Happy Sunday all. After skipping a week due to technical difficulties, we are back!! Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) the charts remain more or less the same. Read on, my friends…(all chart information courtesy of Billboard magazine)
Top 20 Singles
1) “Disturbia” Rihanna
2) “Forever” Chris Brown
3) “I Kissed a Girl” Katy Perry
4) “Take a Bow” Rihanna
5) “Paper Planes” M.I.A.
6) “Viva La Vida” Coldplay
7) “Dangerous” Kardinal Offishall feat. Akon
8) “A Milli” Li’l Wayne
9) “Burnin’ Up” Jonas Brothers
10) “Closer” Ne-Yo
11) “A Little Bit Longer” Jonas Brothers
12) “American Boy” Estelle feat. Kanye West
13) “When I Grow Up” Pussycat Dolls
14) “Leavin’” Jesse McCartney
15) “Bleeding Love” Leona Lewis
16) “Get Like Me” David Banner feat. Chris Brown
17) “Lollipop” Li’l Wayne feat. Static Major
18) “Put On” Young Jeezy feat. Kanye West
19) “Lolli Lolli (Pop That Body)” Three Six Mafia
20) “Pocketful of Sunshine” Natasha Bedingfield
Top 20 Albums:
1) Various Artists “Mamma Mia Soundtrack”
2) “Breakout” Miley Cyrus
3) “Love on the Inside” Sugarland
4) “Rock & Roll Jesus” Kid Rock
5) “Tha Carter III” Li’l Wayne
6) “Viva La Vida or Death & All His Friends” Coldplay
7) “Lessons in Love” Lloyd
8) “Camp Rock Soundtrack” Various Artists
9) “Good Girl Gone Bad” Rihanna
10) “What Am I Waiting For” Heidi Newfeld
11) “Jonas Brothers” Jonas Brothers
12) “C’mon” Keith Anderson
13) “Now That’s What I Call Music Vol. 28” Various Artists
14) “Kids Bop 14” Various Artists
15) “Conor Oberst” Conor Oberst
16) “Taylor Swift” Taylor Swift
17) “Untitled” Nas
18) “Only Through the Pain” Trapt
19) “Revelation” Third Day
20) “One of the Boys” Katy Perry (more…)
Ahoy, mateys. There’s actually some stuff to talk about on the charts this week. Let’s move on, shall we? All chart positions are the exclusive property of Billboard Communications or somethin’. Ya smell me?
Top 20 Albums
1) “Breakout” Miley Cyrus
2) “Love on the Inside” Sugarland
3) “Mamma Mia Soundtrack” Various Artists
4) “Rock & Roll Jesus” Kid Rock
5) “Tha Carter III” Li’l Wayne
6) “Viva La Vida or Death & All His Friends” Coldplay
7) “Camp Rock Soundtrack” Various Artists
8) “Untitled” Nas
9) “Now That’s What I Call Music Vol. 28” Various Artists
10) “Beautiful Eyes” (EP) Taylor Swift
11) “Good Girl Gone Bad” Rihanna
12) “Taylor Swift” Taylor Swift
13) “The Slip” Nine Inch Nails
14) “One of the Boys” Katy Perry
15) “Jonas Brothers” Jonas Brothers
16) “Life, Death, Love & Freedom” John Mellencamp
17) “Indestructible” Disturbed
18) “Here I Stand” Usher
19) “Spirit” Leona Lewis
20) “The Greatest Story Ever Told” David Banner
Top 20 Singles
1) “I Kissed a Girl” Katy Perry
2) “Take a Bow” Rihanna
3) “Forever” Chris Brown
4) “Disturbia” Rihanna
5) “Viva La Vida” Coldplay
6) “A Milli” Li’l Wayne
7) “Lollipop” Li’l Wayne feat. Static Major
8) “Dangerous” Kardinal Offishall feat. Akon
9) “Bleeding Love” Leona Lewis
10) “Leavin’” Jesse McCartney
11) “Burnin’ Up” Jonas Brothers
12) “When I Grow Up” Pussycat Dolls
13) “Pocketful of Sunshine” Natasha Bedingfield
14) “Closer” Ne-Yo
15) “Shake It” Metro Station
16) “American Boy” Estelle feat. Kanye West
17) “Bust it Baby Pt. 2” Plies feat. Ne-Yo
18) “7 Things” Miley Cyrus
19) “Get Like Me” David Banner feat. Chris Brown
20) “Lolli Lolli (Pop That Body)” Three 6 Mafia feat. Project Pat, Young D and Superpower
*It’s been mentioned in a couple of other columns, including on billboard.com itself, but this week’s chart marks a rare occurrence. With new singles from Jennifer Hudson, Meryl Streep and Jamie Foxx (as a featured artist) debuting on the Hot 100 Singles chart this week, three Oscar winners enter the chart simultaneously, which must be some kind of first. Somewhere, Russell Crowe is kicking himself for not touring more behind 30 Foot Odd of Grunts or whatever they were called.
