Rolling 2006 US Charts Thread

James Blunt at #8, people.

Natasha Bedingfield leaps 14 to #14.

BRITAIN REPPRRRESENT!!!

Last 10 songs played on Mega 95.7:

"Reggaeton Latino" Don Omar
"Don't Bother" Shakira
"Mayor Que Yo" Luney Tunes Feat Mas Flow Allstars
"Llame Pa Verte" Wisin & Yandell
"My Humps" Black Eyed Peas
"De Lao A Lao" Khriz Y Angel
"Noche De Travesura Ft. Don Omar Rmx" Dj Nelson / Mas Flow Family
"The G Way" Kilo Feat Snoop Dogg
"Cuentale" Ivy Queen
"My Angel" Mr. Capon-E

Ok, I'll buy that, but it doesn't explain why there are no *other* hip-hop or r&b songs on the Latin chart right now. Though maybe this week is a fluke? Have other non-Latin-identified hip-hop songs made the Latin chart in the past year? I have to admit I haven't watched the chart closely, though I will start. Right now, though, "My Humps" looks like a total anamoly. (And yeah, I'm sure a reggaeton remix of it might be an explanation, if one exists. But we're not just talking about isolated spins; it must be getting *plenty* or airplay, right?)

And I haven't watched it at all.

Reminds me of the "Crossover" stations back in the mid to late '80s, which were English-language stations that wanted to pull in lots of young Latinos and so would play a range that went from Brit. haircut disco such as the Pet Shop Boys and Bananarama to freestyle (a.k.a. "Latin hip-hop") such as Exposé and Cynthia to hip-hop/r&b such as Salt N Pepa and L.L. Cool J. (not to mention Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, who had the same initials as L.L. Cool J.). KMEL in San Francisco did this, though in the '90s they gradually were taken over by hip-hop.

And speaking of Devo crossover, the #3 track, Miranda's "Don," doesn't sound altogether unlike Devo (Devo going more poppy and electroblippy), and their singer - Miranda are a they - looks kind of like David Byrne.

I also recommend Bebe's "Malo" from that chart; subdued flamenco-style rhythm that backs a vocal that goes from expository to fierce. The track is from 2004; otherwise, it'd be a candidate for my Pazz 'N Jop ballot (as Belinda's "Angel" would have last year if it hadn't been from mid 2004; not unlike "Malo" but with more of a Madonna-1985-goes-new-wave feel, with "wail" being Belinda's pathway to fierceness). By the way, Ricky Martin's "I Don't Know," which Launch Yahoo just started playing, is as passionate as anything I'd heard of his last time I was paying attention c. 2001.

Belinda's "Angel" is still in the Top Ten in Launch Yahoo's "Latino Pop" category - of course, so is Shakira's "Whenever Wherever" and another five Shakira songs as well. "Angel" would be Madonna in ballad mode, "Borderline" as a power ballad with an underlying layer of rock guitar, but it still feels like Madonna Goes New Wave. They're now playing Shakira's "Don't Bother," which, like "Angel," is more rock than "Malo" is. But then, Shakira is pop by definition, I guess, even when she's doing something that sounds rock. (The strange break in "Don't Bother" is grating in a way that's gorgeous in a way that's almost blinding, lasts just a couple of seconds.) Miranda seems to be on neither the "Latino Pop" or "Rock en Espanol" list, though if they aren't rock or pop, I don't know what to call them. Don is the only video of theirs that Launch has.

20 26 Black Eyed Peas My Humps (A&M/Interscope) 2232 ----
19 21 Ying Yang Twins f/Pitbull Shake (TVT) 1836 ----
18 21 R. Kelly Burn It Up (Jive/Zomba Label Group) 2051 ----

First column's spins last week, then this week; after song info the column's labeled "TA", and I dunno what that stands for. Last column, blank in all these cases, is add date, so apparently they just drifted in or something. These are #s 24-26 for this week. R Kelly's been on there forever, but the other two I haven't heard on that station yet, not that I listen a whole lot.

--"Malo" has only been on the charts for 9 weeks, so I can comfortably vote for it in next year's Pazz & Jop (though I'll be surprised if it makes my final Top 10).

