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The Big News: Lady Antebellum’s reign atop the charts came to an end as Ludacris and Gorillaz battled it out and the Atlanta rapper’s Battle of the Sexes took Number One on the Billboard 200 with 137,000 copies sold. Gorillaz landed at Number Two as Plastic Beach moved 112,000 copies. Battle is now Ludacris’ first chart-topping album since 2006’s Release Therapy and the fourth Number One album of his career. Plastic Beach also gave frontman Damon Albarn the best U.S. debut of his career — including his tenure with Blur — and improved on Demon Days‘ Number Six debut in 2005. Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now dropped to Number Three.

Nearly four decades after his death, Jimi Hendrix, Rolling Stone’s current cover star, entered the charts at Number Four with his collection of unearthed tracks Valleys of Neptune, which sold 95,000 copies. Rounding out the Top Five was another debut, Gary Allan’s Get Off on the Pain. In platinum news, Lady Gaga’s The Fame surpassed the three million mark and Justin Bieber’s My World scored the 16-year-old singer his first million seller.

Debuts: It was a big week for new albums as James Mercer and Danger Mouse’s Broken Bells entered the charts at Number Seven with their self-titled debut, which sold 49,000 in its first week. Further down, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Beat the Devil’s Tattoo came in at 56, Frightened Rabbit’s Winter of Mixed Drinks took 78 with 6,900 copies and the Pavement greatest hits collection Quarantine the Past bowed at 149.

Last Week’s Heroes: The influx of debuts in the Top 10 pushed Sade’s Soldier of Love out of the Top Five for the first time since its release five weeks ago, with the album landing at Six. The biggest drop from last week goes to Lifehouse’s Smoke & Mirrors, which fell from Number Six in its debut week to 34 thanks to a 74 percent sales decrease. With Ludacris’ pair of tracks in the Top 10 of the Hot 100 — “How Low” and his guest spot on Taio Cruz’s current Number One “Break Your Heart” — expect Battle of the Sexes to remain in the top spot this time next week.

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The Big News: After spending the last three weeks at Number Two, Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now recaptured the top spot from Sade’s Soldier of Love in its sixth week on the Billboard 200, selling 126,000 copies to push past the platinum mark. After a three-week reign, Soldier of Love settled into Number Two with 79,000 copies sold. Below the resilient Top Two, four debuts lined up in Number Three through Six: Blake Shelton’s Hillbilly Bone, American Idol finalist Danny Gokey’s My Best Days, the Almost Alice soundtrack inspired by Tim Burton’s new movie and Lifehouse’s Smoke & Mirrors.

Gokey’s Number Four debut marks the second-best Idol opening week by a Season Eight contestant. Adam Lambert’s For Your Entertainment opened at Number Three in November 2009, though Lambert’s debut week sales of 198,000 far exceeded the 65,000 Gokey sold. Gokey did out-chart Kris Allen’s self-titled post-Idol (at Number 11 in November) and Allison Iraheta’s Just Like You, which peaked at 35.

Debuts: Two more newbies broke into the Top 10: Raheem DeVaughn’s Love & War Masterpiece at Nine and Easton Corbin’s self-titled at 10. DJ Khaled’s Victory debuted at 14, Peter Gabriel’s covers album Scratch My Back bowed in at Number 26 and John Hiatt’s Open Road scored 71.

Last Week’s Heroes: In its sixth week, Lady Antebellum somehow managed a six percent upswing in Need You Now sales while Soldier of Love dropped off 37 percent. With the surge of debuts near the top of the charts, a bunch of Top 10 mainstays found themselves in the teens for the first time, like Lil Wayne’s Rebirth and, after 15 weeks and 5.6 million copies, Susan Boyle’s I Dreamed a Dream, which fell from Eight to 18. Next week, we’ll see if Gorillaz’ Plastic Beach can shake up the Top Two.

