With just nine trophies handed out on its live CBS telecast, the actual award portion of the Grammy Awards is something of a subplot. Drama was provided by the likes of Esperanza Spalding and the Arcade Fire, who were each surprise winners, but it was Grammy-less U.K. folk-rockers Mumford & Sons who, as expected, experienced the largest post-Grammy sales gain. 

Mumford & Sons went 0-2 in its nominated categories, but had a showcase performance with legend Bob Dylan. There were no outlandish costumes or larger-than-life set pieces, but the stripped-down approach suited Mumford & Sons just fine, and the group's "Sigh No More" held its No. 2 post on the U.S. pop chart.

"Sigh No More" sold 133,000 copies this week, according to Nielsen SoundScan, giving the group its best-ever sales week on the tally. In its 48 weeks of release, "Sigh No More" has sold about 948,000 copies. What's more, the song the band performed on the telecast, "The Cave," sold 120,000 downloads in the week after the Grammys, a 205% sales increase that gives the cut a total of 407,000 copies sold. 

In addition to Dylan, Mumford & Sons were joined by roots act the Avett Brothers. The latter's "I and Love and You" benefited as well, albeit on a much smaller scale. Sales ofthe album were up 67% to 15,000 copies, giving it a total of 31,000 copies sold. 

Teen sensation Justin Bieber, who lost his best new artist bid to jazz bassist Spalding, had the No. 1 album this week, as his "Never Say Never: The Remixes" bowed in the pole position with 161,000 copies sold. Bieber was a Grammy performer, but the Grammy impact is harder to pinpoint for the 2010 breakout star.

Bieber hype continued to be fed with not only the release of the remix effort, but his 3-D film “Never Say Never” as well, which tallied more than $50 million in the U.S. in two weeks. Bieber chart dominance extends well beyond his No. 1 album. His "My World 2.0" is at No. 8 this week (2.4 million sold to date) and the softer, gentler side of Bieber is a hit as well, as "My Worlds Acoustic" is at No. 18 (526,000 sold to date).

Other highlights from this week's sales chart:

Lady Gaga has snagged a piece of pop music history in landing the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 this week with her new single “Born This Way.”

Even more significant than posting the highest first-week digital sales by a female artist, with 448,000 downloads of the song, according to Nielsen SoundScan, Gaga scored the 1,000th No. 1 single on the Billboard chart since its inception in 1958.

In recognition of the milestone among chart watchers, Billboard has posted a chronological listing of all 1,000 chart-topping songs.

The first? Ricky Nelson’s “Poor Little Fool,” which beat all comers on that first Hot 100 chart dated Aug. 4, 1958. With that in mind, some might consider it a shame that America’s latest teen idol, Justin Bieber, didn’t land the No. 1 slot this week to bookend the half-century-plus period that began with pop music’s original teen idol. (Life magazine is credited with coining the phrase in a feature story on Nelson’s rise to stardom.)

Pop & Hiss thought we’d take the opportunity to scan through the years for some of the chart’s other high- and lowlights.

Adult singer/songwriter Amos Lee leads the U.S. pop charts this week, and though his 40,000 in sales, according to Nielsen SoundScan, mark a career best for the artist, the number will come with an asterisk -- at least for a week or two. Lee's "Mission Bell" marks the lowest-ever No. 1 debut for an album released in the post-SoundScan era, which began in 1991. 

The record-breaking number comes only two weeks after alt-rock vets Cake led the chart with 44,000 in sales. The act's "Showroom of Compassion" is at No. 51 this week, with close to 9,000 copies sold. In three weeks, "Compassion" has sold 68,000 copies, indicative of an album largely playing to die-hards.  

Though Lee's built himself a steady career, he is a long way from the superstars who once dominated the pole position on the chart, often for multiple weeks. A recent concert date in Los Angeles at the Music Box failed to sell out, although a Goldenvoice spokesperson notes that it was close. Nevertheless, the Music Box is midsize venue with a capacity of 1,300, and indie act Beach House has managed to sell out its upcoming two-night stand that begins on Feb. 16. 

