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Pop Rock Nation

Author: Money Mike

  • Chart Chat 10/1/09: All About the Pearl Jam

    Yet another busy week for new releases…and this week’s victor is Pearl Jam. Their “Backspacer” album bows at the top with 189,000 units sold. It’s the first #1 album from the rock legends since “No Code” back in 1997. Something worth noting about this release is that you won’t find it at Wal-Mart or FYE or Best Buy…”Backspacer” is only available through Target, iTunes and independent retailers. Support your local indie record store and keep people who really give a shit about music employed!

    (jumps off soapbox)

    Other notable debuts include rock bands Three Days Grace, Brand New and Five Finger Death Punch at #s 3, 6 and 7, singer/actor Harry Connick Jr. at #8, the David Crowder Band (who?) at #11, Welsh singer/songwriter David Gray at #12, and flamboyant British pop singer Mika at #19.

    Jay-Z’s “Blueprint 3” hangs tough at #2 with 134,000 units. In 3 weeks, this album is less than 100,000 units away from Platinum status. Not bad, especially for a veteran clocking nearly 15 years in the biz.

    Epic fail of the week has to go to reggae/pop singer Sean Kingston. After his debut album was a Gold success, and with a hot single “Fire Burning”, that stayed in the Top Ten for most of the summer, all Kingston’s “Tomorrow” could manage was a #37 debut and 13,000 scanned. Ouch. That’s gotta hurt.

    On the singles side of things, there are two noteworthy items, at least from a positive standpoint. Lady GaGa holds at #7 for a second week with “Paparazzi”. It’s the fourth top ten single from her album “The Fame”, making her the first debut artist to reach that designation since Christina Aguilera back in 2000. Meanwhile, Carrie Underwood blasts up the chart with “Cowboy Casanova”. The first single from the country starlet’s third album jumps from #96 to #11, boosted by it’s availability on iTunes.

    Other artists who had songs debut on iTunes last week? Not so lucky. “Make Me”, the first single from Janet Jackson’s upcoming Number Ones album, enters the digital singles chart at a lowly #181. Only six spots above it, at #175, is the first new music in seven years from Creed, one of the biggest selling rock bands of the past decade. Turns out audiences weren’t so overcome by their single “Overcome”. For cpmparison’s sake? The song at #174 is Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”, which is 27 years old.

    Next week, it appears to be a horse race between Paramore and Mariah Carey to see who has the week’s top-selling album. Stay tuned to SonicClash to see how it all turns out.

    This Week’s Top Albums on Billboard’s Comprehensive Albums Chart:

    1) “Backspacer” Pearl Jam

    2) “The Blueprint 2” Jay-Z

    3) “Life Starts Now” Three Days Grace

    4) “I Look to You” Whitney Houston

    5) “The Time of Our Lives EP” Miley Cyrus

    6) “Daisy” Brand New

    7) “War is the Answer” Five Finger Death Punch

    8) “Number Ones” Michael Jackson

    9) “Your Songs” Harry Connick Jr.

    10) “So Far Gone EP” Drake

    11) “The Resistance” Muse

    12) “Church Music” David Crowder Band

    13) “Draw the Line” David Gray

    14) “Fearless” Taylor Swift

    15) “Only by the Night” Kings of Leon

    16) “Monsters of Folk” Monsters of Folk

    17) “Abbey Road” The Beatles

    18) “The E.N.D. (Energy Never Dies)” The Black Eyed Peas

    19) “Man on the Moon: The End of the Day” Kid Cudi

    20) “Foundation” Zac Brown Band

  • Not Necessarily the News: Diddy, Broken Bells & Adam Lambert

    Piddycombs (my new, all-purpose name for Sean “Puffy” P. Diddy Daddy Combs) has transferred from Atlantic to Interscope Records, and he’s taken his Bad Boy brand with him. One tiny problem, though…he wasn’t allowed to take any of his Bad Boy ARTISTS with him. Day26, Janelle Monae and Cassie all remain with Atlantic. I find this a little weird…not that Bad Boy was anything but a shell of what it was in it’s heyday, when not only was Combs more viable as an artist (it’s really hard for me to type that without quotation marks), but he had B.I.G., Faith, 112 and Ma$e. It’s doubtful that Combs can rebuild his empire (he’s been trying that for the last decade or so), so my gut feeling is that Bad Boy will now exist purely as a vanity label. Combs’ new album, “Last Train to Paris”, is scheduled for a March 2010 release. Interestingly enough, Interscope is the original home of Death Row Records, once helmed by Combs’ nemesis, Suge Knight.

