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Tag: Susan Boyle

  • Chart Chat 12/30/09: Prelude to the Year-End Wrap Up

    Hey folks, I’ve been out of pocket for just about a week. Not having internet service beyond a Blackberry isn’t fun. However, we’re back and 2010 promises even bigger and better things:

    This week’s chart is the 52nd of the chart year, so get your pads and pencils ready. We’ll be talking about the top sellers of the year very soon. In the meantime…

    Susan Boyle’s “I Dreamed a Dream” logs a fifth week at the #1 spot on the charts, with 510,000 units sold. This brings it’s total to a shade under three million units. It’s the longest running #1 album of 2009.

    Mary J. Blige pops in at the runner-up spot with “Stronger with Each Tear”. This album didn’t have the buzz that her previous two albums had, which explains the sharp dropoff in first week sales. “Stronger” checks in with 330,000 units scanned in its’ first week. 2007’s “Growing Pains” debuted with 629K and ’05’s “The Breakthrough” bowed with 727K. I’m giving the album its’ second listen now and while it’s not bad, it definitely sounds like Mary on autopilot.

    The chart’s only other debut comes from Lil Wayne’s Young Money collective. Despite the star power of Weezy as well as artists like Lloyd, Nicki Minaj and Drake, their “We Are Young Money” compilation debuts at a so-so #9 with 142,000 copies sold.

    Eminem’s “Relapse” gets a huge boost thanks to it’s “Refill” re-release with extra tracks. The album lands at #11 with 128,000 copies sold, bringing its’ total take to 1.7 million copies.

    Each of this week’s Top 16 albums sells over 100,000 copies. It’s worth noting how femme-centric the Top 10 is. In addition to Boyle and Blige, the top ten also hosts Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood and Lady GaGa, as well as female-targeted male artists like Justin Bieber and Michael Buble. Next week, expect a chart overhaul as the more adult-oriented artists take a tumble down the chart (Boyle might even cede her #1 chart perch to Blige or Alicia Keys) and more youth-oriented artists rise up.

    Here are this week’s Top 20 albums:

    1) Susan Boyle “I Dreamed a Dream”
    2) Mary J. Blige “Stronger with Each Tear”
    3) Andrea Bocelli “My Christmas”
    4) Alicia Keys “The Element of Freedom”
    5) Taylor Swift “Fearless”
    6) Lady GaGa “The Fame”
    7) Justin Bieber “My World (EP)”
    8) Carrie Underwood “Play On”
    9) Young Money “We Are Young Money”
    10) Michael Buble “Crazy Love”
    11) Eminem “Relapse”
    12) Lady GaGa “The Fame: Monster (EP)”
    13) Michael Jackson “This is It”
    14) Owl City “Ocean Eyes”
    15) The Black Eyed Peas “The E.N.D.”
    16) Glee Cast “Glee: The Music Vol. 2”
    17) Various Artists “Now 32”
    18) Rihanna “Rated R”
    19) John Mayer “Battle Studies”
    20) Soundtrack “Alvin & the Chipmunks 2: the Squeaquel”

  • Just My Thoughts On Adam Lambert

    These are just my thoughts ladies and gentlemen, just my thoughts.

    I think that Adam Lambert is insufferable.
    Adam Lambert is what I call forced flamboyance. From the over the top album cover to his awful display of trying way too hard to shock people at the American Music Awards so that he’d be in the news the next day, none of what he’s doing seems natural. Some of your greatest performers in music are themselves, just turned up a couple of notches. When it comes to flamboyance, Cyndi Lauper seemed to have it right. It seemed like her energy and creativity was simply her, but just dialed up to a 10. I don’t feel the same way about Lambert. It all just feels so fake.

    For Your Entertainment
    For Your Entertainment
    I really enjoyed him on American Idol (and if you want proof, just read my Vital Idol blogs from last season) and was looking forward to buying his album. I heard he was really pushing the envelope and the gimmick early on in the production of his album, but I was still willing to give it a shot. Even if he didn’t do Mad World and Tracks Of My Tears type of songs, he was still interesting enough that I wanted to hear where he was going.

    And then I saw his American Music Awards performance (I had to find the edited portion online). His over the top performance told me that he didn’t trust his record to stand on its own merits. And I absolutely hated his comments after he was asked his thoughts on whether or not he thought ABC would censor the West Coast version of his performance.

    This is what he told Rolling Stone before knowing whether or not his performance would get edited on the West Coast feed of the American Music Awards:

    “It’s a shame because I think that there’s a double standard going on in the entertainment community right now.

    Female performers have been doing this for years . . . pushing the envelope about sexuality . . . and the minute a man does it, everybody freaks out.

    We’re in 2009 . . . it’s time to take risks, be a little more brave, time to open people’s eyes and if it offends them, then maybe I’m not for them. My goal was not to piss people off, it was to promote freedom of expression and artistic freedom.”

    “In a roundabout way it’s a form of discrimination because it is a double standard. They didn’t censor BRITNEY [SPEARS] and MADONNA macking onstage did they? But yet two men kissing they’ll censor.”

    Discrimination? Ha!

    Well, they didn’t censor the kiss but ABC sure did censor the facial pelvic thrust. I understand the guy is young and he has to fight the stereotype that he’s simply a byproduct of a television show, but to already have a built in excuse for getting censored shows me that whatever he did was completely planned, not a spur of the moment like he said it was, and just irresponsible. If you really are a rebel, don’t throw anyone else under the bus with you.

    Oh, and Adam, lest you forget that what Madonna and Britney Spears did was on MTV which isn’t broadcast television.

    But here’s the bigger thing for me. The dude had probably 60-100 million pairs of eye balls on him at one time or another during Idol. There was no need to turn some of those folks off on a low rated music awards show performance. It was quite silly actually and bad marketing. How about you sell some records first before resorting to those kinds of tactics?

    Folks like me who were going to buy Lambert’s For Your Entertainment because of his body of “work” on Idol decided to skip out when we saw the shock value marketing ploy. The idea is to create a fanbase, not to turn off potential fans. It’s just not good business sense.

    He’s talented enough to come back from this, but whatever he did didn’t work. It looks like he’s getting trounced this week by Susan Boyle who is also a byproduct of a television show. And she didn’t have to pelvic thrust anyone in the face (thankfully) to do it.

  • Those British Reality Shows Keep Spittin’ ’em Out

    OK, so everyone’s seen the video of Susan Boyle, the homely British lady with the voice of an angel, right?

    Well, “Britain’s Got Talent” keeps proving that talent can come from the most peculiar places, as 12 year old Shaheen Jafargholi exhibits a vocal talent beyond his age with his version of The Jackson 5/Smokey Robinson’s “Who’s Lovin’ You”. Now look, the kid’s got pipes. He’s obviously listened to his Mariah Carey and Leona Lewis records, as his vocal style seems to take more from those divas than it does any male artist.

    Am I impressed? Sorta. Actually, Michael’s version (which is now 40 years old) still beats the pants off of this. And I don’t say that just because I’m a Michael Jackson nut. The J5’s version is simply sung better, and that’s all there is to it. This clip is also ripe for comedy, from Simon Cowell discreetly giving the camera the old face-scratch with his middle finger to the comment on the YouTube clip that says the kid is gonna be a future pillow biter (sorry, folks, I’d be inclined to agree). Anyway, before you chew me out for making inappropriate jokes about a pre-teen, check out the clip as well as The Jackson 5’s version and YOU tell me which is better.