Tupac Shakur leads Music Power Rankings for the second week

Beyonce

 

Credit: AP

1) Tupac Shakur:  His virtual appearance at Coachella leads to a very real boost in sales as his “Greatest Hits” reenters the Billboard 200 for the first time in 12 years. The title landed at No. 129, with a 571% sales gain over last week.  His track “Hail Mary” saw a 1,530% increase to 13,000 downloads.

2) Beyonce: People names her the World’s Most Beautiful Woman. Blue Ivy coos, “I already knew that.”

3) Record Store Day: The fifth annual event, held April 21, helped indie record stores’ sales soar 26% last week. Guess what? Indie stores are open year round.

4) Ryan Seacrest:  He will be with us forever and always--or at least through 2014:  He signed a $15 million deal to keep him hosting “American Idol” for two more years.

5) Carrie Underwood: The former “American Idol” champ leads all artists with five nominations for the 2012 CMT Music Awards. Her legs receive 10 nods.

6) Michael Rapino: The Live Nation head made $11.9 million last year. He can afford to pay the service charge on concert tickets, but what about the rest of us...

7) The Beach Boys: They kick off their 50th anniversary tour in landlocked Tucson. What? Kokomo was booked?

8) Maroon5: The exposure from “The Voice” continues to pay off for lead singer/coach Adam Levine as the group scores its biggest first week debut ever on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Payphone.” They wanted to call home to share the news, but couldn’t find a working payphone.

9) Death Grips: They brought in the tastemakers with 2010’s “Exmilitary.”  Now the Sacramento-based industrial hip hop outfit (for lack of a better description) gets ready to grab the rest of the world by the throat with its new Epic Records debut, “The Money Store.”

10) Coachella: The alternative music festival in the desert successfully expands to two weekends with a pair of sellouts and raves all around. As  Mae West said, “too much of a good thing can be wonderful.”