I have bad news for Beyonce fans. This is the first year in which B has failed to crack the top 10 since Destiny's Child exploded in 1998.
This stat combines Destiny's Child and solo recordings, as well as featured credits on hits by Jay-Z and Lady Gaga. There are still two weeks left in Nielsen SoundScan's tracking year, but this week corresponds to the Dec. 31 issue of Billboard, so there is no way that Beyonce's name can appear on a top 10 hit in a 2011 issue of Billboard.
Beyonce has three songs on this week's Hot 100, but none of them rank in the top 50. "Party" (featuring Andre 3000) dips from #55 to #57, "Countdown" re-enters at #91 and "Love On Top" jumps from #98 to #94.
"We Found Love" by Rihanna featuring Calvin Harris tops the Hot 100 for the eighth week, which is the longest run at #1 by any single since Ke$ha's "TiK ToK" had nine weeks on top in early 2010. It's the longest run at #1 for a collabo since "Low" by Flo Rida featuring T-Pain had 10 weeks on top in early 2008. It's the longest run at #1 for a boy-girl collabo (hey, we leave no stone unturned) since "Candy Shop" by 50 Cent featuring Olivia had nine weeks on top in early 2005.
"We Found Love" sold just 149K copies this week, which is a tepid showing for a #1 hit. This is the third week in a row in which no songs have sold 200K. That's the longest stretch in which no songs have sold 200K since the fall of 2009, when it happened for five weeks straight. (Owl City's "Fireflies" was the best-seller for four of those five weeks.)
Despite the current lull, this has been a good year for digital song sales. With two weeks to go in the tracking year, the industry has already broken records for the number of 3-million-sellers (13, up from 12 in all of last year) and 1-million-sellers (98, up from 86 in all of last year).
maybe its time for Beyonce to get back toether with Kelendria and Tenitra?
