She's 'Fearless,' Taylor Swift goes back to No. 1 on Billboard 200

The Grammy Awards once again proved their ability to sell records-one need look no further than this week's chart. Conventional wisdom is that a win is nice, but a performance on the Feb. 8 show will get you sales. That's definitely the case as Taylor Swift, who was not nominated for a blessed thing, but performed "Fearless" track "Fifteen" with Miley Cyrus, bounces back to No. 1 on the Billboard 200. This makes her 9th non-consecutive week at No. 1. According to Billboard, Carlos Santana's "Supernatural," which had the huge hit "Smooth," was the last album to spend more time at the summit. It was there for 12 weeks in 1999-2000.

But the big story is Grammy album of the year, "Rising Sand." The Robert Plant/Alison Krauss project soared from No. 69 to No. 2 and sold 77,000 copies. Billboard did the math for me-that's a 715% increase over the week before. Plant/Krauss closed the show with a two-song medley from the album. Performers /winners Coldplay and Adele also saw a nice bounces: Coldplay leapt from No. 31 to No. 8, while Adele jumped back into the Top 10 at No. 10. Also getting a boost: the compilation "Grammy Nominees 2009" CD, which crept back into the Top 10 to land at No. 9.

Last year's summit-sitter, The Fray's self-titled second CD, slipped only one spot to No. 2, which is a nice feat- it was probably helped by Valentine's Day sales. Two new entries came in at No. 3 and No. 4: India.Arie's "Testimony: Vol. 2-Love & Politics" (Universal Republic) and Lily Allen's "It's Not Me, It's You," respectively. Allen's album is No. 1 in the U.K., as is the first single, "The Fear." Also new at No. 7 is R&B singer Bobby Valentino, whose latest, "The Rebirth," is No. 7.

Comedy continues to sell. Andy Samberg of "Saturday Night Live" fame put together a comedy trio, the Lonely Island. Its debut, "Incredibad," came in at No. 13. It's kind of hard for me to imagine that the audio of "Jizz in My Pants" or the Emmy-winning "Dick in a Box" (we're not kidding about the Emmy) is that funny without the video, but we bet gaggles of teenage boys think they are.
While plenty of interesting CDs came out this past Tuesday, there were no releases that are going to threaten the top spots-although Morrissey could come in at the bottom of the Top 10. We'll see if Swift keeps her ride going or if Plant/Krauss have enough sustained momentum to finally get to No. 1.

 

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