Taylor Swift And Ke$ha Take Control Of Album, Single Charts

You could tell Taylor Swift’s Speak Now album was going to be big right out of the gate, given that Billboard had reported on projected first-week sales of around 800,000 copies. But when all was said and done, the 20-year-old “Mine” singer’s third offering exceeded expectations and smashed records. Did she single-handedly save the music industry? Well, maybe at least for one week, she did. Read on!

Speak Now wound up selling 1,047,000 copies last week. Needless to say, she tops the Billboard Top 200 album chart this week. The last time any album sold more than that figure was March 2005, Billboard notes, when 50 Cent’s The Massacre hit #1 after moving 1,141,000 copies.

Speak Now also posted the highest one-week sales for a country album since Garth Brooks’ two-disc Double Live rolled out with 1,085,000 in 1998.

What’s interesting is that Swift did so without a bona fide smash hit single to support the LP. Sure, “Mine” peaked at #3 on the Hot 100, but by mid-September the song had dropped out of the Top 10 altogether.

At any rate, Taylor Swift has additionally racked up the highest album sales for a woman in 10 years. Previously, Britney Spears’ Oops!…I Did It Again hit #1 with 1,319,000 back in 2000.

Meanwhile, over on the Hot 100, Ke$ha’s first Cannibal single “We R Who We R” barrels into the #1 spot, thereby knocking Far East Movement’s “Like A G6” down to #2. This marks the second chart-topper for the timely pop songstress, after “Tik Tok” previously spent nine weeks at #1 between January and February this year.

Taylor Swift’s Speak Now will likely hang around the upper reaches of the Top 200 throughout the holidays. But by the same token, do you think Ke$ha’s “We R Who We R” has what it takes to become as memorable of a hit as “Tik Tok”?

The Top 10 of Billboard’s Top 200 Albums:

1. Taylor Swift, Speak Now *new* 2. Sugarland, The Incredible Machine 3. Kings Of Leon, Come Around Sundown 4. Lil Wayne, I Am Not A Human Being 5. Eminem, Recovery 6. Elton John & Leon Russell, The Union 7. Glee Cast, The Rocky Horror Glee Show 8. Rod Stewart, Fly Me To The Moon 9. Darius Rucker, Charleston, SC 1966 10. Michael Buble, Hollywood: Deluxe EP *new*