Back on the charts, Sam Beam's Iron & Wine muscles a No. 2 in the depressed climate, scoring a career high for his "Kiss Each Other Clean." Yet the 39,000 copies sold by "Kiss" isn't all that much higher than the 32,000 sold by his "Shepherd's Dog" back in 2007, according to Billboard. Three years ago, however, sales in the 30,000-range would have likely pegged an artist to land somewhere in the 20s, as "Shepherd's Dog" bowed at No. 24.

Taken as a whole, the sales news only gets worse. Overall album sales, according to Billboard, are down 18% from the comparable week in 2010, and 13% for the year. BigChampagne's recently launched Ultimate Chart doesn't add much clarity, as its jumble of social-networking sites results in a tally that sometimes feels like little more than a popularity contest.The likes of Bruno Mars, Katy Perry and Britney Spears dot the top five, although there is one surprise at the top of BigChampagne's chart.

The year-end sales numbers released this week by Nielsen SoundScan contained the usual grim news for the music biz. Album sales once again declined in double-digit fashion, but that was fully expected. Perhaps more surprising and cringe-inducing was the drastic slowdown in growth in the digital sector, as sales of individual songs grew just 1% in 2010, compared to a 28% splurge just two years ago. 

But with the bigger industry picture having been covered earlier this week on these digital, tree-friendly pages, Pop & Hiss can further explore the seven-page bonanza of year-end SoundScan stats. So relax, stream your favorite album you downloaded (at no cost) in 2010, and read on. 

The headline: Vinyl Sales Hit a New High With 2.8 Million Sold
The context:  Sales of LP albums have been a niche bright spot for the industry, but let's put the emphasis on the word niche. In 10 weeks, Taylor Swift's "Speak Now" outsold the entire vinyl industry, moving 2.9 million copies since its release. That's not to write off the success of the format. Vinyl sales were indeed up 14% in 2010 compared to 2009 and managed to account for 1% of all album sales. The real story isn't that vinyl is up in a down market, but rather that vinyl is providing an edge to mom-and-pop independent retailers. SounndScan notes that overall album sales at indie stores grew two percentage points to 8% in 2010, and the artists dotting the top of the vinyl sales chart are the ones that shops like Amoeba Music hit out of the park. The Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs" sold 19,000 vinyl LPs, the Black Keys' "Brothers" was close behind with just more than 18,000 LPs, and other artists in the top 10 included Vampire Weekend, the National, Beach House and the xx.

 
Digital music sales, which over the years have provided optimism for the music industry in the face of crumbling CD sales, are starting to flatline as consumers turn to a growing number of free and legal ways of listening to hit songs whenever they want.

Sales of individual digital songs grew just 1% in 2010, down from 8% in 2009 and 27% in 2008, according to a report released Wednesday by market research firm Nielsen SoundScan.

The slowing digital numbers are a sign that the market for digital music is maturing, said Eric Garland, chief executive of Big Champagne, a digital music consulting firm. Garland believes the numbers point to another change in the market -- the emergence of free and legal alternative sources to music online, such as YouTube, Vevo and Pandora.

“What's changed is that people are listening to vastly more free music without breaking the rules,” Garland said. “That can have a cannibalization effect.”

The decline in the growth rate of digital song sales occurred as record labels pushed for iTunes to raise the price of top-selling songs 30%, to $1.29 from 99 cents, on the company's iTunes store, which accounts for the majority of digital music sales. That's preventing a corresponding slowdown in revenue growth.

“The vast majority of the top 200 digital tracks are now $1.29,” said David Bakula, a Nielsen music analyst. “So while sales of singles are flat, their revenue is absolutely going up.” Nielsen does not report dollar sales.

The increase in the price of singles has made the cost of $9.99 albums look more attractive, boosting digital album sales 13% last year compared with 16% in 2009 and 32% in 2008.

Apple continues to account for most music sales online, commanding a more than 60% market share, according to industry research firm NPD Group. Amazon.com, which generated numerous headlines in 2010 for deep-discounting albums by the likes of Taylor Swift, Kanye West and the Arcade Fire to $3.99, is a distant second. Fire-sale pricing aside, albums are still about one-third of overall digital music sales.

