Norah Reaps

Norah Jones has enjoyed the biggest “Grammy bounce” ever:

Norah Jones’ debut album, “Come Away With Me,” sold 621,000 copies after her Grammy sweep, almost 500,000 more than the week before – the biggest post-Grammy sales spike ever, according to her record company.

Jones’ disc, which won eight Grammys, including album of the year, is the No. 1 album in the country, according to figures released Wednesday.

Its sales rose 331 percent, according to EMI Recorded Music, which owns her label, Blue Note Records. The previous week, the disc had sold about 144,000 copies.

Jones’ huge sales leap knocked R. Kelly off the top of the charts. His “Chocolate Factory” placed at No. 3, while rapper 50 Cent moved from No. 3 to No. 2 with “Get Rich or Die Tryin’.”

Jones, who also won best new artist, performed “Don’t Know Why,” which won record and song of the year, on the Feb. 23 Grammy broadcast.

So far, the 23-year-old pop-jazz singer’s album has sold 4.2 million. Most in the industry didn’t expect it to sell more than 100,000 when it was released in February 2002. [AP]

I’m not sure if the industry feels cheered or defeated by the unpredictability of it all – how can you PLAN for something like this? In many ways Jones’ success is a thumb in their collective eye (other than Blue Note, which is its own little world anyway), although the academy was smart enough to vote for her after the public had already spoken its mind. Now the public has said “amen” with a vengeance.

You can almost hear the boardrooms of LA, NY, even Nashville (Norah has country underpinnings to her folkish jazz-pop style): “Bring me the NEXT Norah Jones!!!”