Among them was "Love The Way You Lie," by Eminem. The rapper says he chose Rihanna specifically for this ballad, which spent seven weeks atop the

Billboard Hot 100

chart. Eminem's album Recovery, which celebrated his victory over drug addiction, topped year-end Rhythm and Blues, Rap, and Digital Album charts.

Best seller

Susan Boyle's album "The Gift" reached number one on Billboard’s Top Two Hundred albums chart.

The top-selling album act, however, came not from the worlds of pop, rap, or dance music. Forty-nine-year-old Scottish native Susan Boyle stunned an English crowd with her April, 2009 performance on the TV program Britain's Got Talent. From there, her voice took to cyberspace, and by the end of 2010, her debut album

I Dreamed A Dream

had sold nine million copies while topping charts worldwide…among them,

Billboard's

year-end album list.

Dance Pop Domination

Ke$ha's 'TiK ToK' single

Bieber and Boyle aside, the year belonged not to an artist, but to a musical genre. Dance pop dominated the charts in 2010, starting on January 2. That day, Ke$ha, a longtime musical striver who once broke into Prince's house to leave her demo tape, became the decade's first new number one act. Her debut single "Tik Tok" held the title for nine weeks, setting the template for the dominant sound of 2010.

Along with dance pop, the charts were fed a constant stream of cover hits, courtesy of the fresh-faced cast of