Miley Cyrus’s rear-shaking, tongue-wagging performance at MTV’s Video Music Awards on Sunday has been widely ridiculed by the news media. BuzzFeed has devoted at least 20 posts to it (so far); even Camille Paglia put it down.
But viewers could not get enough of it, even long after the show ended. MTV announced on Tuesday that the video had been streamed more than 15 million times on the network’s various Web and mobile platforms, and Ms. Cyrus’s twerking appearance with Robin Thicke drew 306,100 Twitter comments per minute. (By comparison, the number of tweets per minute during the 2012 election peaked at 327,452.)
Ms. Cyrus’s songs “We Can’t Stop†and “Wrecking Ball†shot up the iTunes and Spotify charts in the wake of MTV’s awards, but since music’s standard sales week is measured from Monday to Sunday, the full effect of the show won’t be known until next week. (Expect the numbers to be pretty big, though.)
On Billboard’s album chart this week, Luke Bryan’s “Crash My Party†(Capitol Nashville) holds at No. 1 in its second week out with 159,000 sales, despite a 70 percent drop, Nielsen SoundScan reported on Wednesday.
The rest of the Top 5 is taken up by new albums: John Mayer’s “Paradise Valley†(Columbia) is No. 2 with 144,000 sales; “Three Kings†(Atlantic), by the R&B supergroup TGT (that’s Tyrese, Ginuwine and Tank) opens at No. 3 with 76,000; Jimmy Buffett’s “Songs From St. Somewhere†(Mailboat) is fourth with 55,000; and Earl Sweatshirt’s “Doris†(Tan Cressida/Columbia) reached No. 5 with 49,000 copies sold.
Mr. Thicke’s song “Blurred Lines†extends its reign on the singles chart to 12 weeks at No. 1, but it is facing strong competition from “Roar,†the latest single from Katy Perry, which she also performed at the Video Music Awards show. “Roar†is No. 2 for a second week, and it stands a chance at reaching No. 1 next week â€" that is, unless Ms. Cyrus manages to twerk her way in there.