*Rihanna has two singles in the top five, at #2 and #4. Chris Brown is sitting between the two songs at #3. I’ll let you write the joke/somewhat pervy leery comments yourselves.
*Despite the fact that it’s been out since early spring, Estelle’s bouncy “American Boy” has only just reached the Top 20 on the singles chart. Her “Shine” album is pretty good if you haven’t checked it out yet, sort of a junior varsity version of “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill”.
*Also moving up the charts (where it just might land in the Top 20 next week) is the year-old “Paper Planes” by Sri Lankan (and supposedly retired?) rapper M.I.A. Thank Judd Apatow and the trailer for “Pineapple Express” for giving this song (from one of the best reviewed albums of 2007) some belated shine. It jumps to #36 this week.
*Nas’s “Nigg…”, er, “Untitled” does a belly-flop in his second week, sliding all the way down to #8 from the top spot. Might be time to go back to simply making music without all the publicity stunts, yes, Nas?
*”I Kissed a Girl” is now the year’s second longest running #1 single, behind Flo-Rida’s equally insipid “Low”. Can someone please explain this to me?
*Want proof that people still watch MTV? The rapper Shwayze, star of the network’s new series “Buzzin”, has two songs on this week’s singles chart. “Corona and Lime” (yay, product placement) debuts at #26 while what I can only assume is the theme song to his TV show (which features Cisco Adler…yikes!) moves up to #45.
*This week’s “Catch a Falling Star” award goes to a band whose star hasn’t even fully risen: The Hold Steady. Despite tons of glowing press, their new “Stay Positive” record tumbles from 30-75 in week two. Hard to say whether this is an extreme case of buyer’s indifference or whether traditional retailers are pissed because this album was made available digitally several weeks before its traditional release in record stores.
*Finally, we close this week’s column by welcoming back former grunge favorites Candlebox, whose new album debuts at #32, marking a return to the charts after a 10-year absence. Might as well jump in the wayback machine and give you the video for “Far Behind”, especially considering it was the only one of the two Candlebox songs I’ve ever heard that I liked. I had this on cassingle, y’all. Top that!
And…we’re off! Here are this week’s Top 20 Singles and Albums as provided by the lovely folks at Billboard Communications.
Top 20 Albums
1) “Untitled”-Nas
2) “Tha Carter III”-Li’l Wayne
3) “Mamma Mia Soundtrack”-Various Artists
4) “Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends”-Coldplay
5) “Camp Rock Soundtrack”-Various Artists
6) “Rock & Roll Jesus”-Kid Rock
7) “Life, Death, Love & Freedom”-John Mellencamp
8) “The Greatest Story Ever Told”-David Banner
9) “Beautiful Eyes EP”-Taylor Swift
10) “Good Girl Gone Bad”-Rihanna
11) “Now That’s What I Call Music Vol. 28”-Various Artists
12) “Taylor Swift”-Taylor Swift
13) “All Sides”-O.A.R.
