B.o.B Fulfills His Destiny, Goes #1

Not to brag or anything, but Sean Fennessey pretty much called this exact turn of events a full month ago. The success of The Adventures of Bobby Ray, which sold 84,000 copies out of the gate, was a phenomenon long in the making--follow, if you care to, his team's careful set of decisions, from introducing B.o.B on mixtapes as the second coming of Andre 3000, to giving him his stripes via a very public T.I. co-sign, to the late-stage zig-zag from rappin' ass rapper to folk-rock Coldplay acolyte, just in time to collect Paramore's Hayley Williams, Eminem, Lupe Fiasco, Janelle Monae, and Rivers Cuomo for his all-over-the-map debut album. It worked (if you can call 84K success these days), and B.o.B's template will likely now be studied by A&Rs for years to come. If--after three straight weeks of sub-100K #1s--A&Rs still exist, anyway. [Billboard]