nicki minaj

Nicki Minaj's ship is flying pretty high these days. (Sorry for that.)

In its 20th week on the Billboard Hot 100, Minaj's "Starships" remains a top 10 hit (#8 this week), tying the record set by the Black Eyed Peas "I Gotta Feeling" in 2009 for the most uninterrupted weeks in the top 10 for a song that debuted there.

"Starships" arrived on the countdown the week of March 3 at #9 and has been in the top ten ever since, peaking at #5 for a week in early April and returning to the spot for a three-week run in June. Should the song stay in the top ten another week, which seems likely given its current position and on-going reign at radio, it will best the Peas next week for the longest-running top ten hit that debuted in the chart's upper frame.

Trailing "Starships" and "Feeling" are a string of very recognizable hits to keep Nicki company. Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men's duet "One Sweet Day" spent 19 weeks in the top ten – 16 of those at #1! – in 1995-96, Candian pop-punk princess Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend" enjoyed 18 weeks in the charts top tier after debuting there, and both Katy Perry ("California Gurls") and Puff Daddy and Faith Evans ("I'll Be Missing You") had 17-week runs in the top ten.

Notably, "Starships" is the only song on the list, which also includes hits from Eminem, Pink, Whitney Houston and two more songs from Carey, that has not made it to #1, a fact Billboard says has more to do with a glut of high-ranking hits, including Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know," Carly Rae Jepsen's current No. 1 "Call Me Maybe" and hits from boy bands The Wanted ("Glad You Came") and One Direction ("What Makes You Beautiful") during the song's chart life than its own huge success.

Nicki simply has a slow-burning smash on her hands rather than a hit that burns bright and fast and is gone before you know it. So we should probably expect to hear "Starships" on repeat for the rest of the summer. That sounds about right.

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Adele

By Meredith Goldberg-Morse

As the first half of 2012 comes to a close (take a moment to let that sink in), Adele’s 21 and Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” reign supreme as the biggest selling album and digital song in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan (via Billboard). This should come as no surprise, given the ongoing ubiquity of Adele’s soul-baring album and Gotye’s can’t-get-it-out-of-your-head refrain.

This marks the second time 21 has topped the charts in the first half of the year—and at this rate, it could be the only full-year top-seller two-peat in SoundScan history. If Adele’s chart-busting pattern continues, her baby could be born into an untouchable musical monarchy. Lucky kid.

While no album can touch the success of 21 check out the ones that came closest:

2. Lionel Richie, “Tuskegee”
With 912,000 albums sold, Lionel Richie’s Tuskegee was his first #1 on the Billboard 200 since his 1986 hit Dancing on the Ceiling.

3. One Direction, Up All Night
The British boy band is first U.K. group to hit # 1 with a debut album, selling 899,000 records in the first half of 2012.

4. Whitney Houston, Whitney: The Greatest Hits
The diva posthumously spent three weeks at # 2 on the charts after her death on February 11, selling 818,000 records.

5. Various Artists, Now 41
Yes, they’re still making these. And apparently 714,000 people purchased one this year.

Following Gotye as the top-selling download song so far:

2. fun., “We Are Young” (featuring Janelle Monae)
This musical celebration of youth is the only other song to surpass 5 million purchases this year, with 5.09 million.

3. Carly Rae Jepsen, “Call Me Maybe”
The song that spawned a million and one YouTube parodies is in its fourth week at # 1 on the Hot 100 and clocks in with 4.06 million in sales at the mid-year mark.

4. Kelly Clarkson, “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)”
Clarkson’s motivational tune is still going strong with 3.32 million sales in the first half of the year and is the top-selling song ever for an "American Idol" alum.

5. Nicki Minaj, “Starships”
Nicki rounds out the top five (and monopolizes our radios) with 3.16 year to date sales.

Do you think any albums from this year will be able to stop Adele's "21" from becoming the first two-year top-seller in history? Let us know in the comments below!

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By Elizabeth Lancaster

Poor guy!

Forty four may seem like an irrelevant number in individual album sales for heavy hitters like Adele and Jason Mraz, who are accustom to selling millions, but this week that number made all of the difference.

Adele held on to the top spot on the U.K. album chart this week with her record-setting blockbuster 21 by selling just 44 more copies than Mraz's debuting Love is a Four Letter Word.

Love is Mraz's first new release since 2008's smash We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things, which gave the singer the longest running song ever on the Billboard Hot 100, "I'm Yours." In 2010, Mraz won two Grammys for his work on the album, so needless to say the bar has been set high for his follow-up. His first single off the new album, "I Won’t Give Up," peaked at #1 on iTunes after its release in January, and we expect the rest of the album to continue gaining momentum!