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).

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.

 
Reason No. 785 that “there will always be an England”: The U.K. pop singles chart this week is topped by the latest winner of Simon Cowell’s hit show “The X Factor,” coming to U.S.  TV screens soon. But on his way to No. 1 with his single “When We Collide,” newly crowned pop star Matt Cardle got a surprise challenge from a nearly 50-year-old U.S. surf-rock classic.

The Trashmen’s “Surfin’ Bird’’ -- the one boasting the Shakespearean refrain, “Bird, bird, bird, the bird is the word” -- debuted at No 3, right behind Cardle and the No. 2 single, Rihanna’s “What’s My Name,” and ahead of the Black Eyed Peas’ “The Time (Dirty Bit),” last week’s No. 1 place holder.

“Every Christmas, the No. 1 single has been by the person from that show,” said Tim Livingston, director of sales and publicisty for Sundazed Music, the New York-based reissue specialty label that has the rights to “Surfin’ Bird” in the U.S. “Evidently, a bunch of people over there got fed up with that, and last year they had a grass-roots campaign to try to get Rage Against the Machine to No. 1.”

It worked: Rage’s 1992 song “Killing in the Name” outsold 2009 “X Factor” winner Joe McElderry’s “The Climb” and wrested the No. 1 slot from Cowell’s talent-contest victor during Christmas week.

The music business doesn't have an overabundance of sure things these days, but a holiday-themed album from Susan Boyle probably comes close. Like a warm cup of cider, Boyle's "The Gift" is all yuletide comfort, and Boyle fans have propelled the album to more than 1.1 million in sales in four weeks, according to Nielsen SoundScan. In the last week alone, the album has sold 272,000 copies.

In its return to the pole position on the U.S. pop chart, Boyle knocks out Kanye West, whose "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" slides to No. 7 in its second full week. A return to hip-hop after the downbeat "808s & Heartbreak," West's "Fantasy" has generated a bounty of media attention and given the artist a solid two-week total of 605,000 copies sold.

Boyle has a lead over Taylor Swift on the Billboard-managed tallies. The country star's "Speak Now" has already sold more than 2.1 million copies, racking up an additional 182,000 copies sold this week. A number of holiday albums infiltrate the charts, including Jackie Evancho's "O Holy Night" and the latest collection of music from the Fox show "Glee." The two sit at Nos. 3 and 4, each selling a little more than 128,000 copies.

If there was any doubt that Nicki Minaj was the “it” girl of hip-hop, the Queens emcee wiped it away.

After going head to head with Kanye West when delivering her highly anticipated debut album on last week’s very crowded pre-Thanksgiving record release day, Minaj scored the No. 2 spot.

Minaj's “Pink Friday” sold 375,000 copies of the disc, behind West, who took the top spot after selling 496,000 of “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,” according to Nielsen Soundscan.

With few female emcees on the charts, Minaj (who was recently profiled in The Times) has been hailed as a kind of savior with pop crossover potential. In the last half-decade, rappers such as Foxy Brown, Eve, Lil' Kim and Missy Elliott have been out of the spotlight, and with Lauryn Hill only vaguely on the scene, the absence of a powerful female voice has been notable.

The strong debut of “Pink Friday” is just another feat for Minaj. The last female emcee to push  first-week numbers like those was Elliott, whose 2002 album "Under Construction" sold 259,000 copies its first week out.

The rapper is no stranger to making chart history after her Annie Lennox-sampling single, "Your Love," became the first female hip-hop No. 1 to hit Billboard's rap singles chart since Elliott's "Work It" in 2002. She's also the female rapper with the most chart entries in one year on Billboard's 100 — she's had eight so far.

When we spoke with her earlier this year, the expectations for the album’s release weighed heavily on her mind.

“I think about the pressure to deliver, but it actually motivates me more than anything. I use that in a positive way,” she said about the attention placed on the disc. “Sometimes it’s a little scary. It’s funny, I’d rather people have low expectations of me than super-high expectations because then I just live my life like I want to exceed everyone’s expectations, so if you set them extremely high I feel like I have way more to do. Way more to prove.”

