Rolling 2006 US Charts Thread

Shakira will be #1 next week. "Hips Don't Lie" is #1 on the airplay chart and just recieved digital release.

Other than that, action is kinda hard to come by - those three singles excepted, everything else falls or stays the same in the top 20. Yr big gainers are P!ATD, Gnarls and the Dolls, who occupy slots 25 to 27. Cherish and LeToya climb to 38 and 39 respectively. Debuts in the 50 for AFI (43), Jamie Foxx ft. Twista (45 - 'DJ Play A Love Song', befitting Twista's status as one of the great romantics), Busta Rhymes ft. will.i.am and Kelis (46 - 'I Love My Bitch', also befitting Twista's status as one of the great romantics), and Carrie Underwood (49).

I might be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure the genre album-sales charts (R&B, Country, etc) report from a subset of stores rather than all-around like the Billboard 200 main chart.

And I know this is mainly a singles chart thread, but in utterly depressing news, AFI are a lock to notch their first #1 album on next week's chart; Hits is predicting (based on first day sales) 250K+. Oy.

and Taylor Hicks shouldn't have much of an issue getting to #1, three of the four AI idol winners did it on next-to-no airplay, the fourth being beaten than week by runner-up Clay Aiken.

Turns out Shakira has the best digital sales week ever by more than 100,000, at least for 2 weeks.

X-post

284,928 is the number.

Aguilera debuts at #19. DJ Khaled (#59), Natasha Bedingfield (#72), Outkast (#77), Rakim y Ken-Y (#90), the nigga you love to hate (#92), and Jeannie Ortega (#96) all debut. Ne-Yo (best song of the year), Don Omar, & James Blunt debut in the last 3 spots.

Gnarls (26-15), Rascal Flatts (59-25), and Cherish (38-29) are the big gainers.

I find it interesting that 5 of the last 7 #1s have been by foreigners, discuss.

On January 11, 1861 The State of Alabama adopted the ordinances of secession from the Union (by a vote of 61-39). Until February 18, 1861 Alabama was informally called the Alabama Republic. It never changed its formal name which always has been "State of Alabama."

Looks like it.

So what do folks think - Taylor Hicks #1 next week? HITS says he'll sell 150K singles based on first day, but I don't think that includes online... can he top Shakira with virtually no airplay? And wouldn't he have to sell at least 200K to do it?

(Then 2 weeks later there's McPhee's single, but I think she's more likely top 5 than #1.)

BOOM! is also the sound that is made by Gnarls Barkley and Rascal Flatts, as 'Crazy' and 'Life Is A Highway' make their first incursions upon the top 10 at 6 and 7 respectively.

Elsewhere: 'It Is Not The Case That There Is Any Other Man' climbs to #13 in its second week, as Pants! At The Disco make the top 20 for the first time at #19. Beyonce and Jay-Z debut at #44 with 'Deja Vu', E-40's 'U and Dat' and Brad Paisley's 'The World' say hello to the top 50 a bit below that.

Blimey, but Taylor Hicks is a slightly scary lookin' dude. Who bears a weird resemblance to Billboard's Chart Beat column man. Hmm.

Is it wrong of me to be a bit confused by this?

Huh.

http://www.chartattack.com/pics/2006/05/25-taylor.jpg http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/images/pic_interact_1.jpg

Incidentally, it's being changed to 'I Love My Chick' for its UK release, meaning if Buckcherry were to do the same thing, then people would think they were covering Charlotte Church. This would lead to a few surprised faces, possibly.

So Outkast's "Mighty 'O'" loses its bullet and slides 30-32 on the R&B singles chart, not a good sign. But at least "Crazy" made it far higher than I expected.

Does Shakira return to #1 next week, or is an AI runner-up single coming out?

'Cause that's how Busta's label (Aftermath, interestingly) wussed out and released it. The radio/video version is actually titled "I Love My Chick." Alternately known as "Big pussy song that blows, frankly, and wastes Kelis."

Katherine McPhee's single comes out next week, which means we have a one-week interim. (Though I still don't think hers is a sure-shot #1 - top 5, yes, but as for the top, we'll see.) Considering "Hips Don't Lie" lost its bullet - both airplay and, crucially, sales, are dropping - I think Furtado could slip in there, and since she's just gaining strength, then return in 3 weeks' time, post-McPhee. But watch for Christina and Beyoncé, whose contenders for "summer jam '06" could rise real fast. ("Deja Vu," in fact, is already up to #12 at R&B.)

So Outkast's "Mighty 'O'" loses its bullet and slides 30-32 on the R&B singles chart, not a good sign.
Remember, this is basically on R&B radio as a leak - I think it was just officially serviced a week or so ago. Once there's a video, and once there's a digital download, expect it to do better. (Assuming it's any good; I've not heard it yet.) We're still 2 months off from any attendant hysteria/press over the Idlewild movie/soundtrack, too.

As for the Panic! at the Disco single, if you heard "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" (the current video), you're not hallucinating; it's pretty damned great. If you heard "The Only Difference Between Suicide...," well, it's good but maybe not great.

Not to say that I don't watch it whnever it's on TV, though.

"Pretty good"? Really? How do you get around the terribleness?

This is praise, of a sort.

http://www.milliganbooks.com/images/bigmama.gif

Indeed it is--anything that confuses and fascinates me enough to make me always watch to the end must be doing something right (or something so wrong that the difference is fairly negligible). I call it the Carrot Top factor.

Still, it's these mildly positive reactions to IWSNT that I find so bizarre. Nobody says "Hey, I saw Gigli yesterday, pretty good movie." If for some reason someone was to find artistic merit in Gigli, they'd say something like "wow, Gigli, what a glorious trainwreck of a movie" or at least "wow, Gigli, I'm shocked to say, but I actually really liked that movie." These "Panic = pretty good" comments somehow manage to exist in a world where there is no unspoken base assumption that IWSNT is going to be awful. And that I can't comprehend.

Still, I suppoose it's better to listen to music for the first time with a sense of poise and rationality.

Seriously, watch the videos for "Helena" and IWSNT back to back and witness wit, style and pathos be transformed ever so subtly into immaturity, garishness and camp.