DIGITAL DOWNLOAD EXPLOSION

GROWING digital download sales are turbo-charging music stars’ ability to rapidly scale the pop charts.

Britney Spears set a record single-week jump on the Billboard singles chart last week when her new comeback single, “Womanizer,” popped from No. 96 all the way to No. 1 – powered by sales of 286,000 downloads of the song.

Billboard’s director of charts, Silvio Pietroluongo, notes the move comes on the heels of a pair of similar giant leaps by rapper T.I. – who in September went from No. 71 to No. 1 with the song “Whatever You Like” and earlier this month leapt from No. 80 to No. 1 with “Live Your Life.”

Chris Molanphy, who follows the singles charts for music blog Idoaltor.com, said that while it’s not new for artists to zip up the Billboard Hot 100, of note in the recent big jumps is how little time they are spending on the radio before making the jump to No. 1.

In some cases the songs are only spending a week or two on the radio before grabbing the top spot. Labels often let songs marinate at radio significantly longer before their commercial releases as downloads in order to maximize the first-week sales pop.

Pietroluongo cautioned that labels remain highly experimental in how they approach their release strategies for singles, and that short runs to No. 1 are a luxury for established acts with a significant fan base.

“Just because Britney can be at radio for a week and sell that much, doesn’t mean a new artist can do that,” he said.

However, he acknowledges that gains like Britney’s – the biggest single-week download sales for a female artist – are a sign that digital downloading is growing in popularity.

Total weekly download sales – topping 18.2 million songs last week – are up almost 22 percent compared to the same week last year, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Total year-to-date sales are over 832 million tracks – up almost 30 percent vs. last year. “The arrow’s pointing up,” Pietroluongo said. Brian Garrity

Kelly talk

At the Men’s Vogue breakfast last week, editor Jay Fielden asked NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly whether a sinking Dow Jones industrial average would translate into a rising crime rate.

“I don’t think former Lehman Brothers employees are going to start robbing 7-11s,” the Commish responded.

Ironically, Kelly served briefly at Lehman Brothers during one of his rare forays into the private sector – and his son, Jim Kelly, worked there right to the end before its US operations were purchased by Barclays Capital.

Kelly said he was more worried that the revenue shortfall will mean reduced resources for City Hall and, potentially, the NYPD.

There are 5,000 fewer cops in the NYPD today than there were after 9/11, he noted, putting the total number of cops at 36,000.

Kelly also said he was “surprised that [Mayor Mike Bloomberg] went for a third term,” but “he’s been great for the city.”

“So you’re for it?” asked Fielden.

“I’m for it,” Kelly said.

That would obviously mean that Kelly, a registered Independent who has often been mentioned by pundits as potential mayoral timber, would not run in 2009. Would he re-up as the top cop in Bloomberg’s third term – or look to see if he gets recruited for any high-ranking posts in Washington after the election?

“I don’t want to speculate,” said Kelly, but he added that he is very fond of New York.

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