Billboard's top 200

The music business seems to be thriving these days.  And several artists are having particularly good years. Justin Beiber releases his first Christmas album and will, no doubt, give him his third #1.  Christmas music is usually hot, and Beiber sure is, baby or no baby...

I had heard, and reported earlier, that Adele was cancelling her US tour dates for the year, but no explanation was given.  Rumor in the music biz was that she was "allergic" to money, meaning she just wanted to sing and the fame and fortune was getting her down.  Publicly, she had said she had a vocal illness and doctors told her to rest.

In what might be the least surprising debut of the year, Lady Antebellum‘s new album has ended its first week at the top of the charts — pretty much all of them, in fact. With sales of nearly 350,000 units, ‘Own the Night’ outpaced its competition by a wide margin, coming in at number one on the country charts, as well as Billboard’s overall Top 200 tally...