You could hear the sigh of relief among pop fans a couple of weeks ago, when Carly Rae Jepsen’s single with Owl City, “Good Time,” broke into the Top 10 on Billboard‘s Hot 100.

In his weekly chart roundup, …

If you’re a pop fan, I’m going to guess you like at least one of the last three No. 1 songs in America. In many ways, 2012 has been an entertaining year for discriminating chart-watchers, as a slew of left-field …

Here are a few recent data points from chart bible Billboard and data provider Nielsen Soundscan as we move into the second half of 2012:

• In its midyear music-industry report card, Soundscan reports a return to the dismal …

After three weeks of patiently waiting at No. 2 on Billboard‘s Hot 100, Carly Rae Jepsen this week became the first solo female Canadian since Céline Dion to top America’s premier song chart. Right on schedule for the start …

This month, to celebrate the Internet’s unbridled love for wallowing in nostalgia and even greater relishing of talking about why certain cultural artifacts are horrible, Sound of the City presents First Worsts, a series in which our writers remember …

I’ve never been happier to be wrong about something. Two weeks ago, the last line of my column read: “Probably won’t happen. But wouldn’t it be fun if it did?”

The event I didn’t think could happen was Adam Lambert …

In the two-family house where I grew up in Bensonhurst, the two musical acts I heard most often, blasting from stereos at the top and bottom of the house, were the Beatles and Donna Summer.

The former was more my …

About a year ago, the movie Bridesmaids opened in the U.S. and was the subject of a rather unusual awareness campaign.

Female movie fans, largely independently of the film’s producers, compelled women to go see the film in its …

Consider this six-pack of rock acts: Siouxsie and the Banshees, Big Audio Dynamite, the Psychedelic Furs, U2, R.E.M. and Julian Cope.

My dream Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? Not quite—it’s a list of the first six artists to go …

Whatever you thought of her performance at this year’s Super Bowl, Madonna’s halftime appearance had the desired effect: It drummed up awareness for her first album in four years, the longest recording gap of her career.

When the Billboard 200 …