    Ever heard of Broken Bells? Well, if you haven’t heard of the band itself, you’ve certainly heard of the members. Broken Bells consists of super-producer and 1/2 of Gnarls Barkley Danger Mouse, joining forces with James Mercer, the lead singer of The Shins. According to various reports, the music these two have cooked up sounds NOTHING like either Danger Mouse or The Shins’ previous work, which I guess could be a good or bad thing. As one of the folks who got swept up in the awesomeness of The Shins via “Garden State” and also as a huge fan of Danger Mouse’s work as a musician and a producer, I’ve gotta say that I’m very much looking forward to this release…which unfortunately won’t arrive until next year.

    “American Idol” fans…Adam Lambert’s new album doesn’t come out until the end of November, but his debut has already garnered the #2 spot on Amazon.com’s music chart, by virtue of preorders. The only album that ranks above it is the new Barbra Streisand. The weird thing is, a pre-order hasn’t even been ANNOUNCED for Lambert’s album yet. It achieved its’ ranking strictly by virtue of word of mouth. This could mean two things: either Lambert’s album is gonna be a HUGE hit (it will certainly outsell, if not be WAY more interesting than Kris Allen’s) or he has one of the most rabid fanbases in “Idol” history…and that’s saying a LOT.

  • Pearl Jam’s “Backspacer”: Goodbye Experimentation, Hello Rock ‘n Roll!!

    After exploding onto the scene at the height of the grunge era, Eddie Vedder and his band Pearl Jam seemed to have lost the plot at the start of this decade with albums like “Binaural” and “Riot Act”-two sets that found their way into my collection…and very quickly found their way out. There was just too much noise and not enough melody for me.

    2006’s self-titled offering showed a ray of hope, even if I haven’t been enticed to listen to it lately, and Vedder’s solo “Into the Wild” soundtrack was quite good-but it was an Eddie Vedder album, not a Pearl Jam album. With the arrival of “Backspacer”, the band’s ninth studio album, the million dollar question in my eyes was: does Pearl Jam still have it?

    Well, folks-the answer appears to be “yes”. “Backspacer” is a concise (11 songs in 36 1/2 minutes), tight, well-written and well-played album. Musically speaking, the band has never sounded as eclectic while operating within a mainstream pop framework. The songs here aren’t deliberately obtuse like some of the band’s more experimental work. The hooks are strong as hell, and for the first time in a while (ever?), the band sounds joyful. I mean, let’s face it: PJ’s last two albums were very political and downcast as far as lyrical content. It’s nice to hear them lighten up and sound loose and relaxed.

    “Backspacer” gets off to a running start with the uptempo 1-2-3 combination of “Gonna See My Friend”, “Got Some” and first single “The Fixer”. Particularly on the second of those three songs, Vedder sounds as intense as he did on PJ classics like “Go”, speed-singing the lyrics atop caffeinated guitar licks from Stone Gossard and Mike McCready. “Supersonic” is another speedy, punk-inspired rave-up (well, except for the tempo-shifting instrumental midsection). These songs aren’t totally dissimilar from the work PJ has done on their last few albums-just…tighter and more polished. You can credit the band for sharper songwriting and playing, but you’ve also gotta give props to producer Brendan O’Brien, who is back in the fold for the first time since ’98’s “Yield”.

    For my money, though, the album’s best tracks are the mellower ones. “Just Breathe” is a slowly unwinding semi-acoustic ditty that would have been right at home on “Into the Wild”. The anthemic “Amongst the Waves” has one of those triumphant, fist-waving choruses that have become a Pearl Jam trademark, even though it doesn’t rock *quite* as hard as the album’s more uptempo offerings. “The End” is another pretty piece featuring Eddie’s soulful wail backed by a delicate acoustic guitar and a string section.

    “Backspacer” is pretty much the encapsulation of everything good about Pearl Jam. There are hard rockin’ anthems, as well as songs like the thoughtful “Speed of Sound”, which is sure to follow in the footsteps of mellower smashes like “Better Man” and “Daughter”. Vedder is in fine voice throughout, the songs are immediate and not ponderous, and the end result is quite possibly the most consistently enjoyable album from the ’90s rock titans since their initial heyday.