It is a battle of the divas and this diva has won again.  Barbra Streisand (Babs) scored her 9th number one album on the United States pop charts Wednesday according to Billboard Magazine.  With the days of Jay-Z, Miley Cyrus, Lil’ Wayne, and the Black Eyed Peas who would have thought that Barbra Streisand a jazz adult contemporary singer could get to the top spot and beat everyone out.

This shocked the music industry today because they expected Mariah Carey “Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel” or Paramore “Brand New Eyes” to hit #1 for next weeks edition but instead Babs took the spot.  How did this happen?  Could it be all the mean comments coming from Bill O’Reilly to her on his Pin Head game he plays nightly or could it be that we are turning back to real talent instead of just artists promoting themselves on talk shows.  Although she did just promote her album to a tiny NYC Jazz club she played at in the 60’s in front of President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton (not a bad way to get your album off to a big start).

The strong sales came from non-traditional outlets such as Starbucks and QVC’s home shopping network for Streisand.  She now extends her lead as the female act with the most number one releases on the Billboard 200 charts.  At age 67, she is also the first artist to top the chart in 5 consecutive decades.  She has not topped the chard since 1997 with “Higher Ground” and that sold more copies at 207,000.

Mariah Carey has a great new CD with an amazing remake and the Obsessed song we love so much.  I am even shocked she did not hit the #2 spot and get more sales than Paramore.  Judging from sales in the UK it was Madonna who won the battle beating out Paramore to the #1 spot the first week.  Mariah has been all over the Today show and other shows promoting her album and only sold 52,000 more copies than her 2001 “Glitter” flop.

When you look at the numbers Streisand only sold 180,000 copies compared to 168,000 from Mariah Carey and 175,000 from Paramore.  So they were definitely close and it was not a knock down drag out and considering record sales were down from 2008 this time last year you can tell money is tight from the recession.  I wonder how many pirated copies are downloaded for free of each artist.

Madonna did not underperform because her album is a two-set cd which is more expensive than any of the above.  Celebration came on at number 7 with little promotion but maybe it will get more sales now that she appeared on Saturday Night Live.  I did not see Madonna mention her new album.  She appeared on the MTV VMA’s but did not perform instead she did the very unselfish tribute to Michael Jackson.  I just think many could not afford the two-cd set from Celebration and opted for the cheaper albums on sale this week.  I will be enjoying the DVD of all of her videos over the years she also put out and her new Celebration CD – especially the Lil’ Wayne revolver song ‘Revolver’.  This is Madonna’s final record with Warner Music Group and she will launch a new re-invention with Live Nation in the coming years.

Babs we are happy for you!  It looks like the Liberals won for sure on this one.