Listen to "I Won't Give Up" below:

Get More: Jason Mraz, I Won't Give Up, Music, More Music Videos

Have you picked up Jason's Mraz's new album? Let us know what you think of it in the comments below!

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By Kara Warner

Despite the presumed dominance of the many high-profile album releases over the last few months (Britney, J,Lo, the Beastie Boys, etc.), the biggest-selling star is British powerhouse Adele, whose sophomore album "21" just snagged the #1 spot on the Billboard albums chart for the seventh week since its release.

Adele fans aren't surprised, given the album's rave reviews and the chart-climbing single "Rolling in the Deep," but the fact that the somewhat lesser-known U.K. import has basically defeated pop-music royalty has raised a few eyebrows.

One man who couldn't be more excited about the new crop of album sellers is songwriter/producer Evan Bogart. When MTV news caught up with him recently to discuss one of his many projects — he's an executive producer on the upcoming Bravo songwriting contest "Platinum Hit," which premieres May 30 — we got sidetracked with a conversation about the state of pop music and current chart-toppers.

"I think the songwriting is getting a lot better," Bogart said. "I think that the general public is becoming more in tune with real artists and you see the recognition finally of people like the Black Keys and people like Mumford & Sons jumping on the scene, and obviously people like Adele," he said. "I think those people are selling albums, and I think there's a lot of top 40 candy pop — which, by the way, I definitely write some of — are selling a lot of singles. I think the line between who's selling singles and who's selling albums has been drawn in the sand."

Bogart, who's responsible for hits like Beyoncé's "Halo" and Rihanna's "SOS," went on to say that it's becoming more apparent which artists are in it for the single and which ones are in it for a career.

"The people who are in it for the career are starting to cut through the nonsense," he said, which brought us back to Adele and "Rolling in the Deep."

" 'Rolling in the Deep' is still climbing, like, 2,000 spins a week. It's still flying up the top 40 charts. That makes me so happy," Bogart said. "I know at this point, people who are Adele fans or people who are on it are like, 'Oh my God, I'm sick of this song, can we just talk about the rest of the album?' But it's so important that this song gets into the top five and reaches #1," he emphasized. "It's so important for music. People don't understand how important it is that someone like Adele can top the top 40 charts; it's going to change music. Real music can be done, and it doesn't have to be something with a four on the floor and a rehashed synth with the same kind of chords played in a different order, basically the same song written over and over and over again, in order to get top 40 success.

"It really, really makes my soul happy to see a song like that flying up the charts," he continued, adding that it's a sign of very good things to come. "I think both the music business and the actual music within the music business are on the precipice of a new golden era, a new golden age."

Do you agree with Bogart? Are we on the precipice of a new age in music? Tell us in the comments!

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For the second time in a month, national album-sales figures released Wednesday morning by SoundScan — the firm that tracks and reports record sales in the U.S. — have been revised, making part of our report yesterday incorrect.

It seems that the Pussycat Dolls actually sold nearly 5,000 more copies of their latest LP, Doll Domination, than was originally reported by SoundScan. On Wednesday morning, the chart posted on the SoundScan site had PCD debuting at #5 on next week's albums chart with 74,000 copies sold, and the Kings of Leon's Only By the Night opening at #4, with 74,400 copies scanned.
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It's Wednesday, and you know what that means: We've got just two days to go before the start of another weekend, and the latest albums sales figures are in. Unfortunately, this week's SoundScan report's kind of a snoozer, but there is a new #1 album to laud.

After five weeks of slowly climbing up Billboard's top 200, the "Mamma Mia!" soundtrack has finally reached the top, bumping Sugarland's Love on the Inside from #1 to #3, on the strength of nearly 130,700 scans (the country duo sold 91,400 units). The soundtrack actually sold more copies last week (around 137,800), but thanks to generally sluggish sales, the set moves from #3 to #1 on next week's chart. Wedged in between "Mamma Mia!" and Sugarland, we find "Hannah Montana" star Miley Cyrus' LP Breakout, which, after three weeks in stores, continues to generate impressive scans, this week adding another 102,400 units to its tally; all told, that offering has sold exactly 636,800 copies.

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Someone has just bought Miley Cyrus for $16,800. Well, he actually bought the chance to meet the star at the November premiere of her animated flick "Bolt."

The winner is a dad from Connecticut, who secured the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for his 11-year-old daughter. The premiere is sure to be a star-studded event, as John Travolta and Malcolm McDowell also voice characters in the movie. Along with the meet-and-greet, several other items were auctioned off on eBay, raising a total of $58,100 by the time bidding closed on Tuesday. Don't worry, though: Miley's not pocketing the dough. It's going to the Pappy Cyrus Family Foundation, which supports underprivileged kids.

