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  • Chart Chat 12/7/08: Kanye Beats Axl Down

    Let’s party like it’s 1999! For the first time in 2008, every album in the Top Ten scans over 100,000 copies. Of course,this tracking week includes Black Friday, explaining this sudden rush of good fortune in the music industry. Lots of interesting news within the chart as well. Let’s see what’s going on with this week’s Billboard Albums Chart. All charts are the sole property of Billboard Communications, Inc.

    1) 808s & Heartbreak-Kanye West

    Kanye has reason to celebrate as well as reason to worry. 808s is his third #1 album (out of four albums), but it also scores the lowest first-week sales of his career, a testament to this album’s polarizing nature.

    2) Fearless-Taylor Swift
    3) Chinese Democracy-Guns ‘n Roses

    What the hell happened? G’N R fans were supposed to be trooping to Best Buy in droves to pick up this long, long awaited album, and not only did it not come close to toppling Kanye, but it couldn’t even top Taylor Swift!! What gives?

    4) I Am…Sasha Fierce-Beyonce

    Sasha Fierce is in control of the singles chart, where Single Ladies jumps into the top spot, wresting control after two months of non-stop T.I.. Beyonce also finds herself at #3 with If I Were a Boy. Don’t fret for T.I., though. He’s enjoying his last few weeks of freedom with the #2 and #4 singles in the country.

    5) Theater of the Mind-Ludacris
    6) Day & Age-The Killers

    People still care about The Killers. How unfortunate.

    7) Dark Horse-Nickelback
    8) Twilight-Original Soundtrack
    9) Various Artists-Now That’s What I Call Music 29
    10)David Cook-David Cook

    The 2008 American Idol champion is off to a way better start than his predecessor. Jordin Sparks’ debut scanned just over 100,000 units in its’ first week, a record-low for an Idol winner, while Cook is about 100,000 copies away from Gold after only two weeks. However, proving that it’s not where you start, it’s where you finish, Sparks’ album has crossed the Platinum mark and remains on the chart a year after its’ release. Thanks Chris Brown!!

    11)High School Musical 3: Senior Year-Soundtrack
    12)Black Ice-AC/DC
    13)The Promise-Il Divo
    14)The Greatest Songs of the Eighties-Barry Manilow

    The bored housewife section of the chart is right here, as classical-esque boy band Il Divo come in at lucky #13 this week, while the immortal Barry Manilow (kids, he was Clay Aiken thirty years ago, with all that that implies) pops up a notch below, with yet another tribute album. This one was not as successful as its’ predecessors, one of which actually hit #1 on the charts a couple years back. Check out the cover, too. That man’s face is tighter than Spandex on Mo’nique.

    15)Prospekt’s March-Coldplay
    16)Paper Trail-T.I.
    17)Joy to the World-Faith Hill
    18)And Winter Came-Enya
    And now we’re at the Christmas holiday portion of the chart, with festive albums from Faith Hill and Eny…hey, wait. Something tells me that an Enya holiday album won’t exactly have you rockin’ around the Christmas tree. Oh, well. Feliz Navidad!!

    19)David Archuleta-David Archuleta

    Something tells me Blake Lewis is sitting at home right now going “Fuck! They couldn’t have done this with me?!? Sorry, bro. Cute, innocent teenagers are infinitely more commercial than beatboxers.

    20)Funhouse-P!nk

  • Infatueighties #65: I Keep Forgettin’

    Much like fellow blue-eyed soulsters Hall & Oates, Michael McDonald has only recently started to get his propers. The episode of What’s Happening?! featuring McD and his fellow Doobies is regarded as a cult classic, fellow karaoke-ers have discovered what a freaking difficult song “What a Fool Believes” is to sing, he got a spot on the “South Park” soundtrack some years ago (proving that he has a sense of humor), Justin Timberlake gave him a shout during his recent spot on SNL’s “Weekend Update”, and over half a century after jumping off the Doobie Express and onto the Solo Train (not to be confused with the Soul Train…I’m not sure if he ever made it there), you’ve gotta admit that almost all of McDonald’s work is fantastically sung, and he had at least a five-year run of good material.

    Even if you don’t count the 66,000 pop songs that he sang backup on during the Eighties, there’s still “Yah Mo B There” and “Real Love”, “Sweet Freedom” and “On My Own” (both from the McD-heavy summer of ’86). There’s also lesser-known gems like “I Can Let Go Now” and “I’ll Be Your Angel”. Of course, there’s also “I Keep Forgettin”, the song that kicked off his solo career back at the end of ’82. This sorrowful ballad (which charted Top 10 pop and R&B) is sung so passionately that you can’t help but feel for poor deluded Michael by song’s end. Some folks listening may find it to be soft-rock pablum, I consider it one of the decade’s best heartbreak songs from an underrated album-“If That’s What it Takes” was essentially the American answer to Phil Collins’ similarly underrated solo debut “Face Value”.

    This song alone makes me forgive all of those crappy Motown covers compilations. It also makes me forgive the God-awful video. C’mon Mike, you know like I know that there ain’t one note of acoustic piano anywhere in that damn song.

    Now would you expect so much soul from a guy who looks like he would win a “bear” competition at your local gay bar?

  • Friday Throwback – Rub You The Right Way

    I was thinking about what to use for this week and it hit me like a ton of bricks. A friend had sent me Ralph Tresvant’s video for Sensitivity and I figured that if Ralph looked silly, I remember Johnny Gill looking even more silly. He’s workin’ it in this video.

    – A shirtless Johnny wasn’t too impressive. Dude could’ve got in the gym a bit and hit the bench press.

    – Was he shiny suit man before Diddy was?

    – Check out JG’s moves. He’s got some frenetic moves.

    – Whenever I see his haircut, I think it looks like someone was building stairs.

    – His dance moves are like a wannabe Janet in the Rhythm Nation era, with MJ’s pelvic thrusts.

    – This might be one of the greatest lines in pop history – “Whenever I need to rub, I run her happiness.”

    – Why is he saluting and then crotch chopping all at the same time?

    – Is he wearing a leather tank top with that leather jacket and leather pants?

    – That’s an angry running man.

    Johnny’s Wikipedia page says that he, Ralph T, and Bobby B created a group called Heads Of State. Huh? Can’t they just get back with the rest of the New Edition fellas?