Madonna Sets Billboard Chart Record

Via Billboard:

The Queen of Pop is now unequaled chart royalty. Madonna makes momentous Billboard chart history, as she now has the most No. 1s ever, 45, by an act on a singular Billboard chart. She earns her 45th No. 1 on Dance Club Songs, where "Ghosttown" lifts 3-1. With the coronation, Madonna passes another icon, George Strait, who's logged 44 No. 1s on Hot Country Songs. "Thanks to all my fans on and off the dancefloor," Madonna said in an exclusive statement to Billboard. "I'll (always) be your partner." With her 45th leader on Dance Club Songs, which measures reports submitted by a national sample of club DJs, Madonna pulls further ahead of runners-up Beyonce and Rihanna. In fact, Madonna has tallied more No. 1s as they have combined: 22 each. (The chart launched as a national survey in the Billboard issue dated Aug. 28, 1976.)

RELATED: The first-ever #1 single on Billboard's dance chart, which launched as National Disco Action, was You Should Be Dancing by the Bee Gees. Wikipedia maintains a list of all #1 dance singles by year.

Martha Wash Tops Billboard's Dance Chart

Gay favorite Martha Wash first topped Billboard's dance chart way back in 1978 as Sylvester's backing vocalist and since then she's landed a dozen dance chart #1 singles as one-half of the Weather Girls, as a solo artist, and as the uncredited vocalist for Black Box and C+C Music Factory. This week she returns to the pinnacle position in a collaboration with prolific two-time Grammy-nominated gay DJ/producer Tony Moran. The duo also hit #1 in 2007 with Keep Your Body Working. With a title like Free People, expect to hear this a LOT at post-SCOTUS pride celebrations.

This Week's Top Ten Pop Singles

This Week's Billboard Top Ten

Bennett/Gaga Duets Album Debuts At #1

Cheek To Cheek debuted at #1 on Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart today, breaking Tony Bennett's own record as the oldest artist (88!) to reach that chart's summit.

The standards album, released Sept. 23 on Interscope/Columbia Records, sold 131,000 copies in the week ending Sept. 28, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It also hits No. 1 on both the Jazz Albums and Traditional Jazz Albums charts. 88-year old Bennett is the oldest living act to earn a No. 1 album, beating a record he set himself back in 2011. That year, a then 85-year old Bennett scored his first No. 1 album with Duets II (which included a collaboration with Gaga on "The Lady Is a Tramp"). Gaga previously led the list with ARTPOP, less than a year ago, and Born This Way, in 2011.

Cheek To Cheek dethrones Barbra Streisand's duets album Partners, which was her tenth #1 album including greatest hits compilations and soundtracks.

Weird Al Yankovic Scores Billboard's First #1 Comedy Album In 51 Years

Via Billboard Magazine:

After more than 30 years on the charts, comedian-singer "Weird Al" Yankovic earns his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200, as "Mandatory Fun" debuts atop the list. The album is the first comedy set to top the chart since 1963, and logs the largest sales week for a comedy album since 1994. "Mandatory Fun" was released July 15 through Way Moby and RCA Records, and sold 104,000 copies in the week ending July 20, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It was promoted by a well-received daily viral video campaign that launched Monday, July 14. Starting with his parody of Pharrell's "Happy," Yankovic released eight music videos for the album through the week on various sites, like The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo, Nerdist, College Humor and YouTube.

The last comedy album to hit #1 was 1963's My Son, The Nut by Allen Sherman. Steve Martin nearly got there in 1978 when Wild And Crazy Guy peaked at #2.

LGBT Allies Mackelmore & Ryan Lewis Land #1 Pop Single For 2013

Billboard Magazine has compiled its year-end charts and named the Mackelmore & Ryan Lewis single Thrift Shop as the most popular song of 2013. This is somewhat of a surprise as the #2 single for the year, Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines, had twelve weeks at #1 vs the six weeks at #1 for Thrift Shop. Lorde's smash single Royals, which had eight weeks at #1, is ranked at #15 for 2013 due to its late in the year peak.

