How many bands these days can go five songs deep on an album? You’ve gotta hand it to Adam Levine and company for making one of the better pop albums of the past 2 years or so with “It Won’t Be Soon Before Long”. There have also been a couple of interesting videos, such as the airport fantasy of “Makes Me Wonder” and the mini-action movie of “Wake Up Call”. Their last single, “If I Never See Your Face Again” was a funked-up jam that featured an unnecessarily shoehorned-in Rihanna, and now they’re back in ballad territory with “Goodnight, Goodnight”.
This was always one of my least favorite songs from the album, partially because the lyrics are a bit trite, partially because the song’s into rips off 3 Doors Down’s “Kryptonite” (seriously…no one recognized the similarity?), but it’s grown on me significantly over the past couple weeks. And while I’d have much rather seen “Can’t Stop”, “Nothing Lasts Forever” or “Better That We Break” released as singles, I’ve also gotta admit that this is a pretty good video. Check it out for yourself.
It’s that time again! Courtesy of the folks at Billboard, I bring you this week’s Top Singles and Albums charts. Dig the foxy-ass pic of Neil Diamond. He’s pimp!!vKick it, Fred!
Top 20 Albums:
1)”Home Before Dark” Neil Diamond
2)”35 Biggest Hits” Toby Keith
3)”Hard Candy” Madonna
4)”On My Way Here” Clay Aiken
5)”E=MC2″ Mariah Carey
6)”Spirit” Leona Lewis
7)”Gavin DeGraw” Gavin DeGraw
8)”Awake Live” Josh Groban
9)”Greatest Hits: Every Mile a Memory 2003-2008″ Dierks Bentley
10)”Complices” Luis Miguel
11)”Taylor Swift” Taylor Swift
12)”Lyfe Change” Lyfe Jennings
13)”Now That’s What I Call Music! Vol. 27″ Various Artists
14)”Troubadour” George Strait
15)”Sleep Through the Static” Jack Johnson
16)”Stand Out” Tye Tribbett & G.A.
17)”Juno Soundtrack” Various Artists
18)”Jordin Sparks” Jordin Sparks
19)”Coco” Colbie Caillat
20)”Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & 2″ Tim McGraw
Top 20 Singles:
1)”Take a Bow” Rihanna
2)”Bleeding Love” Leona Lewis
3)”Lollipop” Lil’ Wayne feat. Static Major
4)”No Air” Jordin Sparks & Chris Brown
5)”Love in This Club” Usher feat. Young Jeezy
6)”Sexy Can I” Ray J. & Yung Berg
7)”4 Minutes” Madonna feat. Justin Timberlake
8)”Touch My Body” Mariah Carey
9)”Pocketful of Sunshine” Natasha Bedingfield
10)”Damaged” Danity Kane
11)”Love Song” Sara Bareilles
12)”Leavin’” Jesse McCartney
13)”Low” Flo-Rida feat. T-Pain
14)”Say” John Mayer
15)”Viva La Vida” Coldplay
16)”Bust it Baby Pt. 2″ Plies feat. Ne-Yo
17)”What You Got” Colby O’Donis feat. Akon
18)”With You” Chris Brown
19)”See You Again” Miley Cyrus
20)”Stop & Stare” OneRepublic
*So, when the news started to hit about Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon getting married, I actually thought to myself, “Self, whatever happened to Luis Miguel?”. Luis was the Latin superstar Mariah dated between Derek Jeter and (allegedly) Eminem. The Top 10 debut for his latest album answers that question for me. I’m pretty sure Mariah and Luis are the only former couple to share space in the Top 10 this week, unless there was some Toby Keith/Clay Aiken hookup that I didn’t know anything about. Ugh. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
*Rihanna’s “Take a Bow” makes the second biggest leap to #1 in chart history, climbing 51 spots to the top. The holder for the largest jump is Maroon 5’s “Makes Me Wonder”, from last year. So of course, another debut this week is “If I Never See Your Face Again”, by Maroon 5 featuring Rihanna (see how nicely that came together?). I’ll admit, I liked this song a lot without Rihanna, but she does add a bit of sexual tension to the proceedings (and it’s a much better song than the plodding “Take a Bow”). It’s still a little disturbing though, because I’m pretty sure that Adam Levine has at least a decade on Rih-Rih.
