Never underestimate the power of the Grammy. It's a gift that certainly keeps giving for Herbie Hancock. The jazz legend's upset win for Album of the Year has resulted in a whopping 967% increase in sales of 'River: The Joni Letters.' It also gives him his highest placement ever on the Billboard charts, at No. 5.

Grammy's biggest winner this year, Amy Winehouse, is also seeing more green after her five wins. Sales of the British chanteuse's breakthrough album, 'Back to Black,' are up 368%, putting her at No. 2 on the charts this week. And after her two Grammy performances and two Grammy wins (Best Female R&B Performance and Best R&B Song), Alicia Keys is sitting pretty at No. 3 with her new CD, 'As I Am.' Keys is a name we're certain to hear called several times again in the 2009 Grammy nods, as the full album was not eligible this year.

'In Rainbows,' the first release by Radiohead on Dave Matthews' ATO label in the U.S., has debuted on the album charts at No. 1. While the band attaining the top spot for the first time since 2000's 'Kid A' is a newsworthy achievement in itself, it's all the more remarkable when you consider that the band had made the album available as a digital download in October on a pay-what-you-wish basis.

The British group's unorthodox music distribution scheme for the critically lauded 'In Rainbows' was scoffed at in many quarters. Yet since the album's official Jan. 1 release date, Radiohead have sold 121,000 hard copies of a record for which some fans paid a dollar or even less as a pre-release download. By some estimates, the album sold in the vicinity of a million copies in its three months as a digital release. This ultimately chart-topping strategy comes off as a sharp rebuke of the existing distribution model of the major labels Radiohead bypassed in the dissemination of their seventh album.

As we come to the year's end, it's time to start predicting who will run away with the bragging rights for the best-selling album of 2007. Kanye West? Linkin Park? Eagles? Alicia Keys? Or will the holiday spirit (and Oprah) push Josh Groban to the top with an album he released just two months ago? If the young baritone continues to have 500,000-plus sales every week, he just may do it.

Groban tops the charts for the second week in a row with 'Noel,' the album Oprah calls "the one Christmas CD every family should have." And the good Lord knows that when Oprah speaks, people listen. In fact, after appearing on 'Oprah,' Groban's sales went up more than 80%. (Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is really wishing the talk-show queen would shut up about Barack Obama already.)

The only artists that may give Groban a run for his 2007 title are Disney's cash-cows: 'Hannah Montana' and 'High School Musical,' with both soundtracks racking up nearly two million in sales so far. But, once more, Oprah people.

It was shaping up to be a battle as bloody (if not nearly as WWE-scripted) as the Kanye vs. Fiddy chart debut skirmish of a few months back. But it turned out to be no contest at all. Alicia Keys ("The Manhattan Mauler") beat the Dinty Moore beef stew out of her challenger, Celine Dion ("La Québécoise Sauvage") in the Foxy Boxing match that that turned out to be the most recent album chart listings.

Keys and her classically trained fingers (as she's always so very keen to remind us) propelled her third studio long-player of piano-driven R&B, 'As I Am,' to the No. 1 position, with 744,000 being the magic number. See, when Bob Dylan name-drops you in one of his songs, it's like the flippin' Midas touch!

Uncharacteristically for a hip-hop star, Jay-Z has been quite boastful lately. In predicting the chart debut position of his just-released 'American Gangster' album, he has been quoted as saying, "I've got this Elvis thing going on right here." He's not talking about matching the achievements of three-time world figure-skating champion Elvis Stojko. No, no, no, no, no -- this is a reference to the statistical fact that if the tenth album by the coolest record-label president since Frank Sinatra ran Reprise reaches the No. 1 spot, as did Hova's previous nine, he would be tied with Memphis' Hillbilly Cat himself for the most chart-toppers by a solo artist. Well, well, looky there -- a quick eyeball of the charts clearly shows 'American Gangster' languishing at a lowly No. 36, with 21,000 sold. Shoot, even Elvis Perkins can do better than that!

