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Pop Rock Nation

Tag: American Idol

  • Chart Check: 3/30/08: Leona Lewis,Danity Kane & More

    Courtesy of the good folks at Billboard, here are this week’s Albums & Singles charts:
    Top 20 Albums:
    1) Welcome To The Dollhouse-Danity Kane
    2) Now That’s What I Call Music 27-Various Artists
    3) Trilla-Rick Ross
    4) Mail On Sunday-FloRida
    5) Sleep Through The Static-Jack Johnson
    6) Hannah Montana 2 Soundtrack/Meet Miley Cyrus-Miley Cyrus
    7) Ego Trippin’-Snoop Dogg
    8) Taylor Swift-Taylor Swift
    9) Little Voice-Sara Bareilles
    10) Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert-Miley Cyrus
    11) Alvin & The Chipmunks-Soundtrack
    12) Jonas Brothers-Jonas Brothers
    13) As I Am-Alicia Keys
    14) Good Time-Alan Jackson
    15) Carnival Ride-Carrie Underwood
    16) Kidz Bop 13-Various Artists
    17) Discipline-Janet Jackson
    18) The Odd Couple-Gnarls Barkley
    19) Coco-Colbie Caillait
    20) Radio Disney Jams 10-Various Artists
    Top 20 Singles:
    1) Bleeding Love-Leona Lewis
    2) Love in this Club-Usher feat. Young Jeezy
    3) Sexy Can I-Ray J. & Yung Berg
    4) With You-Chris Brown
    5) Love Song-Sara Bareilles
    6) No Air-Jordin Sparks & Chris Brown
    7) Low-FloRida feat. T-Pain
    8) Don’t Stop The Music-Rihanna
    9) Lollipop-Li’l Wayne
    10) Shortie Get Loose-Lil’ Mama feat. Chris Brown & T-Pain
    11) Apologize-Timbaland feat. OneRepublic
    12) Stop & Stare-OneRepublic
    13) Superstar-Lupe Fiasco feat. Matthew Santos
    14) See You Again-Miley Cyrus
    15) Touch My Body-Mariah Carey
    16) Independent- Webbie feat. Li’l Phat & Li’l Boosie
    17) No One-Alicia Keys
    18) Sorry-Buckcherry
    19) Elevator-FloRida feat. Timbaland
    20) New Soul-Yael Naim
    *Off the chart, the big news is the loud thudding sound made by “American Idol” judge Randy Jackson’s compilation album “Music Club Vol. 1”, which debuted at #50 last week and drops to #137 this week. This development raises two questions: 1) in light of “Idol” finalists with far more impressive sales pedigrees getting relieved of their contracts, is The Dawg going to receive the same unceremonious boot? and 2) Why do I feel like the *other* Randy Jackson (brother of Michael and Janet) could put out an album right now and have a similar or better response at the cash registers?
    *Brit newcomer Leona Lewis enjoys an impressive move to #1 on the charts this week, but her happiness will be short lived, as Mariah Carey (at #15) will see a sales lift next week due to “Touch My Body”‘s iTunes availability. If Mariah makes it to the top, it will be her 18th chart topper, jumping her ahead of Elvis Presley into 2nd place as the artist with the most #1 singles in history (The Beatles are #1, with 20)
    *Gnarls Barkley enjoy an impressive #18 debut with only about a half-week of sales, as their sophomore effort, “The Odd Couple” didn’t arrive in record stores until Thursday or Friday, two to three days after the tracking week began.
    *Chris Brown manages the impressive feet of scoring three songs in the Top 10 this week, a feat that was most recently accomplished by T-Pain last year. Mr. Pain is no slouch himself, with two songs in the Top 10, including one shared with Mr. Brown
    *Lil’ Mama, believe it or not, is only the fourth female rapper to score two Top Ten hits on the pop chart. The others? Li’l Kim, Da Brat and Missy Elliott.
    *Nice week to be Diddy, eh? Not only was the L.A. Times story that implicated him in Tupac’s 1994 shooting revealed to be a fraud, but his proteges Danity Kane enter the charts at #1 for the second time, making them the only female act to debut at #1 with two consecutive albums. Next week, Puff’s boy-band counterpart, Day26, will ALSO enter the charts at the top with their debut. Expect to see lots of Puffy smiling with those little-ass teeth!!

  • The iTunes Shuffle

    I was talking to a friend the other day and he was telling me about a new song from someone named Leona Lewis. As he was telling me why her song Bleeding Love was worthy of spending a buck on, I was trying to remember where I saw her name. And then it hit me. It was in an e-mail from Apple, telling me what was upcoming and hot in the iTunes Music Store. Lewis was the winner of the third season of Simon Cowell’s UK show The X Factor. And while my friend and I both agreed that a broken heart is a better metaphor to use in music than a bleeding heart, I decided to take a leap and get the song. I wasn’t disappointed. And it doesn’t seem that iTunes fans are either. It was the number one song last week on the iTunes singles chart, only to be bested this week by Mariah Carey’s Touch My Body.

    That lead me to two other immediate iTunes purchases. Sara Bareilles’ Love Song is so catchy that I just had to buy it. She’s sort of a mix between Vanessa Carlton and Fiona Apple. And finally, I had to buy the MacBook Air song, New Soul by Yael Naim that Steve Jobs chose himself to be featured in the commercial for the new laptop.

    iTunes really has me by the credit card these days. After decided that I wasn’t going to buy CDs any longer and would only buy through iTunes, I’ve found myself buying more music of late. Instead of buying Randy Jackson’s new album, I simply bought Real Love by Katharine McPhee and Elliot Yamin. And after having a discussion about Family Ties with my girlfriend and finding out that she’d never heard of Billy Vera and the Beaters, I had to buy At This Moment for her. Word to Alex P. Keaton. Lastly, because I want Big Rube Studdard to make it in this business, I bought the new American Idol go home song, Celebrate Me Home.

    Luckily, I already bought Patrick Swayze’s She’s Like The Wind, or that would’ve been my next move.

  • 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.