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The Black Eyed Peas captured the Number One spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for the second straight week as “Imma Be” bought off the continually rising Young Money track “Bedrock,” which moved up one spot to Number Two. Between “Imma Be,” “Boom Boom Pow” and “I Gotta Feeling,” Black Eyed Peas have maintained the Number One spot on the Hot 100 for a large chunk of the last year, and The E.N.D.’s first two singles racked up a record-breaking 26 consecutive weeks on the charts between April through October 2009. Ke$ha’s “TiK ToK,” which enjoyed a Hot 100 chart-topping run comparable to the Peas, dropped from Two to Four this week.

Elsewhere on the Hot 100, Rihanna’s “Rude Boy” was the biggest gainer in the Top 10, leaping from Number 23 last week to a Number Nine finish in only its third week on the chart. Ke$ha’s “Blah Blah Blah” with 3Oh!3 seems unlikely to replicate its predecessor’s glory as her second Animal single remained stuck in Number 11 for the second straight week (it has peaked at Seven so far). After getting skewered by the Saturday Night Live cast, the bad news continued for the “We Are the World 25 for Haiti” crew kept on coming, and the charity single plummeted from Number Six all the way down to Number 36.

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• Ke$ha Edges Out “We Are the World” to Remain Hot 100 Queen
• Ke$ha’s “TiK ToK” Continues Record-Breaking Run

The Big News: For the third consecutive week, Sade’s Soldier of Love topped the Billboard 200, selling an additional 127,000 copies to keep the top spot on lockdown and out of the hands of Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now, which sold 118,000 at Number Two. However, Need You Now did cross the platinum barrier in its fifth week. The biggest surprise on the charts was Johnny Cash’s American VI: Ain’t No Grave, selling 54,000 copies on its way to a Number Three debut. Released just three days after what would have been the Man in Black’s 78th birthday, VI was Cash’s second consecutive Top Three album, following the Number One debut of American V: A Hundred Highways in 2006.

The usual suspects rounded out the Top 10: Black Eyed Peas’ The E.N.D. at Four, Lady Gaga’s The Fame at Five and Lil Wayne’s Rebirth at Six. Ke$ha’s sales of Animal were up seven percent and the album jumped from 14 to Seven, thanks in large part to her new single “Blah Blah Blah.” Her talent show cover of “Karma Police” probably didn’t hurt.

Debuts: It was yet another slow debut week on the charts. Besides Cash, only Alkaline Trio’s This Addiction managed to break into the Top 20, grabbing Number 11 with 26,000 copies sold. The Rocket Summer’s Of Men and Angels debuted at Number 38, High on Fire’s Snakes for the Divine entered at 62 and Joanna Newsom’s Have One on Me bowed at Number 74 with 7,400 copies.

Last Week’s Heroes: Sade and Lady Antebellum’s clutch on Numbers One and Two seems unshakable as the pair continue to sell 100K+ copies a week, more than double their closest competitors. With another slate of smaller new releases on deck for this week, don’t anticipate much changes at the top of the charts until possibly next week, when Gorillaz’s Plastic Beach could give Sade and Antebellum a run for the top spot.

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Ke$ha’s near-historic run at Number One on the Hot 100 has come to an end thanks to the Black Eyed Peas. The group’s “Imma Be” beat out “TiK ToK,” sending Ke$ha’s debut single to Number Two after nine consecutive weeks atop the chart. The Black Eyed Peas’ The E.N.D. is now the first album since Wilson Phillips’ 1990 self-titled album to spawn three Hot 100-topping singles, Reuters reports, with “Imma Be” joining “Boom Boom Pow” and “I Gotta Feeling” as Number One singles. The Black Eyed Peas set a Hot 100 record by spending 26 consecutive weeks at Number One thanks to those first two singles, too.

Check out photos of the Peas’ tour-opening show in Atlanta.

Meanwhile, Ke$ha fell just two weeks shy of tying chart history for longest tenure at Number One with a debut single; Debby Bonne’s 11 weeks at Number One with her 1977 debut single “You Light Up My Life” remains the record holder. (Looks like the Peas’ epically long video helped their cause.) Meanwhile, “We Are the World 25 For Haiti” took a small but giant step back, slipping from Number Two to Number Six this week — a minor fall, but one that likely means the new version of the classic song won’t follow its predecessor’s path to the Number One spot on the Hot 100.