Psych! It's the 'American Gangster' soundtrack that's stinking up the heinie end of the Top 40! In truth, Jay-Z did tie Elvis Presley's chart record after all, moving a hunka hunka burning compact discs indeed, specifically 426,000 copies in just its first week. Very impressive indeed, Mr. Shawn Carter, but give us a call when you pop a cap in your television's ass while gorging on fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches along with so many pills your body is reclassified as a Rite Aid franchise. Now that's OG!

Decision '07: It's the morning after Election Day, and America has made its choice. Britney Spears has sold 290,000 copies of her curiously titled album 'Blackout' (hasn't anyone told her what that word means?) in this, its first week of release. That lofty figure is more than enough to give her the No. 1 album in the U.S. of A.! See, even after all the scandal, all the time spent as a tabloid target, the pop princess was able to get it together to propel her first album since 2003 -- since which she's been toting around a suitcase full of personal turmoil -- to the tippy-top spot on the charts! Goes to show what heights you can achieve when you don't have those pesky kids around to distract you.

Record-industry slump? Carrie Underwood laughs at such a ridiculous notion! Hahahahahaha, you could hear this Okie from (really close to) Muskogee chortle, all big-voiced and on key! Underwood, just two years off her trouncing of the competition on 'American Idol,' has proved to be one of the most successful of the overstyled oversingers to win the show's top prize. Her second album of country-style croonings, packaged in her twangtastic album 'Carnival Ride,' not only debuted at the top of the album charts, it went gold in the process. Jesus has not just taken the wheel, He's put the pedal to the metal, with this gal riding shotgun!

Last week Kid Rock had his moment in the sun, scoring his first No. 1 in his hip-hoppin', classic-rockin', Skynyrd-and-Seger-worshipin', Tommy Lee-slappin' career with his debut of 'Rock n Roll Jesus,' his full-arm embrace of the trailer-trash aesthetic he's been perfecting in both his musical and personal life.

But perhaps it's time for the man known to Grandma as Bob Ritchie to adopt a new role model, and he could do a lot worse than training his considerable mimicry skills on Mr. Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen. Now there's a classic rocker who not only has proven chart staying power but also knows how to deport himself in the confines of a Waffle House. And speaking of role models, though a 'Rock n Roll Jesus' may conceivably carry on in such an unseemly fashion, Old Skool Jesus was all "turn the other cheek" and whatnot.

The time is now for the flannel-shirt-sporting, anti-war-lyric-spouting, retro-sounds-spewing, AARP-card-carrying rocker! Bruce Springsteen and John Fogerty concurrently debuted their latest collections of populist rock 'n' roll last week, one meeting with success and the other meeting with megasuccess. 'Magic,' Springsteen's 15th studio album, and his first with the always-on-call E Street Band in five years, has not only appealed to his loyal fan base but, judging by a couple of songs on the record, is trying to peel off a few Magnetic Fields-loving indie kids for good measure. (That triangulation strategy will come in handy if he makes a run for governor of New Jersey.) 'Magic' moved 337,000 environmentally friendly Digipak units, marking it as Springsteen's eighth No. 1 long-player in his almost 35-year recording career and simultaneously keeping most of the E Streeters out of the Asbury Park soup kitchens for at least a couple more years. Now that's liberal activism!

John Fogerty, a performer Springsteen can see eye-to-eye with both musically and politically, has released his own album of progressive politics set to throwback sounds, namely the Creedence-referencing title 'Revival.' His first studio LP since rejoining Fantasy Records (which, under previous ownership, once had the avocados to sue Fogerty for plagiarizing his own songs) debuted at No. 14, selling 65,000 copies.

For the second week in a row, the album charts are topped with a little twang. Last week, Reba McEntire dethroned feuding rappers Kanye West and 50 Cent with her 'Duets' album, making her first-ever No.1 debut on the pop charts. This week, country trio Rascal Flatts goes one-step further with their new CD, 'Still Feels Good,' not only debuting at the top but also immediately certifying gold with well over 500,000 copies sold. That's not much of a surprise, considering the band's last album made them 2006's best-selling act of any genre. Not to mention their immense success pissing off Nashville by crossing over into the pop world with songs like 'What Hurts The Most.'