In the biggest chart no-brainer of the year, Eminem debuts at #1 with “Relapse”, which scans 608,000 units in it’s first week. It’s by far the biggest debut week of the year, although it’s the slowest start for an Eminem studio album since “The Slim Shady LP” debuted in spring 1999. Granted, the music industry was in a much different place then. To put things into perspective, if the year was to end today, “Relapse” would be 2009’s #9 album with only 6 days of sales. Em should easily enjoy a second frame at #1 with no major releases out this week (although his partner in controversy Marilyn Manson should enjoy a Top 5 debut), although his reign will come to an end when the new Dave Matthews Band album comes out 6/2.
Elsewhere on the albums charts, it’s a sea of debuts and “American Idol”-led jumps. The top 10 hosts 7 new albums. In addition to Eminem, there’s the latest hits collection from Kenny Chesney at #3, Method Man & Redman’s “Blackout 2” at #4, Dane Cook at #5, Busta Rhymes at #6, Tori Amos at #9 and newcomer Kate Voegele at #10.
A little further down on the charts, a couple of collections by this year’s American Idol champ and runner-up debut, and to no one’s surprise, Adam Lambert’s collection (#33, 16K) outduels Kris Allen’s (#50, 10K), although it looks like Kris has the edge when it comes to individual tracks.
The chart’s biggest gainers this week also relate back to the “Idol” finale. Rod Stewart’s “Definitive” collection is up nearly 400% to 10,000 units, landing at #52 on the chart after being off of it the previous week. You might remember that Rod the Bod performed a generally atrocious version of “Maggie May” on the show. David Cook also finds himself the beneficiary of some “Idol” goodwill. His self-titled debut is up 111% to land at #29 with 17K in sales.
On the other side of the coin, it’s bad news for Cam’ron and Paul Wall, as both rappers slide over 60% in sales in their albums’ respective second weeks. Killa Cam drops from 3-35, while Paul Wall plummets from 15-64. Yikes, folks. Might hip-hop be the genre suffering the most from illegal downloading? Or are people just reacting quicker to bad music?
Representatives of AT&T helped fans of Mr. Allen at the two Arkansas events by providing instructions on how to send 10 or more text messages at the press of a single button, known as power texts. Power texts have an exponentially greater effect on voting than do single text messages or calls to the show’s toll-free phone lines. The efforts appear to run afoul of “American Idol†voting rules in two ways. The show broadcasts an on-screen statement at the end of each episode warning that blocks of votes cast using “technical enhancements†that unfairly influence the outcome of voting can be thrown out.
And the show regularly states that text voting is open only to AT&T subscribers and is subject to normal rates.
I guess we really don’t know if this impacted the result or not, since I haven’t heard by how many votes Allen beat Adam Lambert. I would imagine that because so many votes were cast, it wouldn’t have impacted the overall decision, but probably put a bit more distance between Allen and Lambert.
If there’s an update to this story, we’ll follow up.
I’m going to be live blogging this show for SonicClash tonight. I know you East Coasters have already seen the show. You’ll just have to pretend you’re watching it again if you want to following with me.
Just refresh every five minutes or so.
Randy is wearing a red bow tie.
They just showed Kris’ wife in the audience and she has that, “I hope he loses so I don’t have to take half from him in three years,” look on her face.
Mikalah Gordon drew the short straw and had to go to Arkansas to watch the show with Kris’ hometown fan.
Carly was able to hang out in her hometown of San Diego to sit with Adam’s hometown fans.
The top 13 performed some wacky song together and Jasmine Murray nearly puked on stage from struggling to try and hit her high note. Whose idea was it for her to get a solo? Michael Sarver did some good eating while he was away.
David Cook is singing Permanent. His brother recently passed away. It was a nice performance and they’re putting it on iTunes and giving proceeds to charity.
They just showed Carrie Underwood’s skeleton in the crowd.
The Golden Idol Awards are back. I know I was looking forward to this part of the show.
Nick Mitchell won for Best Male Performance and to give us a treat, he performed And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going.
Lil’ Rounds and Queen Latifah are performing together. I hope it’s U.N.I.T.Y. You have to give it to the Queen. She can rap, act a bit, and sing a little bit. It’s too bad that she doesn’t quite wear a unitard all that well. Latifah’s had it up to here.
Anoop Doggy Dog and Alexis Grace are singing with Jason Mraz and showing exactly why they got kicked off the show. Way to show us that America wasn’t wrong.
Kris Allen is singing with Keith Urban. Michael Sarver has to be kicking himself. This is probably a dream of his. I think I just saw him shrug his shoulders and go back to the catering table.