--Leila Colo's writes that the Miranda LP's "feel-good mix of pop and electronica is making inroads at U.S. radio." They're Argentine.

--Young Jeezy's "Trap Star" is produced by Mr. Collipark (one of my favorites for his work with Ying Yang Twins) and is the best thing on the Young Jeezy album, and it's 73 with a bullet, but I don't think it's going to rise much higher, unfortunately.

--Two of my favorites, Miranda Lambert's "Kerosene" and Ashlee Simpson's "L.O.V.E.," score relatively low on the consumer taste tests Billboard runs (I forget what they call them), "Kerosene" in the mid 70s and "L.O.V.E." in the high 60s, and neither is getting much radio play, I'm guessing because "Kerosene" is too hard rock for the country audience and because Ashlee has been box-office poison since the SNL debacle. But neither single will go away - as a matter of fact, "L.O.V.E." is up to 22 with a bullet. Where "Kerosene" is getting support is CMT; maybe Don will have some insight into that. It's a hot video. Ashlee's video, on the other hand, seems ho-hum (at least on the postage-stamp size vid that Launch Yahoo gives me), and I don't know how it's doing on MTV; but where her song is scoring high is in downloads. I think downloads are what makes the Hot 100 so volatile this year. They're a new factor that doesn't match up with radio play or album sales. A track with strong support but which also inspires strong antipathy among the nonfans will get depressed airplay but will do well in downloads, where the haters don't have a negative vote. And a new, unproven act like D4L or Dem Franchise Boys will get lots of downloads from people not ready to buy an album.

--Morningwood's album was the top heatseeker last week (strongest sales for a performer that has yet to put an album in the top 100); I don't see how this album doesn't become big, unless "Nth Degree" mostly inspires downloads rather than CD purchases.

--Flyleaf was at 15 on the "Top Christian" chart. I haven't listened to my copy for a couple of months, but I recall it as Christian emo goth with death-metal tendencies.

--Reviewer Chuck Taylor calls Ashlee Simpson "the day's most contrived pop star." I wonder if he thought of that idea himself.

--Producer/songwriter/musician John Shanks has two songs in the country top 60 (SheDaisy's "I'm Taking the Wheel" and Bon Jovi's "Who Says You Can't Go Home?") and four in the Hot 100 (not only that Bon Jovi track but "Have a Nice Day," as well as Ashlee's "L.O.V.E." and "Boyfriend"), but this is relatively weak for him, in that none of those went top 10. This is a man who's helped define a lot of modern pop and teenpop (produced and co-wrote Michelle Branch's "Everywhere" back in 2001, setting the stage for Pink and Avril; produced and co-wrote all of Ashlee's stuff, the best of Hilary's, and the first of Lindsay's; produced Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway"; co-wrote Keith Urban's huge country hit "Somebody Like You" several years ago).

Taboo is.

there's a video for it, but I got the impression that Jeezy just really liked the song and wanted to shoot a video for it, and got to because he has a lot of pull at Def Jam right now. but right after it came out, a video for "My Hood" came out too, which I think is the 'real' single they're pushing right now, so yeah, I don't think "Trap Star" is going to climb much higher. I like it, although the spelling in the chorus ("I'm a T-R-A-P S-T-R") makes me think of Homer Simpson ("I am so smart, I am so smart, S-M-R-T, I mean S-M-A-R-T").

If that's the same Chuck Taylor who's been writing for Billboard for the past few years, then I should point out that (a) he writes for a Top-40-centric crowd, and (b) he's wholeheartedly and non-chart-orientedly a huge fan of pop music, prefab or no. If he called her "contrived" it may well have been a compliment by his standards.

And Blunt's takeover is the greatest insult to our nation's intelligence since Reality Bites. What the fuck.

It wasn't. He also called her a puppet, and basically said that she was too white to do dance funk. He was being a numbskull.

And as for this phenomenon, that was the year's major new release until the Strokes came out! We were looking at some lame laydown weeks for awhile there.

hey slight digression but has anyone seen the source's (new i'm pretty sure, i seem to recall it saying 'premiere issue' or some such) reggaeton mag? tego calderon on the cover, it's in spanish - turn it around and flip it and it's in english! fuego (king magazine's new latin mag) is probably more my style for, um, personal reasons but i'm still curious.

