Idolator

In a week where it seems the global financial crisis is inescapable, America decides that a buck is a nice price to spend on music, and the Top 40 of Billboard's Hot 100 sees a wave of new best-selling singles—including two in the Top 10 and a massive leap by a new No. 1 smash.

With that 79-place jump (which, ahem…I called last week), T.I. accomplishes two major chart feats. New No. 1 “Live Your Life” featuring Rihanna sets the record for the biggest leap to the top in history—which would be unremarkable, given the frequency with which this record has been broken recently, if not for the fact that T.I. is beating himself, having reset the mark just six weeks ago.

More impressively, by ousting his own “Whatever You Like,” T.I. joins a very elite club: acts that succeeded themselves at No. 1. During the Hot 100’s entire 50-year history, there have only been eight, and if you ignore featuring-artist credits, the number is six.

Besides these chart feats, T.I.’s hit also sets a record for the biggest debut sales week for a digital single. But we might want to get used to that happening. Already, iTunes is reporting a wave of new best-sellers as the music industry’s last blockbuster holiday hits full swing.

In a sleepy week for Billboard's Hot 100, Atlanta rap king T.I. maintains his grip on the No. 1 spot, his fifth nonconsecutive week there, with “Whatever You Like.”

The “jump ball” I expected to break within the Top Three turned out to be a dead ball, as the three hits hold their positions. T.I. actually outsold both Pink and Kanye West at buck-a-song retailers, blunting those two challengers’ previous digital-sales advantages and padding his already huge lead at radio. West, in particular, will probably muddle along for a while now, as his sales two weeks later have fallen off, and his airplay is emerging, steadily but slowly.

Besides, T.I. appears be settling into a long run atop the chart, and within a week or two it might be with a different song. His newest hit, previewed three weeks ago with Rihanna at the MTV Video Music Awards, leads a parade of fall contenders that will likely explode on next week’s chart. So in effect, this week feels like the calm before the pre-holiday storm.

Atlanta hip-hop king T.I. vaults 70 places into the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Hot 100 this week with "Whatever You Like," a sing-songy, smudgy Xerox of his classic 2006 hit "What You Know."

With this move, Clifford Joseph Harris Jr. scores his first No. 1 as a lead artist (he was credited two years ago on Justin Timberlake's chart-topper "My Love") and sets a new Hot 100 record for biggest leap to the top spot. T.I. takes the record away from Maroon 5, who set it just 16 months ago when "Makes Me Wonder" leapt from No. 64 to No. 1 in a single bound. They, in turn, had stolen the record from Kelly Clarkson, whose only No. 1 hit, "A Moment Like This," held the record for about four years, after she leapt from No. 52 to the top in 2002.

Before Clarkson, this record was held for 28 years, by the Beatles' "Can't Buy Me Love" (No. 26-No. 1 in 1964). The fact that a record held for three decades has been broken thrice in the last six years says less about these songs' popularity and more about the quirks of the modern charts and the sometimes dysfunctional relationship between sales and airplay.

And it means T.I. shouldn't gloat for too long—this record's likely to be broken again.