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For more than a month, there's been a heated battle happening on the weekly Billboard albums sales chart, waged between 2008's best-selling albums: rapper Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III and Coldplay's Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends. After Wayne's latest debuted at #1, selling more than a million copies, Coldplay's LP swooped in, knocking Tha Carter III from the top spot, where the rockers' record stayed for two weeks. Last week, Wayne made a comeback, reclaiming the peak position.

According to the latest figures released by Nielsen SoundScan, Wayne's newest will hold at #1 on next week's top 200, selling another 124,700 units and bringing total sales of the disc to 1.8 million. Coldplay's Viva la Vida clings to the #2 spot with sales reported at 112,600. Meanwhile, the soundtrack to the Disney Channel original movie "Camp Rock" follows at #3 — a position it's held since its release four weeks ago — with 88,500 scans.

Climbing two spots next week to #5, with 61,000 sold, is Kid Rock's Rock N Roll Jesus, which experienced a 35 percent sales boost on the strength of the LP's latest single, "All Summer Long." Now That's What I Call Music! Vol. 28 follows at #6 with 48,000 sold, while Rihanna's Good Girl Gone Bad moves one spot to #8 with 47,000 scans. G-Unit's T.O.S. (Terminate on Sight) follows at #9, selling another 36,400, while John Mayer's Where the Light Is rounds things out at #10 with 33,700 sold.

As far as new releases go, there are a total of 23 making their impact felt on next week's chart, with two opening in the top 10. Beck's latest, Modern Guilt, enters the chart at #4, having sold 84,300 copies, while the soundtrack to the big-screen adaptation of "Mamma Mia!" bows at #7 with 48,400 sold. Elsewhere on the chart, the Maine's Can't Stop Won't Stop debuts at #40, scanning 12,100 copies, while New York electronica outfit Ratatat's LP3 follows at #82, selling 7,800 units.

3Oh!3's Want enters at #89, having scanned 7,500 copies, with Hit the Lights' Skip School, Start Fights trailing at #97 on sales of 7,000 and change. Maroon 5 and Whitechapel are tied at #117, as Live from Le Cabaret and This Is Exile both scanned exactly 5,907 copies. Kerli's Love Is Dead bows at #126 with 5,500 sold, while Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond, Jr.'s sophomore solo offering, ¿Como Te Llama? debuts at #145, after selling 4,500 copies. The Melvins' Nude With Boots follows at #148 with 4,400 sold, while Me First and the Gimme Gimmes' Have Another Ball claims the #164 slot with 4,000 scans.

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DiamondCharts

It’s hard to imagine an artist as accomplished and beloved as Neil Diamond (trust us -- your mom digs him) has never, over the course of his more than forty-year career, known the feeling of having an album hit the chart at #1. Hard to imagine, but true.

That's why this week is so sweet for the Solitary Man, because according to the latest SoundScan figures, Diamond’s Rick Rubin-produced Home Before Dark has broken that bad-luck streak, selling close to 146,000 copies to top next week’s chart. This was no doubt made possible by the tremendous boost of having some of his classic tunes featured (and, you know, mostly murdered) on that popular singing contest "American Idol."

Check out some other twists and turns in the chart, after the jump. Read More...

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atmosphere

The latest SoundScan figures are in, and, for a second straight week, the nation’s best-selling LP – by a long shot -- belongs to Miss Mariah. The hilariously named E=MC2, sold nearly 182,000 copies. But, let’s face it -- La Diva’s run at the top will almost certainly be cut short next week, when Madonna’s Hard Candy enters the Top 200. Madge could take on Mariah on the shelves and on the mat.

But the most interesting thing about next week’s chart, though, has to be Atmosphere, whose latest set, When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That S--- Gold, enters the chart at #5. Considering the Minneapolis hip-hop duo’s still on the fringe, it was surprising to see that their record sold 36,400 copies in its first week -- not shabby at all for MC Slug (above) and producer Ant, who’ve thrived on their underground cred since getting together back in the mid-90’s.

Maybe their hipster cred has finally reached a boiling point? Or maybe it’s the guest-vocal props from Tom Waits and TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe? Then again, Atmosphere’s long been a slow burn -- they’re one of the best-selling indie hip-hop acts of the last decade, rebuffing a few major-label offers in their day. Or maybe it’s Slug’s completely tripped-out lyrics.

What do you think helped Atmosphere break through?

Check out Slug talking about the making of the album, after the jump. Read More...

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