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Tag: Nickelback

  • Chart Chat 2009 Wrap Up: Susan Boyle Falls Just Short

    Soundscan’s 2009 officially ended at midnight on Monday morning, and Taylor Swift and Susan Boyle were racing for the prize for best-selling album of the year. Swift manages to win in a photo finish. “Fearless” sold 3.22 million copies in the calendar year, just a shade over Boyle’s 3.10 million. Boyle can take some consolation in the fact that “I Dreamed a Dream” tops the Billboard album chart for a sixth consecutive week, with sales of 137,000 copies as the industry winds down from the holiday boom.

    Actually, this week’s Top 5 is very kind to the fairer sex. Aside from Boyle at the top and Swift at #5, the chart is filled out by a resurgent Lady GaGa at #2, Alicia Keys at #3 and Mary J. Blige at #4. The post-Christmas lull and a lack of new releases makes for a pretty uneventful chart, but that may change next week as newcomer Ke$ha challenges for the #1 spot.

    Let’s re-direct our attention to the year-end charts. Swift and Boyle had the only albums to move over 3 million units in 2009. All told, 5 albums crossed the 2 million mark, 22 albums crossed the 1 million mark and 62 albums scanned over half a million copies, as though we needed any further proof that the industry is shrinking-nearly 100 albums crossed the Gold barrier as recently as 2005.

    A few trends that jump out as I peruse the year-end totals:

    *Country is one genre that is illegal-download and recession proof. 14 country albums sold over half a million copies this year, led by two Taylor Swift albums. In addition to “Fearless”, her self-titled debut was the 35th best-selling album of the year with 782,000 copies sold. Other major country successes included Rascal Flatts, Carrie Underwood, the Zac Brown Band and the country-flavored “Hannah Montana” movie soundtrack, all of which were million-sellers.

    *Hip-hop had a mixed bag of a year. Three rap albums land in the Top 10. The Black Eyed Peas had the year’s 7th biggest seller with “The E.N.D.”, followed by Eminem’s “Relapse” at #8 and Jay-Z’s “Blueprint 3” at #9. The only other rap album to sell more than half a million units this past year was T.I.’s “Paper Trail”, which pops in at #58 with 530,000 units scanned. You could also technically include Kanye West’s “808s and Heartbreak”, which scanned 597,000 units this year, although it’s not a rap album per se.

    *If you’re an “American Idol” fan, now might be a good time to start buying music. Carrie Underwood’s “Play On” was the only album from an “Idol” alum to crash the million-sold barrier this year. She’s followed by Daughtry (#31, 882K) and Kelly Clarkson (#33, 813K). If you’re looking for other former “Idol”s, you have to go much lower on the chart, where you’ll find David Cook (#73), Underwood’s “Carnival Ride” (#74, Adam Lambert (#81), the first Daughtry album (#144), Underwood’s debut (#158), Jennifer Hudson (#166), Kris Allen (#183) and Kellie Pickler (#191).

    *Good old dependable rock & roll? Not so much. The biggest-selling rock album of the year was Kings of Leon’s “Only by the Night”, which lands at #10, with 1.4 million copies sold. Nickelback’s “Dark Horse” trails right behind at #11. Along with the “Twilight” soundtrack (#13), they are the only rock albums in the Top 20.

    *Then, of course, there’s Michael Jackson. “Number Ones” finished as the year’s third biggest-seller, with 2.4 million copies sold. It was followed by “This is It” (#12), “Thriller” (#14), and “The Essential Michael Jackson” (#20).

    *As far as sales disappointments go, albums by these superstar artists failed to even hit the 400,000 copies sold mark: Mariah Carey, Colbie Caillat, Creed, Fabolous, Rob Thomas and 50 Cent, while albums by Rick Ross and Bon Jovi have stalled under the 500,000 mark.
    Here are the year’s Top 40 sellers, according to Soundscan:

    1) Taylor Swift “Fearless”
    2) Susan Boyle “I Dreamed a Dream”
    3) Michael Jackson “Number Ones”
    4) Lady GaGa “The Fame”
    5) Andrea Bocelli “My Christmas”
    6) Soundtrack “Hannah Montana: The Movie”
    7) The Black Eyed Peas “The E.N.D.”
    8) Eminem “Relapse”
    9) Jay-Z “Blueprint 3”
    10) Kings of Leon “Only by the Night”
    11) Nickelback “Dark Horse”
    12) Michael Jackson “This is It”
    13) Soundtrack “Twilight”
    14) Michael Jackson “Thriller”
    15) Zac Brown Band “Foundation”
    16) Michael Buble “Crazy Love”
    17) Miley Cyrus “Time of Our Lives EP”
    18) Beyonce “I Am…Sasha Fierce”
    19) Carrie Underwood “Play On”
    20) Michael Jackson “The Essential Michael Jackson”
    21) Rascal Flatts “Unstoppable”
    22) U2 “No Line on the Horizon”
    23) Dave Matthews Band “Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King”
    24) Lady Antebellum “Lady Antebellum”
    25) Soundtrack “Twilight: New Moon”
    26) Jason Aldean “Wide Open”
    27) Maxwell “BLACKsummersnight”
    28) Whitney Houston “I Look to You”
    29) Green Day “21st Century Breakdown”
    30) Darius Rucker “Learn to Live”
    31) Daughtry “Leave This Town”
    32) Various “Now That’s What I Call Music 32”
    33) Kelly Clarkson “All I Ever Wanted”
    34) P!nk “Funhouse”
    35) Taylor Swift “Taylor Swift”
    36) The Fray “The Fray”
    37) Alicia Keys “The Element of Freedom”
    38) Various “Now That’s What I Call Music 30”
    39) Justin Bieber “My World”
    40) Keith Urban “Defying Gravity”

