Today’s thread is brought to you by the number 1.
Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper performed their song “Shallow” on the Oscars last week and it created a fair amount of buzz. Not only did Gaga (and her co-writers) win an Oscar for that song, but this week, it hits the top of the Hot 100. The album itself, returns to the top of the BB200.
“A Star is Born” may actually have been helped by a rule Gaga caused to be introduced. When she released her “Born This Way” album, it was sold at a deep discount by Amazon to generate interest in their digital service. Amazon offered it for just 99 cents and in two days sold almost 440K (the album would debut with over a million in sales). Earlier this week, it was looking like Ariana Grande’s “Thank U, Next” would spend a third week on the top of the BB200, but Amazon was back in the mix. While it offered both “A Star is Born” and “Thank U, Next” on sale, “A Star is Born” was offered for $2.99 while “Thank U, Next” was $3.99. The rule Billboard introduced to prevent another Gaga-style debut boost was that sales for albums in their first four weeks would not be counted if they were sold for less than $3.49. “A Star is Born” finished the week with 129K equivalent albums (up 153%) to “Thank U, Next”‘s 116K.
“Shallow” becomes Bradley Cooper’s first number one on the Hot 100 and Lady Gaga’s 4th (her first since 2011 “Born This Way”). Once again, the duo pushes Ariana Grande into second place with “7 Rings” which had spent 5 weeks at the top of the chart. The single saw the biggest sales week so far this week (115K).