Here are Billboard's top ten singles for 2013.

1. Thrift Shop - Mackelmore & Ryan Lewis
2. Blurred Lines - Robin Thicke
3. Radioactive - Imagine Dragons
4. Harlem Shake - Bauer
5. Can't Hold Us - Mackelmore & Ryan Lewis
6. Mirrors - Justin Timberlake
7. Just Give Me A Reason - Pink
8. When I Was Your Man - Bruno Mars
9. Cruise - Florida Georgia Line
10. Roar - Katy Perry

It's "fucking awesome" that the most popular song of the year is from two of the most outspoken straight allies in pop music.

Jay-Z Forces RIAA Change

Last week it was announced that Samsung had purchased one million digital copies of Jay-Z's coming album, which will be given away free when they launch a new cell phone app. Jay-Z then tweeted his millions of followers with a demand that the RIAA grant him a platinum album even though technically no one has bought it. Yesterday the RIAA agreed and the rap superstar will get his shiny plaque. But Billboard isn't having it and the "sales" will not be reflected on their charts.

"It wasn't as simple as you might think to turn down Jay-Z when he requested that we count the million albums that Samsung 'bought' as part of a much larger brand partnership, to give away to Samsung customers," Werde wrote in a letter from the editor. "True, nothing was actually for sale -- Samsung users will download a Jay-branded app for free and get the album for free a few days later after engaging with some Jay-Z content. The passionate and articulate argument by Jay's team that something was for sale and Samsung bought it also doesn't mesh with precedent."

Billboard's 25 Great Gay Musical Moments

Billboard Magazine has published a Buzzfeed-y list of 25 great gay moments in pop music. On the list: the coming out of Frank Ocean and Ricky Martin, Adam Lambert's first #1 album by an out artist, Jay-Z's endorsement of same-sex marriage, and Lady Gaga's campaign for LGBT rights. Sylvester suitably makes the list pretty much just for having been Sylvester.

RELATED: Speaking of Sylvester, you can pre-order the reissue package of his greatest hits right now. Proceeds benefit San Francisco's AIDS Emergency Fund and Project Open Hand.

Yoko Ono Lands 10th Dance Chart #1

From Yoko Ono's Imagine Peace website:

Featuring adrenalin-fueled remixes from Grammy Award-winning producer Ralphi Rosario, premiere Dutch DJ/producer R3hab, sweltering progressive house collective Papercha$er, Brazilian electro house/dubstep duo Dirty Loud, Spain’s Ivan Gomez & Nacho Chapado, Brazilian electro house/dubstep duo Dirty Loud, versatile alt-rock meets dance artist/producer and remixer Rich Morel, electro nu-rave legend Tommie Sunshine, Boston-based wunderkind Emjae, and Dave Audé himself, the release marks a milestone for ONO, who celebrates her 10th #1 Billboard Hot Dance Club Play Chart-topping smash.

Ono, 80, is by far the oldest performer to top the Billboard dance chart. Many of those #1 singles, like this one, feature remixes by Blowoff DJ Rich Morel.  Hit the link to hear this one.

Billboard Magazine Rejiggers Pop Charts

Last week Billboard Magazine altered the methodology of tabulating its pop charts, making a radical change not seen since they began including digital downloads as a ranking criteria.

YouTube streaming data is now factored into the Hot 100 (and other genre charts), enhancing a mix of data that includes digital download track sales (and physical singles sales), as tracked by Nielsen SoundScan, as well as terrestrial radio airplay, on-demand audio streaming, and online radio streaming, as tracked by Nielsen BDS.

And that, at least in part, is why Harlem Shake is #1 this week.  The change also possibly knocked gay-friendly Macklemore's Thrift Shop from the top spot after a four-week run.

Gay-Friendly Hip-Hop Duo Tops Chart

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, the hip-hop duo who rocketed to national prominence via Same Love, their message of gay acceptance, today topped Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart with their follow-up single, Thrift Shop.  The track is also #1 on the magazine's R&B/Hip-Hop chart.  If, somehow, you have not yet heard the impossibly catchy Thrift Shop, here it is.

