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  • Chart Check: 3/15/2008: Usher, Sara Bareilles, Ray J and More!!

    Courtesy of the good folks at Billboard, here are this week’s Top 10 singles and albums:
    Top 10 Singles:
    1) “Love In This Club” Usher feat. Young Jeezy
    2) “With You” Chris Brown
    3) “Low” Flo-Rida feat. T-Pain
    4) “Love Song” Sara Bareilles
    5) “Don’t Stop The Music” Rihanna
    6) “No Air” Jordin Sparks feat. Chris Brown
    7) “Sexy Can I” Ray J. feat. Yung Berg
    8) “Apologize” Timbaland feat. One Republic
    9) “Independent” Webbie, Li’l Phat & Li’l Boosie
    10) “Superstar” Lupe Fiasco feat. Matthew Santos
    Top 10 Albums:
    1) “Good Time” Alan Jackson
    2) “Sleep Through The Static” Jack Johnson
    3) “Discipline” Janet Jackson
    4) “Float” Flogging Molly
    5) “Warpaint” The Black Crowes
    6) “Thriller 25” Michael Jackson
    7) “New Amerykah: 4th World War” Erykah Badu
    8) “Little Voice” Sara Bareilles
    9) “As I Am” Alicia Keys
    10) “Taylor Swift” Taylor Swift
    And now some observations:
    *Anyone notice that among the Top 10 albums, there are 3 Jacksons (and a Jack Johnson)? Now might be a good time for La Toya or Rebbie to start working on those comeback albums.
    *Sara Bareilles, with appearances on the singles and albums chart, is officially the first breakthrough album of 2008. With Alicia Keys and Erykah Badu joining her in the Top 10 (and Amy Winehouse just behind at #11), it’s a good time to be a female singer-songwriter.
    Video for Sara Bareilles’ “Love Song” here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=MR5xv3pt7KI (explicit lyrics)
    *Proof that the gap between major labels and non-major labels is lessening, the two top debuts of the week (at #4 and #5) are both distributed independently. This is Flogging Molly’s first Top 10 album ever, and the Crowes’ first in well over a decade.
    *Usher spends a second week at #1 despite the fact that the video for “Love In This Club” hasn’t even been *shot* yet!! Who needs MTV??
    *And is Ush coming back to snatch the crown Justin Timberlake stole from him?
    *Jordin Sparks is the first “American Idol” champ to score two Top 10 pop hits from one album since…our very first “Idol”, Kelly Clarkson.
    *Backpack rapper Lupe Fiasco scores his first ever Top 10. His second album, “The Cool”, has already outsold his 2006 debut (in only 3 1/2 months of release).
    *Formerly known as Brandy’s little brother, singer/actor/adult film star Ray J. scores the first Top 10 pop hit of his decade-long career with “Sexy Can I”. The last time his big sister hit the Top 10 was back in 1999.

  • Vital Idol: Who Goes Home?

    After the first real week of American Idol, we’re left with a couple of questions.

    1. Who is the front runner?

    The show would like you to believe David Archuleta is the front runner, but can a sixteen year old prodigy really be the front runner? As he showed last night, there’s a ton of pressure involved in winning this show. Truly, through week one, there is no front runner. There are several folks last night who showed that they will do very well in the competition, but we won’t know until we see who Fox promotes next week.

    2. Is this season’s cast really that talented?

    I’d say yes. The naysayers think that every year Randy, Paula, and Simon say that and they’d be right. But that’s their job. They have to promote the show. But this year, Randy, Paula, and Simon are right. Let’s look at season one of the show. Other than Tamyra Gray and Kelly Clarkson, every single one of this final twelve is better than everyone from season one. Just watch the Idol re-runs that are on cable. Match it up to how glitzy and well produced the singers are today. It’s not even close.

    By the way, last night I predicted that Kristy Lee Cook, David “The Stripper” Hernandez, and Syesha Mercado would be in the bottom three. Syesha is the odd one out, but really, who else do you put in that bottom three? She was the least memorable out of the rest of the ten.

    Let’s get on with the elimination.

    – They showed Jim Carrey who is promoting the new Horton Hears A Who movie and my first thought is, why don’t they promote the Idol albums like that? It would be nice if Ryno Seacrest told us that Jordin and Blake had albums that were in stores.

    – Syesha is the first one in the bottom three, so I was right with her.

    – Ryno just made Chikezie nearly faint as he tricked him, but he’s safe.

    – David Cook needs to wear a hat every time he’s on TV. It’s like Cal Ripken Jr. wearing a hat versus Cal not wearing a hat. The Cal with the hat looks like a baseball warrior. The other Cal looks like an old man with a round head. (Yeah, I know, dated reference. Oh well.)

    – Kristy Lee went to get the microphone to sing before Ryno even told her she was in the bottom three. She guessed right. She’s also in the bottom three. I’m two for two.

    – They should never do On Air With American Idol ever again. Please drop this segment. It was akin to watching the sweat build up on Phil Stacey’s head.

    – Katherine McPhee performed, with David Foster on piano, and that was the best publicity for her album that she could’ve ever received. Too bad her album came out last year.

    – Big Dave Archuleta breathed a sigh of relief and back to curly Brooke and Ramiele Maluby are safe as well. That leaves “Shake What Ya Mama Gave Ya” Hernandez in the bottom three. I’m three for three baby! Chalk this one up in the record book. I’ll never do it again for the rest of the year.

    – Syesha and Kristy Lee are safe. “Drop It Like It’s Hot” Hernandez goes home. Big Rube Studdard sings him home. I think I’ll go buy the new go home music on iTunes. Word to Dan Powter!

    At the end of the day, no big loss. He wasn’t going to win. I think the shake ups start next week though. Someone who doesn’t deserve it could go home.

  • Singing "Hallelujah"

    So it’s been established before that when songs are performed by the “American Idol” contestants, there is a bump in sales for the original recording, but at no point has this been more evident than this past week.
    After contestant Jason Castro sang Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” (whose most popular version was recorded by the late Jeff Buckley), sales went apeshit.
    Buckley’s nearly 15-year old rendition of the song zoomed to the top of iTunes’ digital singles chart, with over 177,000 people downloading the song in the past week. Meanwhile, “Grace”, the Buckley album that features “Hallelujah” (and the only album Buckley completed in his lifetime), scanned 6,521 units last week, which would have been enough to place it on the Top 200 albums chart (indeed, it re-enters the catalog albums chart at #10). This, after scanning less than 500 units last week.
    “Grace” has truly been a story of a classic album and word of mouth. The album, which never peaked higher than #149 on the Billboard Albums chart, has scanned in excess of 800,000 units in the years since. Of course, much of this can directly be attributed to the mystery of Buckley’s drowning death and the legacy he left, but a lot of it is just ’cause the music is good!
    And for all folks say to down “American Idol”, you’ve gotta give props when something like this happens.
    Here’s the video for “Hallelujah”