The girls (Jasmine, Megan, Allison, Alexis, Lil) are doing Fergie’s Glamorous, which was just in introduction to the real Fergie performing Big Girls Don’t Cry.
Boom, Boom, PowBoth of my kids asked me why Fergie was so ugly. If anyone wondered if they were my kids, you need not worry. They are definitely made of my DNA. By the way, I agree. Fergie’s entire face looks like it was injected with poisonous botox. Her body is 3008, but her face is definitely 2000 and late. Boom, boom, pow.
No matter what you say about The Black Eyed Peas, you have to give them credit for this one. This song absolutely makes zero sense, but it hits like no one’s business.
Yay! It’s time for another Golden Idol. I’m not sure what the category was, but Bikini Girl is the winner. Boom, boom, pow.
They had her perform Vision Of Love for all of about 10 seconds before my wife, Kara DioGuardi Gonzales came out and one upped her. And then she flashed her own bikini. Boom, boom, pow.
Allison is singing Time After Time with Cyndi Lauper. Isn’t Cyndi old enough to be her grandmother? But I have mad respect for Cyndi. She’s realer than a two dollar bill. She’s got that boom, boom, pow. Ok, that’s enough.
Danny is singing Hello. Lionel Richie must have an album out. What would’ve been really wrong is if they tried to duplicate the video and had Scott McIntyre mold Danny’s face out of clay. Ok, that was so terrible. If I was Arsenio Hall, I’d have slapped my hand and said, “bad host”.
There’s Lionel. I knew he had something to sell. I don’t blame Danny for not really knowing the lyrics to Just Go either. Lionel barely knew them. They could’ve given him some classic Lionel to sing, like you know, All Night Long. Hey, that’s just what they did. And Scott McIntyre is on the stage with them dancing his ass off! Ok, that last thing didn’t happen. But everything else did.
By the way, Lionel was pretty outrageous.
Adam is wearing some contraption on his shoulders that looks like something out of Michael Jackson’s closet. Or Janet’s. Or Latoya’s. He introduced KISS. Man, even their face paint looks old. I didn’t know face paint could have wrinkles.
Carlos Santana is on stage and Matt Giraud is singing with him. They started with Black Magic Woman and segued into Smooth. The rest of the top 13 came out and sang for Carlos. Yep, even Jorge. They let him back on stage, but I think he was wearing a media credential around his neck.
For some reason, Steve Martin is on stage. I think I heard somewhere that he has a band. He’s playing the banjo. Michael Sarver pulled himself away from catering to get on stage with Megan Joy and perform with Steve. Can he still be wild and crazy while playing a banjo and wearing glasses?
That performance was reminiscent of those Grammy performances where they basically tell you to go use the restroom so you don’t miss the good stuff.
Oh no, I might have to switch from HD back to regular definition. Rod Stewart just pranced on the stage. Thankfully, the camera director is avoiding the close-ups and sticking to the wider shots. I’m not even going to pretend that I understand this. I’d even settle for Fergie coming back out to frighten my children.
Rod ended by saying, “Thank you kindly.” Sheesh.
The infamous Tatiana won which I think is the last (hopefully) Golden Idol and then she came on stage to sing Whitney. I think it was supposed to be a joke. Or maybe the joke was on her?
Kris and Adam came out to sing We Are The Champions with Queen. I could make that whole joke about Adam being the next Freddie Mercury, but I won’t even do it. It’d rather make more jokes about how Fergie’s face looks like it was stung by 10 mosquitoes.
You know, as my punishment for these jokes, one day, I know I’m going to run into Fergie at the airport and then have to lie to her about how much I like her music. Let’s just hope she’s wearing sun glasses on that day. Large ones. That cover her face entirely. Like she was Darth Vader.
Simon just gave Adam and Kris both props.
It’s now time for the results. They’re claiming 100 million votes were cast last night. That means every person who watched had to vote at least 3 or 4 times. I’m not sure I buy that, but oh well.
And the winner is…
Um, Kris Allen?
Does Conway, Arkansas really have that many people?
Kris has to sing the terrible No Boundaries, which he absolutely screwed up last night, again. He gave the front row of females his hand to touch and they nearly pulled his jacket off. He’s going to have to start making deals with that poor wife of his starting tonight.
You’ll never guess what was one of the last shots before the show went off stage. It was a shot of Justin Guarini clapping like he really meant it, with debris in his hair. That’s your final shot? Did Carrie Underwood’s skeleton leave already?
Well, he was the underdog. He pulled it off. Kris Allen is your season 8 American Idol.
