The #1 Hot 100 Song and other #1’s on Billboard for the week of January 17, 2009
The Chart Guy is back from his “40 Blogs of Christmas” series to delve into the weekly Billboard charts. Since my last Billboard charts blog, the #1 slot has gone back and forth between “Live Your Live” by T.I. featuring Rihanna and “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” by Beyoncé Knowles. This week though, we have a new #1, and it is “Just Dance” by Lady GaGa featuring Colby O’Donis, which sold 279,000 downloads in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Now that we have a new year, we also have a new prediction for next week. “Dance” may have a bullet this week…but it took 22 weeks to get to #1 (it entered the Hot 100 on August 16, 2008 at #76.) My prediction is that either “Single Ladies” will go back to #1, or Taylor Swift’s “Love Story,” currently at #4 with a bullet, will be the first country single to top the Hot 100 since Lonestar did it with their hit “Amazed” back in 2000.
The #1 album on the Top 200 Albums chart is Swift’s Fearless. It is the fifth non-consecutive week atop that chart, which makes it the first album to stay at #1 for five weeks since Josh Groban’s Noël, which started its run in December of 2007. I think that it will stay at #1 for at least another week, because there are no real contenders for next week.
On the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, “Single Ladies” is #1 for an eighth week, while Sugarland is #1 on the Hot Country Songs chart with “Already Gone.” On Billboard’s rock charts, Kings of Leon is #1 with “Sex on Fire” for a fifth week atop the Modern Rock chart and Shinedown is #1 on the Mainstream Rock chart for a fourth week with “Second Chance.”
I like “Dance”…but I’m secretly rooting for Swift to take the top spot next week…partially because I’m a country fan. Not that “Love Story” one of my favorite country songs (or even one of my favorite Swift songs), but I want to see a revival of country crossing over into the Hot 100 like the heyday of the ‘70s. John Denver, Charlie Rich, Freddy Fender, The Eagles, Ray Stevens, Vicki Lawrence, Olivia Newton-John, Billy Swan, B. J. Thomas, Glen Campbell, C.W. McCall, The Bellamy Brothers, Debby Boone, Exile, and Anne Murray all had #1’s in the ‘70s, so I’d like to see it come back!