Sales Malaise Spreads to the Hot 100

From Chris Molanphy, Idolator:

If you, current pop act, are not an Oprah-anointed permhead with a name rhyming with "Lohan," you are not having a fun week: A mid-holiday-season malaise has settled over the Billboard charts. That's clear from the current results on the Hot 100, where Alicia Keys holds on to the top spot for a third week even as her sales fall considerably.

Incumbency Has Its Privileges: Every song in the Top 10 of the Hot 100 sold fewer copies at iTunes and other buck-a-song sites last week than the week before. Digital sales for Keys' smash--just nominated today for a Best R&B Song Grammy but, weirdly, no pop Grammys--fall 35% (the biggest drop in the song's chart life), and "No One" relinquishes the title of top seller to Flo Rida's "Low" featuring T-Pain, whose sales only shrink by 5%.

With radio deeply entrenched in holiday playlist patterns--even stations that don't play Christmas music aren't adding many new records right now--expect the top of the chart to stay sleepy through the end of the year.

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