The chart’s biggest surprise came courtesy of k.d. lang, who scored her first Hot 100 since 1992’s “Constant Craving” with her 2010 rendition of Leonard Cohen’s, what else, “Hallelujah,” which she performed at the Vancouver Winter Olympics’ opening ceremony. The song debuted at Number 61.

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The Big News: With no noteworthy new releases to challenge it, Sade’s Soldier of Love remained the Billboard 200’s Number One album for the second consecutive week, selling an additional 190,000 copies. After two weeks, Sade’s first album in over a decade has sold 694,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now continues to be Sade’s only competitor, coming in at Number Two after selling another 144,000 copies, good enough to push Need You Now platinum in only its fourth week.

After the top two, sales nosedive, with the week’s Number Three album, Black Eyed Peas’ The E.N.D., selling less than half the copies Lady Antebellum did. Rounding out the Top Five were Lady Gaga’s The Fame, which when combined with sales of The Fame Monster puts Gaga in line for quadruple-platinum status in the coming weeks, at Number Four and Lil Wayne’s Rebirth at Five with 58,000 copies sold.

Debuts: It was a bleak week for new releases as the highest-charting debut was Story of the Year’s Constant way down at Number 42 with 14,000 copies. Only one other debut managed to break into the Top 100: Freeway and Jake One’s Stimulus Package at 61. On the indie front, Mumford & Sons’ Sign No More entered the charts at 116, Local Natives’ Gorilla Manor charted at 142 and the new Wu-Tang comp Return of the Wu and Friends landed at 163.

Last Week’s Heroes: Last week’s bestsellers simply jostled for better sales position this week with no new releases to challenge them. TobyMac’s Tonight, which was Number Six in its debut last week, dropped down to Number 16, making it the only album from last week’s Top 10 not to repeat the feat. (Alicia Keys’ The Element of Freedom, which rose from 12 last week to Number Seven, filled the vacancy.) With no other major releases on the horizon this week, it looks as though Sade Adu will once again be queen of the charts next week.

Photo: Bedder/Getty
A glittery 22-year-old party animal from Nashville has overpowered 75 of music and film’s big names.
All the star power on “We Are the World 25 For Haiti” wasn’t enough to knock Ke$ha out of the Number One spot on the Hot 100 and “TiK ToK” reigned for its ninth consecutive week, Reuters writes. As Rolling Stone reported last week, Ke$ha is the first female artist since Debby Boone to remain atop the Hot 100 with her debut single for this many consecutive weeks. Boone locked down Number One for 11 straight in 1977 with “You Light Up My Life,” so Ke$ha needs to hold off the competition for 14 more days to tie the record. When RS asked Ke$ha about her blitz on the Hot 100, she said, “It’s all really weird, and really, really cool. I’m just so impressed that my fans are so amazing, I have the best fans in the world, sorry! It’s just the truth.”

While the “We Are the World” remake debuted at Number Two on the Billboard Hot 100, chart history demonstrates that Ke$ha shouldn’t let down her guard just yet: Back in 1985, when the original “We Are the World” was released, it took over a month for the single to climb to the top spot. Once there, it didn’t relinquish Number One for nearly four weeks. That “We are the World” entered at Number 21 in its Hot 100 debut, so the 25th anniversary rendition of the song is off to a much better chart start than its predecessor.

In addition to “We Are the World 25 For Haiti,” Ke$ha might also face some stiff competition from former Hot 100 incumbents the Black Eyed Peas, whose “Imma Be” at Number Three could make a run for Number One now that its 10-minute-long video is out. Ke$ha may even challenge herself, because “Blah Blah Blah,” another single off her debut Animal, jumped 11 spots to Number 11 on the Hot 100.

