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On the pop charts: A new year starts with familiar names

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A new year in pop music begins, and out of the gate it looks awfully similar to the way the most recent one started 12 months ago. Country starlet Taylor Swift heads into 2011 with the No. 1 album on the U.S. pop chart, according to Nielsen SoundScan, as her ‘Speak Now’ has sold a total of 2.9 million copies in just 10 weeks.

Post-Christmas, sales are typically depressed, and Swift tops the U.S. pop chart, which is maintained by industry trade Billboard, with just 77,000 copies sold. The artist, who had the bestselling album of 2009 when her ‘Fearless’ sold 3.2 million copies, will be a major presence on year-end charts released by SoundScan, which are expected to be distributed to media outlets this afternoon (Pop & Hiss will follow with a new post once they arrive).

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With Christmas out of the way, America’s interest in U.K. vocalist Susan Boyle will now begin its gradual wane into near nothingness, at least outside of celebrity mag and blog circles. Her album ‘The Gift,’ which was No. 2 last week, falls to No. 32. Nevertheless, Boyle’s sophomore effort managed to rack up 1.8 million in sales in just eight weeks.

So what does that mean? Essentially, one can likely pencil in a Boyle album for November of 2011. Compare, for instance, Boyle’s 2010 sales to those of Ke$ha, who many peg as the year’s runaway pop newcomer. Ke$ha’s ‘Animal’ sold 1.8 million copies over 52 weeks. So, although Boyle’s sales window wasn’t open for long, her comforting takes on pop and holiday standards gave the music-biz some Kinect-like hotness.

With no newcomers making a major impact, familiar names dot the top 10, including Eminem, Katy Perry, Bruno Mars and Kanye West, among others. As for West, whose ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ is being excessively worked-over and discussed by music crit pundits as if it’s running for office in 2012, the artist continues to rack up steady sales. In just six weeks, West has sold 882,000 copies of the album.

That’s nothing to snicker at, as summer sensation Perry, whose ‘California Gurls’ and ‘Teenage Dream’ were dang-near inescapable, has sold 997,000 copies of her second album, ‘Teenage Dream.’ That number has been tallied over the course of 19 weeks.

R&B pop chameleon Mars sees his ‘Doo-Wops & Hooligans’ jump from No. 20 to No. 7, giving it a total of 458,000 copies sold. Meanwhile, his single ‘Grenade’ continues to rack up digital sales, selling an additional 425,000 downloads this week, according to Billboard.

Sales for the final week of 2010 were down 8% when matched against the comparable week the year before. When full year-end numbers are available, Pop & Hiss will have a follow-up post.

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-- Todd Martens

‘California Gurls’

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