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"The Big News: Vampire Weekend&amp;apos;s meteoric rise was cemented this week as everyone and their cousins bought the New York band&amp;apos;s second album Contra. The record debuted at Number One on the Billboard Top 200 with 124,000 copies sold, putting a swift end to Ke$ha&amp;apos;s reign atop the charts. VW exponentially improved on the Number 17 peak position for their self-titled debut, and have now accomplished a feat the Killers and Weezer have yet to attain: a Billboard Number One LP.\r\nSusan Boyle&amp;apos;s I Dreamed a Dream settled into Number Two for a second consecutive week with 77,000 copies according to Nielsen SoundScan, while Ke$ha&amp;apos;s Animal dropped to Number Three with 67,000 copies. Lady Gaga&amp;apos;s The Fame and Alicia Keys&amp;apos; Element of Freedom placed fourth and fifth respectively. In fact, if not for Vampire Weekend, female artists would have been responsible for the top seven albums on the chart: Gaga&amp;apos;s Fame Monster, Mary J. Blige&amp;apos;s Stronger With Every Tear and Taylor Swift&amp;apos;s Fearless placed Six through Eight.\r\nDebuts: Vampire Weekend didn&amp;apos;t have much competition this week as only one other new release, Omarion&amp;apos;s Ollusion, managed to infiltrate the Top 20 (at Number 19). Further down, OK Go&amp;apos;s Of the Blue Colour of the Sky entered at 39 thanks to 11,000 copies sold, O.A.R.&amp;apos;s Rain or Shine came in at 48 with 9,400 and Ringo Starr&amp;apos;s new album Y Not finished the week at Number 56.\r\nLast Week&amp;apos;s Heroes: Ke$ha&amp;apos;s Animal made a big splash in its debut last week, but despite the three-pronged assault of singles &amp;quot;TiK ToK,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Blah Blah Blah&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Your Love is My Drug,&amp;quot; the album failed to sustain more than half its first week sales as Animal dropped 56 percent. Sales of Boyle&amp;apos;s Dream, by comparison, only fell 18 percent in its eighth week. In platinum news, Dave Matthews Band&amp;apos;s Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King edged past the million sold mark in its 33rd week on the charts.\r\nRead all of Rolling Stone&amp;apos;s latest album reviews."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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