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  • Chart Chat Express: Taylor’s “Swift” Rise To #1

    18-year old country superstar Taylor Swift enjoys an impressive debut on this week’s album chart with her sophomore release, Fearless. Nearly 600,000 folks bought or downloaded Swift’s album, making it the biggest selling first week for a country album since The Eagles’ Wal-Mart exclusive last year, which scanned over 700,000 units in its’ first week. Swift was not only on last week’s CMA ceremony (after which just about every artist to perform sees an increase in scans this week), but she is the rare country artist to get love from MTV, a platform which certainly influenced a lot of folks who may not necessarily count country as their favorite genre.

    The remainder of the Top 20 is filled with debuts, as the top six albums this week all scan over 100,000 units (indicating that the holiday season is right around the corner). American Idol runner up David Archuleta lands at #2 with his self titled debut, the latest edition of Now That’s What I Call Music! follows behind at #3, T-Pain enters at #4, a holiday album from Enya pops in at #8, Christina Aguilera’s greatest hits album is new at #9, and Seal’s new covers album pops in at #13.

    Here’s what this week’s Top 20 looks like:

    01-“Fearless” Taylor Swift
    02-“David Archuleta” David Archuleta
    (combined age of the Top 2 artists…35)
    03-“Now That’s What I Call Music! Vol. 29” Various Artists
    04-“Thr33 Ringz” T-Pain
    05-“Twlight” Soundtrack
    Expect this soundtrack to get a boost when the movie premieres this weekend.
    06-“Black Ice” AC/DC
    07-“High School Musical: Senior Year” Various Artists
    08-“Winter Came” Enya
    Already this year’s highest charting holiday album.
    09-“Keeps Gettin’ Better: A Decade of Hits” Christina Aguilera
    10-“Paper Trail” T.I.
    11-“Funhouse” P!nk
    12-“Evolver” John Legend
    13-“Soul” Seal
    14-“Incanto” Andrea Bocelli
    15-“Greatest Hits Vol. 1” Rascal Flatts
    16-“Take it to the Limit” Hinder
    17-“Rock & Roll Jesus” Kid Rock
    18-“Lucky Old Sun” Kenny Chesney
    19-“Death Magnetic” Metallica
    20-“Love on the Inside” SugarLand
    Kid Rock, Chesney and SugarLand all get significant boosts from the CMA Awards

  • New Video: Rihanna & Justin Timberlake Go To Rehab

    Well, you had to figure that a collaboration between the most ubiquitous male singer and female singer in pop music would have to happen sooner or later, right? Well, the video for Rehab, the amazing NINTH single from Rihanna’s Good Girl Gone Bad album, sends Rih-Rih and JT out into the desert, where they…um…pose sexily? I mean, there doesn’t really seem to be any actual plot to the video. Not to say it’s not enjoyable, especially since Rihanna’s now at an age where you can appreciate that body. The ugly-ass neck tattoo, though…not so much.

    Check out the video here.

  • FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #12: Gimme Love & Death

    CAT STEVENS  “The Hurt” b/w “Silent Sunlight”  (A&M Records 1418-S, 1973)

    There’s a scene in the 1976 Bill Cosby/Harvey Keitel classic Mother, Jugs & Speed where Larry Hagman tries to seduce Raquel Welch with a pair of Cat Stevens tickets.  She resists, of course, but only because that’s the way the script was written.  In real life, no intelligent female of the 1970’s, no matter how liberated, would’ve passed up a chance to see one of the hottest singer-songwriters of the era.  Even if it meant having to sit next to J. R. Ewing.  For Stevens himself, however, matters were completely different.

     

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