• That Airplay chart ranking is important. No. 49 might not look like much, but it’s a fairly big start at radio for a new track and probably contributed to her going all the way; 255,000 downloads sold is a lot, but it’s no record and might not have been enough to top the Hot 100 on its own.

• The Lauryn Hill tidbit is very interesting. Crucially, it just predates one of the big-bang changes on the Hot 100 in recent decades: Billboard’s inclusion of airplay-only cuts starting in November 1998. That not only changed the makeup of the chart — allowing non-retail songs to appear on the Hot 100 for the first time — it also, perversely, made it rarer for a song to debut at No. 1.

Under the old (pre-Nov. 98) system, the labels would hold a superstar’s single from retail for weeks or even months, build its airplay to saturation status, then drop it at retail and, in its first eligible Hot 100 week, it could debut at the top. After ‘98, that became near-impossible — most hits by superstars now follow a pattern of early airplay causing a modest debut, then a burst of digital sales propelling the single up the list. This time, somehow, Britney/Jive managed to get the airplay and sales bursts so close together (and so explosively) that one week, there was no early airplay-only debut on the chart, and then the next week, an all-at-once burst in chart points.

Now, to discuss: will any other act try to repeat this stunt? No. 1 debuts never happened until 1995, with Michael Jackson’s “You Are Not Alone,” but then for the next three years a range of superstars managed to repeat it (Mariah, Whitney, Puffy, Celine). Now that Brit’s done it, I can see other priority acts wanting their labels to attempt it.