What Minaj’s big debut will mean for the future of female rap is uncertain -- especially as her would-be peers including Lil’ Kim definitely aren’t welcoming her with open arms (Kim released a diss track last week mocking Minaj, titled “Black Friday”) and fans continue to anticipate long-rumored returns from Elliott, Hill and Kim.

But despite all the naysayers, rapper Talib Kweli says Minaj isn't getting enough credit for what she is adding to hip-hop.

“Say what you want about her being a Barbie or whatever. But there are no artists out there who have elevated the level of the 16 bars to where she has it right now," Kweli said. She brags on one of her records that she’s never been on a record that didn’t make Billboard charts, and that’s not a fluke, because when Nicki goes on a record, whether it’s ‘Monster’ by Kanye West or ‘Bottoms Up’ by Trey Songz, she creates characters, changing her voice, doing inflections, doing everything emcees should be doing.

“Some people see all the pop and the marketing and it turns them off, but they don’t realize that the reason these artists are where they are is because they pay attention to the craft.”

-- Gerrick D. Kennedy
twitter.com/gerrickkennedy

Photo: Nicki Minaj poses at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles in September. Credit: Mario Anzuoni / Reuters

At the top: Behind bars, but he still has near-free reign of the U.S. pop charts. Rapper Lil Wayne returns to a familiar position as "I Am Not A Human Being" bolts to No. 1 after falling to No. 16 last week. Sales are up more than 440% to 125,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and give "Human Being" a three-week tally of 259,000 copies.  

"Human Being" was released three weeks ago to digital outlets, but last week retailers were given the green light to sell the more ol'-fashioned compact disc edition, one that came with more tracks than were initially available digitally. Fans appeared willing to wait for the expanded physical edition.

The download was sold at close to the same price as the CD -- around the standard $9.99 at most outlets -- and lacked a sizable portion of the content. In two weeks, fans purchased about 133,000 downloads, just a little more than what the CD sold in one week of release.

"Human Being" is not being classified as a direct follow-up to Lil Wayne's blockbuster "Tha Carter III," and sales expectations are down to more realistic heights for "Human Being." Earlier this year, Lil Wayne issued a rock-influenced album in "Rebirth," which was lukewarmly received by fans. So far, the album, released in February, has sold 678,000 copies.

A Pop & Hiss look at what's selling -- and what isn't.

At the top: The U.S. pop charts have had an influx of country the last two weeks, as Toby Keith's "Bullets in the Gun" is the second-straight Nashville representative to lead the tally. "Bullets" hits with about 71,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan, a celebratory landing that comes with an asterisk. 

The number, according to Billboard, is the lowest-ever debut for a No. 1 album since SoundScan began tracking data in 1991. While there have been smaller sales tallies posted by albums that rose to the pole position -- including 60,000 copies sold by Justin Bieber's "My World 2.0" earlier this year -- Keith's figure is a new low for an album that debuted in the top spot. 

The Billboard archives reveal that Keith's 2009 effort entered at No. 3 with 90,000 copies sold. His latest sells just a few thousand more than Kenny Chesney's "Hemingway's Whiskey," which in its second week moves down to No. 2. The latter's two-week sales total now stands at 249,000.  

Move over Beatles, and make way for the cast of “Glee.” The hit TV show has now produced more songs that have charted on the Billboard Hot 100 than the Fab Four throughout its career.

The Beatles placed 71 titles in the Hot 100 from their first appearance in 1964 with “I Want to Hold Your Hand” through “Real Love” in 1996. But it’s only taken the karaoke-minded cast members of “Glee” a bit more than 16 months to put 75 songs onto the same chart.

Because of the sheer quantity of “Glee” releases -- five or six songs are typically made available for downloading after each week’s episode -- the number of potential charting songs from the show has rapidly outstripped releases by conventional bands or solo acts.

That doesn’t, however, mean the “Glee” singers have surpassed the Beatles’ sales. In the era of eroding record sales, it often takes far lower sales figures to make the Hot 100 today than it did in decades past.  Total download sales of the “Glee” titles are at 11.5 million, according to Billboard.