Eminem's "The Monster" lifts 3-2 in its second week on the Hot 100 with the chart's top Airplay Gainer award. The track blasts 31-12 on Radio Songs with a 53% increase to 56 million. It's Eminem's highest rank on the chart since his prior Rihanna collaboration "Love the Way You Lie" spent eight weeks at No. 1 in 2010. As parent album "The Marshall Mathers LP 2" debuts atop the Billboard 200, "Monster" drops 1-4 on Digital Songs (150,000, down 60%); its sales slide is owed to iTunes' customers who opted to "complete" the "Marshall" album by upgrading their earlier purchases of "Monster" to a full album. Effectively, consumers who completed the album were returning a song, thus augmenting the song's sales drop this week. (For the purposes of Hot 100 rankings, aggregate sales and returns contribute to the song's overall point total.)
"Monster" soars 18-7 on Streaming Songs (4.9 million, up 115%) and 41-3 on On-Demand Songs (1.9 million, up 235%). The track spends a second week in charge of both Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Rap Songs.
Could "Monster" be close to scaring "Royals" out of the Hot 100's top spot soon? An 18% difference in overall Hot 100 chart points separate the songs, with the latter down by 3% and the former up 3%.
Since Gaga's first single AND a new song of hers beat out Xtina's featuring song, maybe Xtina fans can stop talking up how "karma" or something like that is getting Gaga.
The Monster. Hopefully #1 next week.
