first week, enough to beat out Fantasia’s ‘Back To Me’ at #2 with 122,000 sales. Perry told her Twitter followers (@katyperry):
Before I purr off to dreamland I want to say THANK YOU! Thank you so much for my FIRST #1 RECORD DEBUT! I couldn’t have done it without YOU
YAY CUPCAKES FOR EVERYONEEEEEEEEEE! #1TEENAGEDREAMDEBUT!
This is a post to further continue discussion on whether Madonna or Mariah Carey is the top selling female artist in a post from StilettoSadist. Check out the original post and the 400+ comments here.
April 7, 2010 - Madonna and family arrive in Malawi for a week-long charity tour and to reunite her adopted children with their birth families. The Material Girl said on her official web site:
On my first visit to Malawi, I was devastated to meet child after child who had been orphaned by AIDS. Having lost my mother at such a young age, I felt a close connection to these children. Their stories had touched my own. In a country of 14 million, a staggering one million children have been left alone with the responsibility of raising each other. I returned home knowing the future of Malawi was resting on the shoulders of these orphaned children, and I had to act. It is with tremendous joy that I return to Malawi to lay the first brick in the Raising Malawi Academy for Girls. By educating girls we will rebuild this community and raise this nation.
Watch footage from her press conference via the Associated Press and a Raising Malawi video offering a tour of the orphanage in Namitete which she helped fund below.
April 5, 2010 - Madonna and her family are scheduled to travel to Malawi this week to visit several important projects for orphans and vulnerable children that she and Raising Malawi have been working on since 2006.
The Material Girl is set to visit the Millennium Village, which she supports along with Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, one of the world’s leading economists. “I look forward to seeing the amazing progress being made in that community as well as several other projects that are currently underway including the creation of a Girl’s Academy,” Madonna said in a press release. “I’m hugely excited to be joining Dr. Sachs and Hans Vestberg, the CEO of Ericsson, to launch a new campaign for worldwide access to education using mobile technology.” A formal announcement regarding the campaign will be made on Tuesday in Malawi. For further information on Raising Malawi, go to raisingmalawi.org.
March 28, 2010 - Madonna will be taking her adopted children back to Malawi next week, where Mercy will meet her birth family while David will visit with his natural father. “She promised to take them back to their homeland. She sees it as vital they understand their roots,” a source told The Sun. “Mercy’s meeting with her family will be particularly emotional as it’s the first time she’s seen them since last summer.” The story at thesun.co.uk has since been removed.
March 25, 2010 - Madonna is set to release her ‘Sticky & Sweet Tour’ CD/DVD and Blu Ray worldwide over the next 2 weeks, and her ‘Ray of Light’ performance from the live release is available via Yahoo! Music below. The concert footage is taken from Madge’s show at the River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina during the 2008 leg of the record-breaking Sticky & Sweet Tour.
Mariah Carey’s people offered a look at the most notable achievements, by the numbers, from her first 20 years of being a staple on the Billboard charts. Carey’s debut single ‘Vision of Love’ entered the Billboard Hot 100, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Adult Contemporary in the issue dated June 2, 1990. Among the stats:
64.5 million
Carey’s career U.S. album sales [as certified by the RIAA], since SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991, the highest sum among female artists. Celine Dion ranks second among women with sales of 51 million, followed by Shania Twain (33.9 million), Britney Spears (31.5 million) and Reba McEntire (29.3 million).17.2 million
Carey’s career U.S. physical singles sales, according to SoundScan. Her best-selling single is “One Sweet Day,” with sales to date of 2,334,000.13.8 million
Carey’s career U.S. digital song sales, according to SoundScan. Her most-downloaded track is “All I Want for Christmas is You,” with sales to date of 1,582,000.
Katy Perry’s new single ‘California Gurls’, featuring Snoop Dogg, debuted at No. 2 this week on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, just behind Usher’s ‘OMG’, which reclaimed the top spot from Eminem. ‘California Gurls’ is the first single from Perry’s upcoming album ‘Teenage Dream’, out August 24th on Capitol Records.
Justin Bieber was spotted leaving the Black Eyed Peas concert with his arm around the girlfriend of his manager Scooter Braun on Tuesday (March 30) in Los Angeles.
The pop star awoke to news that his new album ‘My World 2.0’ debuted atop the Billboard album charts after selling 283,000 copies in its first week. Bieber’s first album, ‘My World’, debuted at #6 last November. The 16-years old has become the youngest solo male artist to reach the top spot on the Billboard 200 since Stevie Wonder did on August 24, 1963 at the age of 13 with ‘Little Stevie Wonder/The 12 Year Old Genius.’
Still, the news wasn’t viewed as impressive to Simon Vozick-Levinson of ew.com, who wrote that wasn’t “a knock-out, blockbuster number, even in today’s ever-diminishing commercial market” in comparison to recent releases by Sade and Lady Antebellum. That commentary didn’t go over well with Justin, who told his Twitter followers (@justinbieber):
It’s sad that some adults need to try and bring people down
It’s all good.. let’s prove the haterz wrong.. go get MY WORLD 2.0 in stores NOW
Note: The original image provided by Bauer Griffin has since been removed.
