• As expected a week after Kanye West and 50 Cent both had big debuts, album sales dropped mightily last week. Sales were down 10% and were 14% lower than the same week last year. Reba McIntire's Reba Duets debuted at #1 with sales of 300,000. West's Graduation dropped 76%to #2 and 50 Cent's Curtis dropped 79% to #3, both huge second-week fades that take a lot of steam out of last week's giddiness. For the year, album sales are down 14%. Sales of digital tracks were unchanged and were 47% higher than the same week last year. For the year, digital track sales are up 46%. Soulja Boy Tell 'Em once again had the best-selling digital track with "Crank That (Soulja Boy)."

• Songwriter Diane Warren has moved the administration of her entire catalog to Sony/ATV from EMI Music Publishing for all territories except the U.S. and Canada. Warren is a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame and has penned such hits as "How Can We Be Lovers" (recorded by Michael Bolton), "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" (made famous by Aerosmith) and "Who Will You Run To" (recorded by Heart). (Billboard.biz)

• I'd prefer to skip over the topic of yesterday's Congressional hearings on rap lyrics -- I honestly don't expect much to come out of this except politicians gaining a few new lines for stump speeches -- but since Jeff Leeds wrote about it I'll toss in a link to his article. Tipper Gore's PRMC hearings in the '80s generated a lot of attention but changed only how the product has marketed -- they gave birth to the explicit content warnings we now see on albums. The last thing I expect are self-sanctioning measures by labels or censorship on the part of the government, though I could imagine rappers changing their content due to market-based pressures. In pointing out the inspiration for rap lyrics, rapper David Banner had the best line of the day: "Hip-hop is sick because America is sick." (New York Times)

• Jack Sander, a senior adviser to Belo Corp and its former chairman, has been elected chairman of BMI's board of directors. (Radio Ink)

• Hypebot compiles reactions to yesterday's beta launch of the Amazon MP3 store. One question in the post asked if Amazon.com will grow the download market or just make it more fractured. Given the experience of the retailer, its sizable customer base, its innovations in pricing and merchandising and its DRM-free product offering, I believe Amazon.com will grow the market. Competition is good for consumers. Competition will get people to buy more -- not just at Amazon.com, but at iTunes and other download stores after they react to Amazon.com's entry. (Hypebot)