oh em glee

New Glee Songs Have Been Charting Lower

GLEE: Rachel (Lea Michele) performs in the choir room for Mr. Schuester (Matthew Morrison) in "The Purple Piano Project", the Season Three premiere episode of GLEE airing Tuesday, Sept. 20 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. ©2011 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Adam Rose/FOX
’Glee.’

Glee has taken a hit this season when it comes to the ratings, and the show’s fortunes on the Billboard chart have followed suit. Last year, the five season-premiere songs debuted between Nos. 21 and 51 on the chart, but the songs from this season’s first episode haven’t performed nearly this well, with the top number (“It’s Not Unusual,” as sung by Darren Criss) coming in at No. 65, and two of the songs failing to chart in the top 100 at all. The Hollywood Reporter theorizes that lower ratings and an over-reliance on Broadway tunes may be to blame; next Tuesday’s episode will continue the musical-theater trend with more songs from Dreamgirls and West Side Story, with only one recent song in the mix: Beyoncé’s “Girls (Run the World),” which wasn’t exactly a chart smash itself. Too bad you can’t buy dances, though, because on that fleet-footed front, the next episode more than delivers. [THR]

New Glee Songs Have Been Charting Lower