Readers of That Grape Juice know what avid music lovers we are – especially of hits past.
So, as our retrospective features ‘From the Vault’ and ‘TGJ Replay’ allow us the chance to re-spin the gems and jams of yesterday of one artist, our newest feature Chart Rewind – a variation of our current Retro Rewind assay – accedes salutes to an entire era of music history.
This week we jet back to 2011 to recount the then-history making reign of ‘Born This Way’ – the leading single from Lady Gaga‘s highly anticipated sophomore album of the same name. Giving the singer her third chart-topper on the Hot 100, ‘Born’ debuted at #1 with a whopping 448,000 sold its first week. Temporarily giving Gaga claim to the ‘best-selling first week of any single by a female’ title (later broken by Taylor Swift), the tune would go on to dominate the Hot 100 for an impressive 6 weeks from late February to mid-April 2011.
Despite spurring much chatter with its controversial video and later inciting a feud with Queen of Pop Madonna for claims of ‘copying’ and being ‘reductive’ in nature, ‘Born This Way’ remains a fan favorite of Gaga and one of her most successful releases to date. According to Billboard, the song sold over 4 million copies to date in the U.S. alone.
Tuck in below to relive the magic of ‘BTW’ and see where some of your other faves from the day landed on the Hot 100 this week in 2011…