So who is this Hollywood sign-defacing, Hot 100-ruling party princess? Watch Ke$ha ask the hard questions to Ke$ha in our video interview:

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The Big News: After a 10-year hiatus, Sade stormed the Billboard 200 — Soldier of Love eclipsed the half-million mark its first week in stores, selling 502,000 copies to push past Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now and claim the title of 2010’s top-selling debut week. The sales well exceeded Sade’s midweek estimates, and Soldier of Love marks the band’s first Number One album since Promise back in 1985. After a two-week reign, Lady Antebellum settled into Number Two with another 208,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Three more new albums debuted inside the Top 10, led by Jaheim’s Another Round, which sold 112,000 copies to take Number Three. Country musician Josh Turner’s Haywire and Christian rapper TobyMac’s Tonight entered the charts at Five and Six, respectively. The unearthed Jimi Hendrix song “Valleys of Neptune” claimed the Number One spot on the Singles chart, ahead of artists like Lady Gaga and Sade.

Debuts: Outside the Top 10, the next highest charting debut was Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds’ third live acoustic album Live in Las Vegas at Number 17 with 35,000 copies. After shattering February 14th records at the box office, the Valentine’s Day soundtrack bowed at Number 20. Elsewhere, Massive Attack’s Heligoland slotted at Number 46, Yeasayer’s second album Odd Blood scored Number 62 and Hot Chip’s One Life Stand took 97.

Last Week’s Heroes: While Lady Antebellum relinquished the Number One spot after holding strong against Lil Wayne and the Hope For Haiti Now collective, Need You Now only experienced a one-percent sales drop from last week, which speaks volumes about the album’s durability. Weezy, on the other hand, saw his Rebirth sales drop 49 percent as his rock-rap LP sold another 89,000 copies, good for Number Four. By comparison, however, Tha Carter III sold more copies in its second week (309,000) than Rebirth has sold in its first two weeks combined (265,000.) This week’s biggest drop, however, was reserved for Nick Jonas and the Administration’s Who I Am, as the JoBro’s side project plummeted from Number Three to Number 28 following a 71 percent sales drop from its debut week.

The Big News: Four new releases stormed the top of the charts, but the King of Pop outsold them all — again — as sales of Michael Jackson’s catalog topped over 800,000 copies in the first full week since the singer’s death. Leading the charge was Jackson’s Number Ones, selling 339,000 copies to rank Number One on the Top Albums chart (Jackson’s discography is ineligible for the Top 200 chart because the releases are older than 18 months). Thriller came in at Number Two with 187,000 copies. Both albums sold more than the week’s Top 200 champ the Now 31 compilation, which sold 169,000 units.

Other members of the over 100K club this week include Brad Paisley’s American Saturday Night (Number Two on Top 200, Four on Top Albums) with 129,000 copies, the Essential Michael Jackson collection at Number Five on the Top Albums list thanks to 125,000 copies and Rob Thomas’ Cradlesong, which sold 121,000 copies to place Number Three on the Top 200. Jackson also grabbed all of the Top 10 spots on the Top Catalog Albums chart. Amazingly, roughly 82 percent of Jackson’s album sales have come from CD purchases and not digital outlets, Billboard reports.

Debuts: Jackson’s chart reign almost overshadows the stellar debut of Wilco’s Wilco (The Album), which tied the debut of 2007’s Sky Blue Sky by bowing in at Number Four, selling 98,000 copies in the process. A pair of self-titled albums entered the charts at Six and Seven as Jeremih and Killswitch Engage made the cut with their eponymous releases. Other notables include Moby’s Wait For Me at 22, Levon Helm’s Electric Dirt at 36 and the Wu-Tang Clan project Chamber Music at 49.

Last Week’s Heroes: Michael Jackson’s increased sales kept him in the game while the rest of last week’s Top 10 took a tumble. Regina Spektor’s Far, a shocker in the Number Three spot seven days ago, dropped down to 26. The Jonas Brothers’ Lines, Vines and Trying Times fell from Two to Eight while Eminem’s Relapse was finally booted from the Top Five, falling from Five to Nine. Next week, with no major releases on this week’s slate, we’ll find out if the Michael Jackson discography can make a run at outselling the entire Top 200.