CYRUS’S “WRECKING BALL” A SMASH HIT

Miley Cyrus’s twerking on the MTV Video Music Awards and her naked ride on a wrecking ball in the video promoting her latest CD may have launched a protest campaign from religious conservatives and brought her a tongue lashing from Brooke Shields, who played Hannah Montana’s mom, among others, but, as they say in show business, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” Seeming to confirm that axiom, Billboard magazine reported on Wednesday that “Wrecking Ball,” Cyrus’s latest single, had hit No. 1 on its Hot 100 chart, knocking Katy Perry’s “Roar” from the top spot after two weeks. The trade publication, which, besides sales, includes streaming and radio play in determining its No. 1 song, also reported that, with 477,000 paid downloads, it was the top seller on Nielsen SoundScan’s Digital Songs list and that the video recorded 36.5 million streams last week. (As of today — Thursday — it has been accessed 123.62 million times on YouTube.)