"Check On It" is still #1, by the way.

On what chart?? I have the new Billboard in front of me, looking at the Hot 100 chart,and I don't see any of those songs. Not noticing them on the Hot Digitial Songs chart either; where are you looking?

Latin chart "My Humps" fell to 49, still no other English language tunes. Album chart Matisyahu's live album jumps from 44 to 32, and it's been out a year; is his *real* album, which comes out next month I think, going to enter at #1? That will be so weird. Also on album chart Morningwood drops 102 to 169 after heavily promoted on TV first week; is "Nth Degree" actually gettting airply anywhere? It's not on a single singles chart in Billboard so -- maybe not a hit after all?

Just a guess, though. In the meantime, this is one of the more interesting singles charts I've seen in a while, s'far as big movements; and I like it.

I don't pay attention to the British charts, but since when don't novelty songs make pop charts *more* fun? Seems to me like something to stive for!

But my guess is that not enough people are using iTunes to download whole albums -- which is why I speculated that this was sort of an anomalous case: a soundtrack that has gotten huge TV exposure among a young audience but lacks a specific single, so kids are downloading everything. They've already seen all of the songs performed on TV, anyway, so they know what they're getting when they download what might be considered a deep cut on any other pop album.

As I predicted, all the High School Musical songs take a big tumble this week.

"Welcome To The Black Parade" takes a 56-13 jump, while "Irreplacable" rises 63 spots to number 24. And who the hell is Hannah Montana who debuted 7 songs (the Beatles were minor leagers) on the charts? I have a feeling Xhuxh/Kogan can answer that.

Considering that tykes and tweens are one of the only demos whose tendency to buy albums is unlikely to be diminished by filesharing/bootlegging/blogs, yeah, probably.

Which leads to my wondering about an artist like him and just how much he makes if, say, the core audience of 10 to 30 year olds just purchase his four hit singles from Itunes, etc. Can he make a career out of that? I mean, I would think 4 top 15 tunes in decades past would have album sales in the multi-platinum range and a situation where an artist could potentially live off of the success of one major album (see, say Hootie and the Blowfish or Alanis Morissette). Basically, will Chris Brown be able to start planning for his retirement at the age of 17 or whatever? Cause I think if this was 1996 he would be able to but in 2006 he's sold fewer than 2 million albums and I wanna know if the Itunes sales are gonna take care of him.

But I think the point of my question was missed by focusing on Chris Brown. The real question, I guess, is what does it mean to be a superstar in the era of downloads? Cause album sales clearly aren't a good indication of popularity, but can an artist make a "superstar's living" off of download success. I mean Nelly Furtado had a #1 for six straight weeks and has only gone gold. Fergie hasn't even gone gold yet. So album sales won't make you a monetary superstar anymore, so will musicians just make less money overall or is the money made from downloads commensurate?

Part of what lead to think about this stuff is that interview with Timbaland that was going around a couple months ago (I can't even remember where it was from) where he said he used to make up to $300,000 per track and he'd make a few tracks per week back when the music business was doing well in the late 90's, but that he can't charge nearly that now. So I guess less money is to be made in music, but I wonder just how much less given that the industry has now embraced paid downloads.

I think there's a big misunderstood distortion between artists who top the singles charts and artists who top the album charts, and it was there long before iTunes entered the picture. For every superstar who tops both charts, there's a ton who either have a #1 song but can barely get a plaque for their album, or sell millions without ever cracking the top 40. There are a lot of variables that depend on the genre and other factors, but there are also some pretty dependable patterns (i.e. it's a lot easier to sell an album with 2 or 3 hits than with 1, and artists may have dedicated fanbases who give them big numbers the first week, but they'll slip right off the charts in a month if there's no radio hit to keep momentum going). As for how much money is made off of album sales or download sales and how many units equal a "superstar's living," that kind of number crunching is way too involved for me to pretend I could predict or understand.

re: the Timbaland thing, a lot of hip hop producers went and priced themselves out of the game, to the point that only the top tier of artists can afford them. I think that's a big part of why a lot of producers are following Dre's lead and starting labels and/or taking artists under their wing, so they can make tracks without charging huge amounts per song because they'll be getting a big percentage of the profit on the back end (except, of course, Beat Club was an utter failure so Tim's sticking with pop singers that can afford his beats more easily than rookie rappers).

