One of the many, many things about Lady Gaga that comes as no surprise anymore, the publicity-preying pop star sure can sell a lot of records. Her new album, "Born This Way," sold 1.1 million U.S. copies in its first week. According to Billboard, those are the biggest first-week album sales since 2005 -- which you know is a long time ago when you learn what the last disc was to debut that big: 50 Cent's "The Massacre." Gaga's is also only the 17th album ever to top 1 million sales since SoundScan began tracking data in 1991, and it's only the fifth by a female artist to do so (following Britney Spears, Whitney Houston, Norah Jones and Taylor Swift). These impressive numbers are something of a backslap to Minneapolis-based retailer Target, which lost out on the exclusive rights to Gaga's deluxe-edition of the CD following its controversial political donations to Minnesota candidates.
All the sales info might be the most exciting thing about the new Gaga album, which features some of the most vapid, bloated, formulaic and oftentimes just plain annoying music of her career. Or do you little monsters disagree? I admit, she was pretty entertaining alongside Justin Timberlake on "Saturday Night Live" last weekend, although her musical performances were the most ho-hum part of the show.
