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Pop Rock Nation

Tag: Lady GaGa

  • Chart Chat 1/27/10: History Has Been Made

    This week’s Billboard albums chart brings a historic first. The “Hope for Haiti” benefit album, featuring selections from the telethon last Friday, debuts at #1 with over 171,000 units sold. It is the first completely digital release to debut at the top of the charts. I assume it won’t be the last.

    It’s also the fourth album to hold the #1 spot this month (following Vampire Weekend, Ke$ha and Susan Boyle), which is also a record. Also, it’s scan total means that this is the first January on record in which every #1 album has sold at least 100,000 copies-at least some good news for a hurting music biz.

    Indie rock favorites Spoon debut at #4 with their latest album, “Transference”, selling 53,000 copies. Right behind it is the compilation “Grammy Nominees 2010” with 49K. The other debuts in the Top 50 come from Motion City Soundtrack at #15, and an actual motion picture soundtrack (from the Jeff Bridges film “Crazy Heart”) at #38.

    SuBo’s hanging in a lot tougher than I thought she would. “I Dreamed a Dream” holds at #2 this week with a 12% increase over the previous week’s sales. An “Oprah” appearance was the reason for this increase, similar to the increase Lady Gaga (who is right behind Boyle at #3) enjoyed last week (when I didn’t publish a Chart Chat column. Boo, me).

    The biggest percentage increase on the chart went to another Oprah guest, Adam Lambert. His “For Your Entertainment” jumps fourteen spots to #21, with a 60% increase in sales. Lambert is now a week or two away from Gold status, and airplay picking up for the new single “Whataya Want from Me” should continue to keep sales steady.

    Next week, country trio Lady Antebellum is expected to debut at the top with the biggest first-week numbers of the still young year. A strong move is expected for Michael Jackson’s “This is It” soundtrack (with the DVD release yesterday), and we should also expect a few bumps from Grammy Award coverage, although the true increases won’t really come into play until the following week.

    Here’s this week’s Top 20:

    1) Various Artists “Hope for Haiti”
    2) Susan Boyle “I Dreamed a Dream”
    3) Lady Gaga “The Fame”
    4) Spoon “Transference”
    5) Various Artists “Grammy Nominees 2010”
    6) Vampire Weekend “Contra”
    7) Alicia Keys “The Element of Freedom”
    8) Ke$ha “Animal”
    9) The Black Eyed Peas “The E.N.D.”
    10) Taylor Swift “Fearless”
    11) Lady Gaga “The Fame: Monster (EP)”
    12) Soundtrack “Alvin & the Chipmunks 2: The Squeaquel”
    13) Justin Bieber “My World (EP)”
    14) Mary J. Blige “Stronger Witheach Tear”
    15) Motion City Soundtrack “My Dinosaur Life”
    16) Lady Antebellum “Lady Antebellum”
    17) Michael Jackson “This is It Soundtrack”
    18) Michael Buble “Crazy Love”
    19) Rihanna “Rated R”
    20) Owl City “Ocean Eyes”

  • Billboard Magazine Lists The Best of 2009

    Now that we’re in the last week of December, we’re being surrounded with all of these Best of Year or Best of Decade wrapups and lists. We’ll be taking a look at some of those over the next two weeks, and I figured the logical place to start would be with the fine folks at Billboard magazine.

    So, what were people buying and listening to on the radio in 2009? Pretty much the same thing they’ve been listening to for most of the decade:dance-oriented pop/R&B with a little country thrown in. Taylor Swift ranked as the year’s top artist and had 2009’s top album with “Fearless”. That particular album is closing in on the 5 million mark in sales and has truly been a crossover sensation. The next few spots on the artist list are pure pop: Beyonce, Lady GaGa (the year’s top new artist), The Black Eyed Peas and Miley Cyrus. Rapper Kanye West breaks up the monotony by placing at #6-he is also the year’s top-ranked male artist. Rock music doesn’t get representation until you get to Nickelback at #9, and after Beyonce, the highest ranked R&B artist is Ne-Yo at #17.

