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Tag: Usher

  • Chart Chat 5/18/08: Rihanna, Neil Diamond, Luis Miguel & More!!


    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?

  • BET Awards Action…It’s Fantas…Wait A Second…


    Hey, anyone notice that the Soul Train Music Awards didn’t happen this year? Well, after last year’s debacle, during which damn near NO ONE who won an award showed up, the organizers decided to pull the plug on the show after two decades.

    Well, one definite reason the Soul Train Awards’ power faded was because of the advent of the BET Awards. Since it’s inception in 2001, it has become the place where R&B, rap and gospel’s elite united to be honored. Add in the fact that they honor the film, television and sports world as well, and…well, I think the rest of this paragraph kinda writes itself.

    Anyway, this year’s nominees were announced today, and the leading nominee is…

    …(squints)…

    …T-PAIN?!!!!!???!!??

    Yup, Tallahassee’s finest (forgive me, Tallahasseans, I know no better) received five nominations, and not a one for his own work. Thank Kanye West, Chris Brown and Flo-Rida for the plethora of T-Pain love. Man, he has got the easiest job of anyone in the music industry. Dude doesn’t even have to sing.

    Anyway, the other multiple nominees were pretty standard: the aforementioned West and Brown, plus Li’l Wayne, Mary J. Blige and Alicia Keys, among others. Pleasant surprises included the love shown Erykah Badu, who got a pair of noms, plus the presence of British export Estelle in the Best New Artist category. Also nice to see Raheem DeVaughn get a pair of noms, and they recognized Chaka Khan, who’s made arguably the best R&B album in the past 12 months (Although they tossed her in the “BETJ” AKA “Old Fogey” category).

    A head scratcher included the entire Best Female Hip-Hop category. Any category in which Kid Sister and Li’l Mama are among your finalists should probably be scrapped sooner than later.

    Still,this promises to be an interesting show, with performances from Usher, among others,and the lifetime achievement award set to go to Rev. Al Green. The show airs live on June 24th, and you can find a complete list of nominees here: http://www.bet.com/specials/betawards08/

  • Chart Chat 5/11/08: Usher, Colbie Caillat, Plies & More!!


    Happy once de Mayo, ladies and gentlemen!! Let’s travel into the land of the Top 20 singles and albums, courtesy of Billboard Magazine!!

    Top 20 Albums:

    1) “Hard Candy” Madonna
    2) “E=MC2” Mariah Carey
    3) “Spirit” Leona Lewis
    4) “Lyfe Change” Lyfe Jennings
    5) “Songs from the Sparkle Lounge” Def Leppard
    6) “Rising Down” The Roots
    7) “Third” Portishead
    8) “Mudcrutch” Mudcrutch
    9) “Now That’s What I Call Music Vol. 27” Various Artists
    10) “Greatest Hits-Limited Edition” Tim McGraw
    11) “Taylor Swift” Taylor Swift
    12) “Nine Lives” Steve Winwood
    13) “Juno Soundtrack” Various Artists
    14) “Alvin & The Chipmunks Soundtrack” Various Artists
    15) “This Kind of Love” Carly Simon
    16) “Sleep Through the Static” Jack Johnson
    17) “Flight of the Concords Soundtrack”Flight of the Concords
    18) “Troubadour” George Strait
    19) “Coco” Colbie Caillat
    20) “The Best of Both Worlds Concert” Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus

    Top 20 Singles:

    1) “Bleeding Love” Leona Lewis
    2) “Lollipop” Lil’ Wayne feat Static Major
    3) “No Air” Chris Brown & Jordin Sparks
    4) “Love in This Club” Usher feat. Young Jeezy
    5) “Sexy Can I” Ray J. & Yung Berg
    6) “4 Minutes” Madonna feat. Justin Timberlake
    7) “Touch My Body” Mariah Carey
    8) “Pocketful of Sunshine” Natasha Bedingfield
    9) “Love Song” Sara Bareilles
    10) “Leavin’” Jesse McCartney
    11) “Damaged” Danity Kane
    12) “Low” Flo-Rida feat. T-Pain
    13) “Say” John Mayer
    14) “See You Again” Miley Cyrus
    15) “Forever” Chris Brown
    16) “With You” Chris Brown
    17) “Stop & Stare” OneRepublic
    18) “Don’t Stop the Music” Rihanna
    19) “Bust it Baby” Plies feat. Ne-Yo
    20) “Realize” Colbie Caillat

    *Colbie Caillat might be the most befuddling music purchase I’ve made in the past year. I guess it was one of those “let me see what the fuss is all about” purchases, and the fact is, she’s the most boring, white bread girl with an acoustic guitar in the history of music. She makes Jack Johnson (who I love, by the way) sound like freakin’ Mastodon by comparison.

    *Hmmm…so I thought Plies was going to be a one-hit wonder. Thanks to Ne-Yo, “Bust it Baby” becomes his second hit. Too bad I can’t even remember what the first one was.

    *Record industry folks, take a look at this stat. Of this week,s Top 20 singles, only five are by artists who have been around for 10 years or more (Li’l Wayne, Usher, Mariah Carey, Madonna and Ray J.). It also might be worth noting that of those five, Wayne, Usher and Ray J, are all under 30. Now, check out the album chart, where of the 16 albums that are not soundtracks or compilations, 10 of the artists/bands have been around for 10 years or more (and yes, I’m counting Mudcrutch, Tom Petty’s latest side project). Of the 6 remaining artists, all except Miley Cyrus are considered more “adult”-type artists. That should provide the world’s simplest reasoning for the fact that kids are buying singles (possibly because they can’t *afford* albums…hello??) and adults are buying albums. Can it get any more simple?

    *Usher finds himself in the bizarre position of having the same song on the Top 100 twice…sort of. “Love in This Club Part II”, which features Beyonce, is hanging out at #51. I don’t think the Billboard folks have explained yet why the two songs aren’t combined on the chart, assuming “Part II” is just a remix of “Part I”. Even if the songs sound completely different…the two versions of J. Lo’s “I’m Real” were completely different and they charted together.

    *Is Lyfe Jennings, who debuts in the Top 5 for the second consecutive time, becoming the 21st century Gerald LeVert…a consistently-selling R&B crooner that mainstream radio and media COMPLETELY ignores?

    *On their Def Jam swan song, The Roots tie “Things Fall Apart” with the highest debut of their career, at #6 (granted, with about half the sales, but still…)

    *”Idol”‘s ratings might be declining, but it’s influence is still strong. A performance of “Pocketful of Sunshine” moves Natasha Bedingfield into the Top 10 for the second time (following the ridiculously overplayed “Unwritten”), and the album also takes a huge jump. Meanwhile, Neil Diamond, who mentored the contestants in the same episode, is poised to score his first #1 album EVER next week, with “Idol” runner-up Gay…uh, Clay Aiken trailing at #2. In non-“Idol” debuts, look for big singles chart splashes from Rihanna and Coldplay’s new songs.

    …why do I feel like i should now be saying “keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars”? Damn you, Casey Kasem!!