*Neil Diamond, somewhat improbably, scores the first #1 album of his CAREER with “Home After Dark”. This news definitely threw me for a loop, because I remember watching “America’s Top 10” as a kid and I swore that the “Jazz Singer” soundtrack was omnipresent. I’m surprised it wasn’t a #1 album. According to Wikipedia, it peaked at #3. Wow. Well, congrats to Neil and to producer Rick Rubin for bringing forth Neil’s late-career renaissance. Oh, and “American Idol”, which featured Neil as their guest judge a couple weeks back.
*After a five year wait, apparently people still care about Gavin DeGraw. I am decidedly *not* one of them.
*How about this one, folks? Danity Kane (at #10 on the singles chart) is the only group to be found in the entire Top 10 of both the singles AND albums charts! Every one else in the top tier of both lists is either a solo artist, performing a duet (or has a “featured” performance), or is a movie soundtrack. Billboard’s Chart Beat Chat acknowledges that it might be the first time in history that’s occurred.
*Next week, Death Cab for Cutie will almost certainly debut at #1 on the albums chart (managing to break the solo artist trend), while major moves on the singles chart should come from Usher (whose “Love in This Club Part II, featuring Beyonce, was made available for digital download this week) and NKOTB’s “Summertime”, which is on pace to debut in the Top 40, if not the Top 20.
*Ahh, screw it, let’s just make it a Rihanna Sunday. Here’s the video for “Take a Bow”. For the record, (and to clarify for the Boston Metro writer who called her a 2-hit wonder), this is her 8th Top 10 single. Umm…and what’s up with that neck tattoo? And isn’t this song just “Irreplaceable” with pianos instead of guitars?
I think FOX should give Jason Castro his own show. The premise would be that he be given two classic songs to perform in front of a live studio audience. The goal would be to see how badly he would wreck those classic songs. The louder the crowd growns, the more money he gets. It would be car crash television at it’s best. I would call it Jason Castro Wrecks The Beatles~!. And yes, that’s a tilde bang.
After last night’s performances, if Jason Castro is still on the show next week, we might as well just give him the title. I was all for Sanjaya doing as well as possible because he entertained me. But Sanjaya was out of there midway through the season. Jason Castro doesn’t entertain me. His terrible singing, terrible facial expressions, pubic hair on his lip styled mustache, and Bill and Ted laugh all kill me. Bah! Let’s get on with this. Jason Castro, I quit you!
Ok, enough with the Castro hate. He’s just a kid. I know.
It’s showtime folks … (that was for Eddy Zucko)
– Boseph Bice and Maroon 5 are scheduled to perform tonight. I wonder if Adam Levine still looks like a waif model.
– Ryno brings out Big Dave Archuleta and Big Dave is as safe as Rickey Henderson stealing second base.
– Predictably, David Cook is also safe and that leaves us with Syesha and Jason Castro in the bottom two.
– I know I promised to not talk about the lame segment On The Air With American Idol, but one of the callers asked what the biggest challenge has been thus far and Castro said, “The brain being dead.” Unintentional comedy at it’s finest!
– By the way, the answer is yes, Adam Levine looks like a waif model. I’ve seen better shoulders on a wire hanger and those arms are the size of pipe cleaners. Thankfully, he can sing.
– I think Boseph Bice still hates me for turning on him after being a big fan for all of season four. And then, on finale night, I threw him under the bus and gave my allegiance to Carrie “Tony Romo Is A Virgin” Underwood. He just performed his new single and I think he gave me the stank eye.
– Jason Castro just said that someone told him that he shot the tambourine man yesterday. At the very least, this dude is hilarious tonight.
– More and more each week, Syesha is looking like a dead ringer for Ashley Banks. Where’s Carlton?
Where Is This Man?
– Ryno tells Syesha that she’s in the top three, which means that Big Rube is celebrating Jason Castro home.
– Jason Castro says he’s relieved because next week the top three perform three songs each and he wouldn’t know what to do having to memorize three songs. You can’t knock the guy’s honesty. And this week, he entertained me.