14) “Around the Bend”-Randy Travis
15) “One of the Boys”-Katy Perry
16) “Modern Guilt”-Beck
17) “Indestructible”-Disturbed
18) “Revelation”-Journey
19) “Here I Stand”-Usher
20) “The Dark Knight”-Soundtrack
Top 20 Singles
1) “I Kissed a Girl”-Katy Perry
2) “Take a Bow”-Rihanna
3) “Forever”-Chris Brown
4) “Lollipop”-Li’l Wayne feat. Static Major
5) “Viva La Vida”-Coldplay
6) “Bleeding Love”-Leona Lewis
7) “Pocketful of Sunshine”-Natasha Bedingfield
8) “A Milli”-Li’l Wayne
9) “Dangerous”-Kardinal Offishal feat. Akon
10) “Leavin’”-Jesse McCartney
11) “Burnin’ Up”-The Jonas Brothers
12) “When I Grow Up”-Pussycat Dolls
13) “7 Things”-Miley Cyrus
14) “Bust it Baby Pt. 2”-Plies feat. Ne-Yo
15) “Disturbia”-Rihanna
16) “Pushin’ Me Away”-The Jonas Brothers
17) “Shake It”-Metro Station
18) “Get Like Me”-David Banner feat. Chris Brown
19) “Closer”-Ne-Yo
20) “Lolli Lolli (Pop That Body)”-Three 6 Mafia feat. Project Pat, Young D & Superpower
*Well, I’ll be damned. Not only did “Mamma Mia” do mighty fine business at the box office, but the soundtrack nearly doubled in sales this week (and promises to do the same next week). Considering this, as well as the fact that “Hairspray” was the soundtrack hit of last summer, is it safe to say that gay men comprise a quite large segment of the music buying audience?
*The Jonas Brothers (who are in the Top 20 twice this week) are on the cover of the latest issue of Rolling Stone. Don’t you think Jann Wenner would have caught more than a little shit if he’d put Hanson on the cover of RS 10 years ago or put the New Kids on the cover 20 years ago?
*I knew I could work an NKOTB reference into this column somewhere.
*Wasn’t Jesse McCartney trying to be Ryan Cabrera five years ago? Why is he trying to be Ne-Yo these days?
*Never thought a Canadian rapper would make his way into the Top 10 in America? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Kardinal Offishall. I’ll spare you the video. You can thank me later.
*It should be fairly obvious, and I think I’ve mentioned it before, but isn’t it so easy to look at the top selling albums, then look at the most popular singles and realize who’s buying what these days?
*For a band that gets collectively rimmed by the rock press as much as The Hold Steady does, you’ve gotta imagine that the #30 start for their new album “Stay Positive” has gotta be something of a disappointment. When Randy Travis sells more records than you in his first week twenty years after his peak, you’ve got to be just a little embarrassed, no?
*This week’s “Catch a Falling Star” award is shared by Alanis Morissette and Weezer. Alanis’s record sales have been dropping ever since everyone and their momma bought “Jagged Little Pill” in ’95-’96. “Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie” sold 3 or 4 million off of fumes, the next album debuted at #1 and promptly sank like a stone, and outside of a brief resurgence due to the re-recorded version of “Pill”, Alanis has slowly sunk into marginalia. Her latest album, “Flavors of Entanglement”, shows some sign of life this week, bouncing up 18 spots to #40 this week, but for an album to be out of the Top 40 within a month and a half when one of your older albums spent twice that amount of time at #1 has got to sting a little bit. As for Rivers Cuomo and his boys, it seems like word of mouth is what sunk Weezer’s “Red Album”. With the general consensus being that this is by far the worst album of the band’s career, the album stands at #42 after 7 weeks. Ah, well. Rivers always has that degree to fall back on.
*Finally, “The Dark Knight” soundtrack debuts at #20 this week. It’s not near as successful as the soundtracks to some of the earlier “Batman” movies, but charts extremely well for an album of instrumental score music. And it’s a perfect way to end this week’s Chart Chat with…”Batdance”!! YAY!!!
Fuck. I forgot. Prince hates the internets these days. Oh well.I tried, y’all. Till next week.