Doesn't have anything as funny as "face looks like you did a hundred-yard dash in a ninety-yard gym" or "get off, like a wedding gown." But it's a good song.

But at least Hinder got an entertaining review from AMG's Johnny Loftus (love the closing line):

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:llud6j6471l0

Released in September 2005, Hinder's Extreme Behavior revives the simpleton riffs and stupid misogyny of 2001 albums from Puddle of Mudd and Nickelback for a whole new batch of undergrads. This isn't even post-grunge -- it's straight-up dude rock. The artwork is a triggered response collage of boobs, lingerie, and Jäger, and the music is so obvious that it actually recedes from the ear. Like a stereo left on in the keg room, it's just a chatter of swear words and tuneless electric guitar blab. Austin Winkler sounds like a drunk shouting along with Chad Kroeger, and his lyrics? "Let's go home and get stoned/Cause the sex is so much better when you're mad," "She said she's sorry/With one finger/I said fuck that," "She said she loved the taste of my oh oh oh" -- Winkler doesn't even have enough class to fake sounding cool. When Hinder and producer Brian Howes (he co-wrote every song with the band; Nickelback producer Joey Moi also gets a credit) do try a little tenderness, they sound like a bludgeoned Wallflowers ("Nothin' Good About Goodbye"), thudding power ballad torchbearers ("Lips of an Angel"; cue the soaring solo stolen from hair metal), or bumbling Guns N' Roses thieves (the played-out "Sweet Child" rewrite "Homecoming Queen"). Extreme Behavior can't even make it as rote hard rock -- it's too insulting to women and your intelligence. That's why it's dude rock instead. Hinder are so egregiously dull they appeal not to fans of music, but fans of high fives.

What a weird band to be so popular at this point in time

All-American Rejected rise 18-11, "Before He Cheats" 25-16, Akon & Snoop doing teh Phil Collins crunk 20-17, "BAAALLLIN!" 29-19, Keith Urban 53-31, Sugarland 42-32, Brad Paisley 54-35, Gwen Stefani's "A Very Special Tribute to Goat Sex" 40-36.

Ciara places "Promise" at #45. Pussycat Dolls, Nelly Furtado, Lloyd, Bowling For fucking Soup, & Alejandro Sanz also debut.

Below, below: 'We Fly High' climbs to 16, 'Walk It Out' to 18. 'Waiting On The World To Change' has its habitual bit of inconsequential climbing - #22 from #27, if you're counting. Of larger consequence: 'Wind It Up' is up eleven to 25, 'Money In The Bank' is 29 from 37, Paula DeAnda's 'My Second Single Ever' is 30 from 43, 'Promise' is 34 from 45, and there's initial peeps into 50-land for KT Tunstall's 'Suddenly I See' (45 from 52 after nineteen weeks on), Fat Joe & Lil Wayne's 'Make It Rain' (47 from 55), and Cherish's 'Unappreciated' (50 from 57). Oh, and you know how the lead single off The Game's album was apparently 'It's Okay'? Apparently not - 'Let's Ride' shoots straight in at #46.

HOW the FUCK did Incubus's new album get to number one on the Billboard charts a couple weeks ago?? Seriously, how did this happen?? Did Sandbox ILM ever have a thread about this?? This is just insane!!

Incubus?? Fucking INCUBUS?!?!? All I know about Incubus is they had that one hit "Drive" LIKE TEN FUCKING YEARS AGO!!!! And then all of a sudden they release the number one album in the country???? Zuh???

Not that this explains why the fuck Incubus was number one, but I'm just sayin'

Totally forgot that this was once a rolling thread. Would love to resurrect it.

Funny how chart knowledge in 2006 was treated as this "wow, you're a real nerd" when like anyone now can just google "just timberlake discography."

i do find it charming that ilm used to do this (long before i came here)