  • CD Review: Timbaland’s “Shock Value II”

    What was I thinking when I decided to plunk down ten bucks on Timbaland’s new album? I should have known better. Timbaland is widely considered one of the best producers in popular music right now, but a closer listen to even his production work reveals questionable talent. For every great one of his kick-heavy beats, there’s 3 or 4 monotonous ones, and it’s hard not to notice that many of the beats boasting his name over the past five years or so have been created with co-producers, making me wonder if his recent pop-centric reinvention is really his creative doing.

    As a vocalist, let’s just say Tim is a good producer. He raps in a deep, gruff near-monotone and his singing is a slight variation of the same. Lyrically, he has next to nothing to say other than how rich and/or talented he is-mixed up with an occasional trite love/party song. Even I’ll admit that fellow supa-producer Kanye West is lacking in the rhyme skill department, but Timbo makes Kanye look like Rakim by comparison.

    The main reason I bought “Shock Value 2” was the guest artist lineup. The album has a star-studded group of featured performers, ranging from popular artists I like a good amount (Nelly Furtado, Justin Timberlake and The Fray) to artists that I don’t make a part of my everyday listening experience but I can usually tolerate (Drake). Not even the intrigue of hearing how acts like Chad Kroeger of Nickelback and The Fray sounded over a Timbaland beat can stop this album from being a total waste of time and money.

    “Shock Value 2” is generally electronic, lyrically slight, and features way too much actual Timbaland. On the songs that show a glimmer of promise, he normally shows up and throws the entire track off course. Take “Timothy Where You Been”, for example. The lush, acoustic-flavored track is actually a winner and I even dig the vocals from Chris Cester of Jet (!). Then Tim pops in rapping about how great an artist he is and I feel like popping my speaker open and yelling into it for him to STFU. Similarly, his equally untalented and monotone brother/protege Sebastian starts in on “Tomorrow in a Bottle” and ruins a pretty decent song by Chad Kroeger. When the presence of the widely-reviled Nickelback lead singer actually makes your song listenable, there is probably a glitch in the matrix.

    Of course, the fact that Timbaland can’t really sing leads to an increased focus on vocal effects. Yes, folks. There is auto-tune aplenty here. It’s most notable on the idiotic “Morning After Dark” (“when the cats go out the bats go out to play”…huh?) and on “Lose Control”, where former teen star JoJo follows the trend of perfectly good singers going for the auto-tune trick. I guess Tim only listened to the tracks he produced on “The Blueprint 3” and skipped “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)”.

    Speaking of Jigga, he’s possibly the most notable Timbaland collaborator missing from this project. Actually, the only rappers that show up on this project besides Tim himself are the aforementioned Sebastian, “it” rapper Drake and…Brandy? Yep, the former teen idol has created a rapping alter-ego called Bran’ Nu, and she debuts on the song “Meet Me in the Dark”. Somewhat sadly, Moesha probably turns in the best rap performance on the album.

    But I digress, my point is that there is a noticeable dearth of r&b and hip-hop artists on this record. Considering that Tim has worked with just about every popular artist in either genre, this fact turns out to be something of a head-scratcher. This album is easily the most pop-centric of his career, and I’ll bet that old collaborators like Missy Elliott, Ginuwine and Magoo are a little peeved that they’ve been traded in for the likes of Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry.

    Even Tim’s golden collaborator, Justin Timberlake, can’t save this project. On the inane “Carry Out”, Tim and JT come up with a lame waitress/server lyrical metaphor and throw it over a completely uninspired beat. I should also note that this track highlights Justin’s biggest Achilles heel: his songwriting. Anyone who anoints this guy the best pop/blue-eyed soul singer/songwriter working today either hasn’t listened to a Robin Thicke record or forgets that George Michael had written lyrical gems like “Praying for Time” by the time he was Justin’s age. Speaking of blue-eyed soul, Tim wastes vocals and songwriting efforts on two tracks from Canadian vocalist Esthero, who has released two excellent albums of much better material. While I appreciate Esthero finally getting some mainstream shine, I hope this isn’t an indication of what her future work will sound like.

    Is there any reason at all you should own this album? Honestly, nope. I will say that if you are the type of music listener that goes crazy over artists like Akon and the now-era Black Eyed Peas, you’ll probably dig “Shock Value 2”. Similar to records by those singers, there’s plenty of emphasis on shiny, clubby beatmaking and no emphasis on songwriting that goes beyond banal cliche. Actually, I should add that if you dig artists like Akon and the now-era Black Eyed Peas, you should seek professional help, but feel free to put the psychiatric diagnosis on hold and pop in a copy of “Shock Value 2”. I’ll even give you mine.

  • 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).