Hey folks…had to take last week off due to some site remodeling, but we’re back! And here are this week’s Top 20 charts, brought to you by kind courtesy of Billboard.
Top 20 Albums:
1) “Tha Carter III” Li’l Wayne
2) “Definition of Real” Plies
3) “Now That’s What I Call Music! Vol 28” Various Artists
4) “Indestructible” Disturbed
5) “Here I Stand” Usher
6) “Revelation” Journey
7) “Seeing Sounds” N.E.R.D
8) “Flavors of Entanglement” Alanis Morissette
9) “Evil Urges” My Morning Jacket
10) “Weezer (Red Album)” Weezer
11) “3 Doors Down” 3 Doors Down
12) “Sex & The City Original Soundtrack” Various Artists
13) “The Declaration” Ashanti
14) “Spirit” Leona Lewis
15) “Rockferry” Duffy
16) “Taylor Swift” Taylor Swift
17) “Nothing But the Best” Frank Sinatra
18) “35 Biggest Hits” Toby Keith
19) “Rock & Roll Jesus” Kid Rock
20) “Back When I Knew It All” Montgomery Gentry
…and on the singles chart…
1) “Viva La Vida” Coldplay
2) “I Kissed a Girl” Katy Perry
3) “Lollipop” Li’l Wayne feat. Static Major
4) “Bleeding Love” Leona Lewis
5) “Take a Bow” Rihanna
6) “Pocketful of Sunshine” Natasha Bedingfield
7) “No Air” Jordin Sparks w/Chris Brown
8) “Forever” Chris Brown
9) “Love in This Club” Usher feat. Young Jeezy
10) “Shake It” Metro Station
11) “Bust it Baby Pt. 2” Plies feat. Ne-Yo
12) “Sexy Can I” Ray J. feat Yung Berg
13) “Leavin’” Jesse McCartney
14) “Damaged” Danity Kane
15) “4 Minutes” Madonna feat. Justin Timberlake
16) “What You Got” Colby O’Donis feat. Akon
17) “It’s Not My Time” 3 Doors Down
18) “When I Grow Up” Pussycat Dolls
19) “Love Song” Sara Bareilles
20) “Realize” Colbie Caillat
Huh, I don’t really know how to start this one. So everybody here knows who Coldplay is, right? Fairly big alt-pop band with arena-sized choruses, love, Fair Trade, falsettos…got Brian Eno to come in and produce their latest? Cool. So I can get right into it and say that Viva La Vida is the most accomplished album of their career. I mean that in pretty much every way: every song has its own color, the runtime is perfect, and the band has never sounded tighter or more inspired. It’s also the closest they’ve come to making a complete statement, rather than just stringing a bunch of romantic, isolated and vaguely political songs together and calling it an album. What is that statement you ask? Well, look at the title. Martin christened the first song of the band’s debut with the chorus “We live in a beautiful world.” Viva La Vida is his way of opening up that world and exposing its beauty. Yeah there’s death, yeah there’s heartache, yeah there’re…despots and lynch mobs…but all of this pales in comparison to the vibrancy of life itself. Is that a bunch of flowery bullshit? Well, that’s for you to decide. I’m willing to suspend disbelief for forty-five minutes.