The American Music Awards may have fallen to third place on the importance list behind the Grammy Awards and the MTV Video Music Awards, but it’s still a pretty important show where it counts…at the cash register. It’s pretty well-watched, and lots of people that see performances or award winners end up going to their local store (or to iTunes) and picking up a single or album by someone they caught on the show. The AMAs began in 1974 as […]
Posts tagged "Taylor Swift"
Chart Stalker 11/18/10: SuBo FTW!
Big things happen when you drag pops and grandpa out to the record store. Check out this week’s Billboard album chart, and you’ll find Susan Boyle scoring another big debut. The owner of 2009’s biggest selling album looks to score a huge seller in 2010 with “The Gift”. The collection of new material and holiday classics scans 318,000 units, easily taking the top spot away from Taylor Swift . Not that Taylor’s doing too shabby. “Speak Now” adds another 212,000 copies to […]
Chart Stalker 11/11/10: Yee Haw Once Again
award shows / Country Music / hip-hop / Indie Rock / Lists! / music / New Releases / news / Pop Music / rock music / soul music
Country music has officially taken over, it seems. On this week’s Billboard album charts, the genre boasts the Top Three albums, four of the top ten, and eight of the top twenty (nine if you count the country/folk-influenced Mumford and Sons). As far as the other genres in the Top 20 go: two albums qualify as hip-hop, five fall under the pop umbrella (a wide spectrum that goes from Rod Stewart’s standards to Katy Perry’s dance-pop), there’s one legit rock […]
Taylor Swift Said “Speak Now”! (and the Masses Obeyed)
It’s safe to say that Taylor Swift has officially made the jump from country chick with a guitar to cultural phenomenon. No matter where you live or what you do, she’s as inescapable a pop star as there is these days. In an era when female singer and oversexualized images are almost synonymous, Taylor’s a throwback to a simpler time, sort of an Olivia Newton-John (kids, look her up) for the new millennium. Unlike ONJ, Taylor plays guitar and writes […]
Chart Stalker 11/3/10: Taylor to the Rescue!!
So much for me and my prognostication skills. When Taylor Swift’s “Speak Now” album came out last week, I initially pegged the album to do a WAY more than respectable 750,000 copies in it’s first week-coming into close contention with Eminem’s “Recovery” as the biggest debut week in 2010. Well, reports immediately started flying around suggesting that Taylor would come close to the coveted million mark, and now the dust has settled for the week, and Swift scores the biggest […]
Blerd Briefs: Hammer vs. Jay-Z, R. Kelly vs. Jay-Z…and Taylor Swift
Is it me, or has Shawn Carter become hip-hop’s #1 whipping boy? I guess that’s par for the course when you’re on top of the game, but bitterness seems to surround this cat like no other rap artist before or since. The latest person to step to Jay-Z with beef is…Hammer. No, that is not a typo. 48 year old Stanley Kirk Burrell, the genie-pants dancing, KFC shilling rapper who dropped the “MC” from his name back in the early […]
Chart Chat 10/27/10: There’s Something Sweet at the Top of the Chart This Week
The country onslaught continues! Sugarland scores this week’s #1 album with their latest effort, “The Incredible Machine”. The duo’s sound, which mixes traditional country with a more streamlined, arena pop-rock sound, was enough to impress 203,000 folks. Not bad, huh? The top four positions on this week’s Billboard chart are all new entries. Kings of Leon score the biggest debut in their history with “Come Around Sundown”. The band’s fifth effort scores a total of 184,000 units-more than double the […]
New Release Report 10/25-26/10: Taylor Saves the Music Industry??
Probably not, but there are a lot of people hoping that Taylor Swift’s third studio album turns out to be a blockbuster. “Fearless”, the young singer’s sophomore effort, was a certified phenomenon, selling over 6 million copies (“Thriller” numbers in today’s environment) and making Taylor the first country artist to win an MTV Video Music Award. It also won her an Album of the Year Grammy. This means that expectations are sky-high. Those sky-high expectations probably won’t be met, but […]
Award Show Sundays: Hot Mess Moments at the VMAs
The MTV Video Music Awards is tonight. The show, which has been broadcast since 1984 (although MTV probably doesn’t want you to know that as it would make them seem very old to their target audience) is usually a pretty entertaining watch, although lately it’s been more for the train-wreck factor than for…you know, good music. I will be sitting this year’s broadcast out! Normally, I’d be up in front of the TV with some beer and popcorn live-blogging my […]
“Devil in a New Dress”: The Kanye Onslaught Continues
Kanye West is definitely staying true to his promise to deliver his fans new music every Friday for the remainder of 2010. This week’s entry is a jam entitled “Devil in a Blue Dress”. It definitely goes for a less aggressive approach than “Power” or “Monster”-maybe that’s a reason I don’t like it as much? I don’t know, maybe I need another listen. The song’s just not hitting me the way ‘Ye usually does-it sounds like a faded Xerox of […]
Chart Stalker 9/1/10: The Girls Have It
New blood at the top of the chart, y’all! The Top 2 albums both sell over 100,000 units as well (with Eminem at #3 just short of six figures). Leading the charge is Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream”, which starts off with 192,000 units. While some might think that a small number in light of “California Gurlz” being inescapable this summer, it’s also worth nothing that this is more than 4 times what Katy’s debut album started with, and “I Kissed […]