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?
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.
Why is Jason Castro sitting next to Alexis Grace in the audience? I didn’t think I’d have to see those dread locks again until the end of this season.
Why is Lady GaGa on this show tonight? I know she’s hot on the charts, but I don’t know anyone who has the album.
Why hasn’t Kara DioGuardi returned my phone calls yet?
Ok, just kidding on that last question. (She returned them.) But the first two are real questions. Someone please answer them for me.
The top 9 are singing Don’t Stop Believing. Scott is rockin’ out on the keyboard and if you didn’t know this was pre-taped and then lip synced, you know now. Scott was singing but was nowhere near the microphone. Someone should’ve held it for him. It was actually a pretty good version of the song.
Megan is wearing a dress that resembles red overalls. I don’t think it’s made by Osh Kosh B’Gosh.
For five minutes, Ryno had some of the contestants do impersonations of each other. None of them were all that good, but at least they were having a good time. Ryno also mentioned that this group of Idol contestants get along better than any others in history. You mean Ruben and Clay weren’t really brothers from another mother? Really?
Ryno tells Megan, Matt, and Kris to stand up and makes them walk toward the left side of the stage.
He tells Adam, Allison, and Lil Rounds to walk toward the center of the stage.
And the final three have to walk toward the right side of the stage. It looks like one of the three groups is the bottom three.
David Cook is on stage performing Come Back To Me. I’ve added the actual video to the song below.
They also presented him with his platinum album.
Ryno just told Kris to sit down.
Matt was told to sit down, but thought he was in the bottom three. He April Fools’d himself.
Megan is in the bottom three and for some reason squawked like a bird and flapped her arms.
Lil Rounds is safe.
Allison is in the bottom three as well. She doesn’t deserve to be there. But Megan does.
Adam is safe and they showed a shot of his friends. One guy had a wickedly bad mohawk.
Danny is safe.
It’s down to Scott and Anoop.
Randall says judging on last night, Anoop deserves to be in the bottom three. Anoop agrees for some reason. Anoop predicted correctly. He’s in the bottom three.
Lady GaGa is performing Poker Face. Nope, I don’t get her just yet. Here’s her actual video to this song.
Allison was sent back with the rest of the group. She’s safe. So it’s either Anoop Doggy Dogg or Megan who will go home.
It’s hasta la bye bye to Megan. Simon says they won’t even bother watching her sing before telling her they won’t save her. For some reason, she’s actually loose while performing. Still goofy, but at least she’s looser. I’m not sure she can necessarily feel the rhythm. But it’s ok. She’s going to be cute for at least another 15 years. She can live off that.
She tells her son that she’s coming home. Carrie Underwood sings her home sweet home.
