US Chart Analysis, 2/11/2006

High School Musical takes the Hot 100 Singles Chart by storm with 9 singles in the Hot 100, including 7 debuts and one track that jumps 82 spots, breaking the record for biggest hot 100 jump, while Beyonce tops that chart and the airplay top 40. Natasha Bedingfield also sets 2 chart milestones this week. Read it all below.

Billboard Hot 100:

Beyonce (featuirng Slim Thug) spends a second week at #1 with "Check On It," extending her cumulative weeks at #1 as a solo artist to 19 (2 ahead of Destiny's Child's 17 weeks).

But the really story of the week, and it's quite a good one, begins at #4. High School Musical is a made for TV Disney Channel musical that aired last month. The album was released at that time, but wasn't available digitally until this week. The ensuing download sales has achieved the remarkable feat of propelling no less than 9 of the album's cuts into the Hot 100, of which 7 debut this week, and 5 land in the top 40, including 1 in the top 10 (at #4, up 82 spots from #86, which breaks the record for biggest jump within the Billboard Hot 100). Here is a summary of the musical's amazing chart success this week:

#4 (up from #86), "Breaking Free" - Zac Efron and Vanessa Anne Hudgens (Troy & Gabriella)
#23 (up from #100, "Get'Cha Head in the Game" - Zac Efron (Troy)
#28 (NEW), "Start of Something New" - Zac Efron and Vanessa Anne Hudgens (Troy & Gabriella)
#34 (NEW), "We're All in This Together" - High School Musical Cast
#35 (NEW), "What I've Been Looking For" - Lucas Gabreel and Ashley Tisdale (Ryan & Sharpay)
#43 (NEW), "Stick to the Status Quo" - High School Musical Cast
#62 (NEW), "Bop to the Top" - Lucas Gabreel and Ashley Tisdale (Ryan & Sharpay)
#67 (NEW), "What I've Been Looking For (Reprise)" - Zac Efron and Vanessa Anne Hudgens (Troy & Gabriella)
#72 (NEW), "When There Was Me and You" - Vanessa Anne Hudgens (Gabriella)

The characters' names are in parenthesis, which is how iTunes lists the artists (Billboard uses the actors names). It may just be a flash in the pan and all these songs disappear next week, but it's still a pretty amazing feat and a testament to the power teens have over the chart through digital sales. There's lots of sound bites to mine from it too. Vanessa Anne Hudgens, for example, a chart unkown until now, has 5 singles debuting on the Hot 100 this week and a top 10 hit--Something Madonna, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, or Britney Spears cannot claim.

Natasha Bedingfield earns her first top 10 hit this week with Unwritten at #10 (up from #14). This is significant for 2 reasons: first, Natasha and her brother Daniel become the third set of brother/sister siblings to have separate top 10 hits after the Donny and Marie Osmond and Neneh and Eagle-Eye Cherry. Daniel Bedingfield hit #10 in 2002 with his first single, "Gotta Get Thru This." Second, this is the first time almost 5 years that two British artists have had singles in the Billboard top 10. Joining Bedingfield in the top 10 this week is countryman James Blunt's "You're Beautiful," which moves up three spots this week to #5. The last time 2 Brits had top 10 hits together was in 2001 with Dido's "Thank You" and S Club 7's "Never Had a Dream Come True" charted. For more about British music trends on the Billboard Hot 100, read this post.


I'll write more later. I had written the whole thing and it got deleted, so I'm a little upset, but I wanted to share the stuff about High School Musical for sure.