Britain's Last Music Retailer Goes Bankrupt

Billboard reports that Britain's last national music retailer has declared bankruptcy.

Ailing music and entertainment retailer HMV is to suspend the trading of its shares and enter administration, the U.K. equivalent of Chapter 11 bank protection, the company has confirmed. The troubled music company is the U.K.'s last major high street music retailer and has over 230 brick and mortar HMV stores in the United Kingdom and Ireland along with 9 Fopp outlets. It also has a 50% holding in U.K. digital retailer 7digital, which powers its own digital offering HMV.com.

HMV closed its  U.S. outlets a few years ago. The chain had several large stores in Manhattan.

Billboard's Song Of The Year

The rest of the Top 100 songs of 2012 is here.

What's The Single Of 2012?

As Billboard approaches the cutoff date for its year-end charts, today they published the above recap of how many weeks each of this year's most popular singles have held the top spot. There have been relatively few #1 singles in 2012 due to four hits holding the pinnacle for nearly eight months in total. Maroon 5's One More Night is still #1 and appears to be headed for Single Of 2012, but Billboard's complicated system sometimes provides a surprise winner.

Scissor Sisters Score Third US #1

This is their third dance chart #1, following Filthy/Gorgeous (2005) and Fire With Fire (2010).

Out Singer Frank Ocean Tops R&B Chart

Newly out R&B star Frank Ocean debuted at the pinnacle of Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart this week. (I'm fairly sure this is the first time that an already out artist has achieved this.) In fact, Billboard's chart-watch column notes that Ocean's first week sales are more than three times what had been forecast before he came out. Ocean also debuted at #2 on the Top 200 Pop Albums chart.

Big Debut Predicted For Frank Ocean

Billboard Magazine is forecasting that the latest album from newly out R&B artist Frank Ocean may debut as high as #2 on this week's top albums chart.

It may launch at No. 2 with a robust 100,000 to 120,000 copies -- nearly all from Apple's iTunes Store. "Channel Orange" -- released by Def Jam and distributed by Universal Music Group Distribution -- is beating early, pre-release sales forecasts, which had pinned its start somewhere in the 40,000 to 50,000 range. That would have fallen in line with the bows of Odd Future's own debut studio set "The OF Tape Vol. 2" earlier this year (No. 5 with 40,000) and Odd Future member Tyler, the Creator's "Goblin" (No. 5 in 2011 with 45,000). While the album's CD version wasn't supposed to go on sale until July 17, physical retailers have been told by Universal to start selling the album as soon as they receive it. Thus, some physical CDs will be in the mix when the album makes it debut on the Billboard 200.

The album has already hit #1 on the iTunes chart in ten countries. Two months ago Adam Lambert became the first out-at-the-time gay artist to reach the pinnacle of Billboard's album chart. Will Frank Ocean become the second?

Headline Of The Day

Billboard Magazine: "We reflect on 21 musical moments that were pivotal in advancing the understanding and acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people." Adam Lambert, Ricky Martin, Glee, and more.

Adam Lambert Becomes Nation's First Out Performer With #1 Billboard Pop Album

Gay performers have had numerous #1 albums, of course, but none of them hit the top spot again after they came out. Billboard has the numbers:

For the first time, one "American Idol" replaces another at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart as Adam Lambert's "Trespassing" debuts atop the list with 77,000 sold according to Nielsen SoundScan. His arrival bumps last week's leader, Carrie Underwood's "Blown Away," down to No. 3 (54,000; down 55%). Lambert is the seventh "American Idol" finalist to reach No. 1, following Kelly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard, Clay Aiken, Underwood, Chris Daughtry (of Daughtry) and Scotty McCreery.

RELATED: Last month I chatted with Lambert at an industry meet-and-greet to support the new album. Nice guy, chatty, and not a hint of rock star 'tude.