Cultural commentators frequently discuss the death of the monoculture in the digital age – the loss of shared cultural artifacts that span regions and generations. When Americans only had a few black and white channels to chose from, it was easier for them to experience the same cultural phenomena at the same time.

No matter how many YouTube views Justin Bieber gets, it’s not the same as a nation transfixed by Elvis’ swivelling hips on the Steve Allen Show in 1956 or overwhelmed by Beatlemania when the band performed on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1963. Today, there are precious few events (the Superbowl, a high profile presidential debate, maybe the finale of American Idol during its heyday) that can bring us together that way.

While the fragmentation of culture makes it impossible to have another Elvis or Beatles or Michael Jackson, MTV proved the monoculture isn’t as dead as we thought Sunday when they attracted a record 12.4 million viewers for the annual Video Music Awards. And America didn’t just watch – they talked about it too. VMA commentary dominated Twitter trending topics. Beyonce and Jay-Z’s baby announcement broke a Twitter record with 8,868 tweets a second being sent out about Beyonce’s baby bump.

Lady Gaga’s performance of “You and I”  while dressed in drag contributed to a sizable 35-16  jump for the song on the Hot 100 while Adele’s heart wrenching rendition of “Someone Like You” led to similar 34-19 move. Expect both songs to continue their climb in next week’s chart. A top ten entrance for both of them wouldn’t be surprising.

What is surprising, however, is that the new No. 1 song in America is a song that was neither performed Sunday night or up for any of awards. In fact, the lead singer militantly attacked the VMAs on Twitter before the broadcast calling it the ”one day a year when MTV pretends to still care about music” (oh, and he also added a “f*** you VMA’s” tweet too).

It’s been a few days since Billboard announced the big news. Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream has tied Michael Jackson’s Bad for an album to launch the most No. 1 singles on the Hot 100. Since then, I’ve experienced shock, denial and pain. Hopefully now I’ve party rocked through the stages of guilt and can begin accepting the fact that the I Kissed a California Gurl [sic] girl has rewritten the Billboard record books.

This week, Perry’s “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” overtook LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem” for the No. 1 spot, giving Teenage Dream a fifth No. 1 single. It is the first time a female artist has managed the feat and the first time since Jackson pulled it off the summer of 1988.

When Billboard announced Perry’s historic achievement, she promptly took to Twitter to celebrate her “little-engine-that-could of a song” for finally going No. 1, and it’s a miracle that it did. After being stuck behind LMFAO’s summer conquering jam for three straight weeks, it seemed like the window of opportunity was quickly closing for Perry. So obviously, Capitol Records pulled out all the stops.

Twenty-three summers ago, a song by a rising pop act reached the summit of the Hot 100 before being steamrolled by one of the biggest recording artists of the decades achieving an unrivaled chart feat. The song was “Foolish Beat” by Debbie Gibson, and the steamrolling superstar was Michael Jackson whose “Dirty Diana” became the fifth No. 1 from his Bad album. A handful of albums have pulled off four chart toppers, but for more than two decades, Bad has been the sole album with a quintet of No. 1s. That could all change next week, however.

This summer, the foolish beat is “Party Rock Anthem” by rising pop act LMFAO featuring Lauren Bennett and GoonRock. Katy Perry takes the role of pop juggernaut. Singles from her Teenage Dream album have been unstoppable in their march to No. 1. Last summer, she began her assault with “California Gurls [sic]” featuring Snoop Dogg followed by “Teenage Dream,” “Firework” and “E.T.” featuring Kanye West.

Perry finds herself one spot away from tying Jackson’s record. Teenage Dream‘s fifth single, “Lasy Friday Night (T.G.I.F.),” sits at No. 2 for a second week, but “Party Rock Anthem” refuses to budge. Despite being No. 1 for over a month, “Party Rock Anthem” had its best week of radio airplay yet, growing 2% for an audience of 146 million. It also remains the top downloaded song in the country, shifting 202,000 downloads. That puts it above “Friday,” which only sold 151,000 downloads and is quickly running out of steam at iTunes. Perry’s hit is still strong at radio, however, and could overtake “Party” soon.

The History of Rock ‘N’ Roll is 17 Track’s attempt to squeeze more than sixty years of music onto a mixtape.There are many ways to tell a story, and the story of rock ‘n’ roll is one that has been told many times in many ways. It’s messy, complicated and difficult to follow in some parts, and the entire history of it could fill volumes. But what if you didn’t have volumes? What if you only had a blank CD-R and you had to tell the story through songs? Each song in this list represents a moment or movement in the development of popular music. It’s not a list of the best, most important or most influential songs, it’s exactly what it professes to be – a history.

The third song, Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog,” tells the story of rock ‘n’ roll getting it’s first true star who revolutionized rock forever.

To say Jimmy Eat World’s Bleed American is the soundtrack of my youth is an understatement. I’ve spun that disc – which turns 10-years-old this week – more than any other. Growing up Mormon in Gilbert, Arizona, it’s to be expected. Down there, Jimmy Eat World is bigger than the Beatles, at least in the crowds I ran with. Everyone loves them and everyone is familiar with each of the 11 songs on their breakthrough record like they were all smash hit singles.

I blasted “Sweetness” before every track cross country and track race I ran. I replayed the guitar riff in “Get It Faster” every time I listened to it and plucked it out on the piano regularly. I played “Hear You Me” the day a friend died. To this day, my brother and I play Jimmy Eat World at the end of the 11-hour car ride from Provo, Utah to Gilbert.

For Bachelorette viewers across the country, Bentley Williams was one of the worst villains the reality show has seen. Host Chris Harrison said the 28-year-old Utah resident “just seems to have bad intentions.” But while William’s actions were shocking to some, they were all too familiar to women who’ve dated his type — the “Mormon All-Star.”

The numbers are in, and Lady Gaga’s Born This Way is the 17th album to sell more than a million copies in a week. Surprisingly, Born This Way is Gaga’s first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 album chart, and with the official tally at 1,110,420, it earns the distinction of shifting more copies in a week than any album since 50 Cent’s The Massacre in 2005, and more than any female artist since Britney Spears’ Oops!…I Did It Again in 2000.

As record sales tumble year after year, first week sales in the seven figures have become increasingly rare. Taylor Swift did it last year with Speak Now, but when you consider ten albums managed to sell more than a million during the first half of the ’00s (five of them in 2000 alone) while from 2005-2009, only two did, the decline of album sales is apparent.

But the fact two artists have sold more than a million in a week only six months apart proves that it’s still very possible, even in the supposed twilight of the record buying age. But while Swift was able to do it by rallying her base and building a broad coalition of consumers and radio programmers, Gaga pulled it off thanks to Amazon’s promotional 99 cent pricing.