Idolator

Ed. note: Chris "dennisobell" Molanphy, our resident chart guru, looks at the upward, downward, and lack of movement on the Billboard Hot 100 in the latest installment of "100 And Single":

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%.

You'd think that would make "Low" a shoo-in for the top of the big chart, but the rap banger's more limited radio airplay keeps it static, while aging hits by Chris Brown and Timbaland/OneRepublic swap places at Nos. 2 and 3. Even Fergie's latest fast-rising hit, "Clumsy," has started to slow down, climbing one notch and remaining outside the Top Five.

Basically, it's not clear any song has the strength to oust the stalwart Keys from the top anytime soon, and if one does, it will be after "No One" wilts enough to allow another track to slip into the penthouse. 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.

You Better Work: There's ample evidence that iTunes remains the big dog when it comes to affecting the outcome on the singles chart. The on-sale release of a digital song—a new album's first single, say—is the main way new hits explode. In the three years since iTunes sales were added to the Hot 100, we've seen records for biggest chart move broken repeatedly by songs fueled by an iTunes burst; Maroon 5's "Makes Me Wonder," with its 63-place jump to No. 1 last May, holds the current record.

But it's harder for second or third singles to benefit in the same way. In the new digital economy, the day an album is released, so are all of its songs—even future singles the record label isn't ready to "work" to radio yet. This has led to an implied Hot 100 rule, post-iTunes: first singles blow up on the chart; followup singles have to work for it.

This week, two followup hits (one of them a follow-follow-follow-followup) make impressive moves the old way: to quote John Houseman, they earn it.

The release last week of a special edition of Justin Timberlake's FutureSex/LoveSounds also brought the Beyonce remix of "Until the End of Time" to the store's digital shelves. The sixth Top 40 hit from that aging JT album, "Until" enjoys a burst of sales—no doubt by Timberlake fans not interested in repurchasing a disc they've owned since mid-2006 just to get the remix—sending the song to a new peak on the Hot 100. (Billboard rules treat the original and the remix as contributing to a single chart position.)

More impressive is the move made by Britney Spears' latest, "Piece of Me." Up 16 spots to No. 47, the track wins Billboard's "Sales Gainer" prize as its paid digital downloads rise 30% from the prior week. It's impressive because there's not much that accounts for this rise, other than the song's ever-growing radio profile.

Impressive as this move is, the fact that "Piece" still resides outside the Top 40 shows how steep a hill followup hits have to climb. If Blackout weren't out yet, "Piece" would probably already be approaching the Top 10.

Did Someone Give Rob Thomas a Laxative? Just 'cuz some loyal readers have made note of this: For the first time in about two months, matchbox twenty's "How Far We've Come" isn't ranked at No. 15 (it's down one notch). We can't be sure, but the amount of time the song spent in a chart position that isn't No. 1, 2 or 3 must be some kind of record.

The top 20, with last week's position and total weeks charted in parentheses:
1. Alicia Keys, "No One" (LW No. 1, 13 weeks)
2. Chris Brown feat. T-Pain, "Kiss Kiss" (LW No. 3, 12 weeks)
3. Timbaland feat. OneRepublic, "Apologize" (LW No. 2, 18 weeks)
4. Flo Rida feat. T-Pain, "Low" (LW No. 4, 6 weeks)
5. Colbie Caillat, "Bubbly" (LW No. 6, 23 weeks)
6. Fergie, "Clumsy" (LW No. 7, 8 weeks)
7. Kanye West feat. T-Pain, "Good Life" (LW No. 8, 12 weeks)
8. Soulja Boy, "Crank That (Soulja Boy), Soulja Boy Tell'em" (LW No. 5, 20 weeks)
9. Rihanna feat. Ne-Yo, "Hate That I Love You" (LW No. 9, 14 weeks)
10. Finger Eleven, "Paralyzer" (LW No. 11, 26 weeks)
11. Jordin Sparks, "Tattoo" (LW No. 12, 10 weeks)
12. Baby Bash feat. T-Pain, "Cyclone" (LW No. 10, 19 weeks)
13. Kanye West, "Stronger" (LW No. 13, 19 weeks)
14. Timbaland feat. Keri Hilson & D.O.E., "The Way I Are" (LW No. 14, 27 weeks)
15. J. Holiday, "Bed" (LW No. 15, 20 weeks)
16. matchbox twenty, "How Far We've Come" (LW No. 15, 14 weeks)
17. Justin Timberlake (duet with Beyoncé), "Until the End of Time" (LW No. 33, 22 weeks)
18. Playaz Circle Featuring Lil Wayne, "Duffle Bag Boy " (LW No. 17, 11 weeks)
19. Trey Songs, "Can't Help But Wait" (LW No. 25, 11 weeks)
20. Natasha Bedingfield feat. Sean Kingston, "Love Like This" (LW No. 21, 7 weeks)