    Beyonce also captures the #2 spot when it comes to the top album of the year, and she’s followed by Nickelback’s “Dark Horse” and a pair of soundtracks-“Twilight” and “Hannah Montana-The Movie”. These positions are based on chart rankings and not actual sales. Soundscan will publish it’s year end rankings…uh, when the year ends in a week and a half.

    Here’s a list of this year’s Top 20 artists and Top 20 albums, according to Billboard.

    Top Artists:

    1) Taylor Swift
    2) Beyonce
    3) Lady GaGa
    4) The Black Eyed Peas
    5) Miley Cyrus
    6) Kanye West
    7) Britney Spears
    8) T.I.
    9) Nickelback
    10) Pink
    11) Kings of Leon
    12) Katy Perry
    13) Flo Rida
    14) Kelly Clarkson
    15) Jason Mraz
    16) The Fray
    17) Ne Yo
    18) Lil Wayne
    19) Rascal Flatts
    20) Zac Brown Band

    …and here are the year’s Top 20 albums:

    1) “Fearless” Taylor Swift
    2) “I Am…Sasha Fierce” Beyonce
    3) “Dark Horse” Nickelback
    4) “Twilight Soundtrack” Various Artists
    5) “Hannah Montana: The Movie Soundtrack” Various Artists
    6) “Circus” Britney Spears
    7) “808s & Heartbreak” Kanye West
    8) “The Fame” Lady GaGa
    9) “Relapse” Eminem
    10) “The E.N.D.” The Black Eyed Peas
    11) “Only by the Night” Kings of Leon
    12) “The Blueprint 3” Jay-Z
    13) “David Cook” David Cook
    14) “The Foundation” Zac Brown Band
    15) “Now That’s What I Call Music 29” Various Artists
    16) “Funhouse” Pink
    17) “Intuition” Jamie Foxx
    18) “No Line on the Horizon” U2
    19) “Unstoppable” Rascal Flatts
    20) “A Different Me” Keyshia Cole

    Interesting personal factoid is that I own 12 of the Top 20 albums of the year, but I actually paid for only 7 of them (Kanye, Jay-Z, U2, Beyonce, Pink, Zac Brown and Kings of Leon).

  • Is It Just Me Or…

    Is it just me or…is Baby By Me the greatest Ne-Yo song ever, until 50 Cent comes in and then it becomes the worst 50 Cent song ever?
    First it’s her neck, yeah then her back
    Yeah I’m a freak, I get into all that
    Girl I perform for ya, like a porno star
    Till ya had enough then I just need a little bit more

    Yep, the dude has to bite a Khia song these days.

    Is it just me or…does Lady GaGa need to throw the New Kids On The Block a bone?
    The first time I ever heard of Lady GaGa was on the terrible Big Girl Now cut on the New Kids latest album The Block. She was even on their comeback tour. Then she blows up. How about getting the Boston boys on a track and releasing it as a single GaGa? How about having them join you on your burning piano? Throw the dudes a bone!

    NKOTB
    NKOTB


    Speaking of things related to the New Kids, is it just me or should Mark Walhberg stop pretending that he wasn’t a white-boy rapper in the 90s named Marky Mark?
    And to even take it a step beyond, I think he should make a comeback. Since he’d never do it without pretending that it wasn’t him, I say we take it to the next level. How about he raps with a luchador mask on and comes out as MC Invincible, which was the name of one of his films? Ok, fine, I know that’s just me.

    Is it just me or should Kris Allen have marketed himself as the anti-Glambert?
    Since Lambert decided to go way over the top as a drama queen in marketing his album, couldn’t Allen have just done the opposite and reached out to all the people who were just disgusted with Lambert? I would’ve looked at all the markets that did the lowest TV ratings for Lambert’s set on the American Music Awards and immediately booked concerts in those areas and called myself Kris “No Nail Polish And Make-Up” Allen.

    Is it just me or is Beyonce the hottest thing in the world until she starts performing and makes mugs that make her eyes bulge out?
    If you don’t believe, you only need click here. I have no idea why she feels the need to make that face over and over again during her concerts. And to add to that, if you take Jay-Z’s mean mug when he throws down his B-boy stance, you have the muggin’est couple in music.

    Photo of the New Kids On The Block added by http://www.flickr.com/people/80842482@N00 and shared via Creative Commons