It’s the sooooooul train! Kinda. Did you know that the Best R&B Album category was not made official until the mid-Nineties? Think of all the great classic soul albums of the past, from What’s Going On and Superfly to Bobby Brown’s Don’t Be Cruel and Mary J.’s What’s the 411?. None of ’em ever had an opportunity to win a Best R&B album Grammy because the category didn’t exist! Not that the National Arts of Recording Arts & Sciences has […]
Posts tagged "Usher"
C’mon Son!: Five “Get it Together” Hopes for 2011
I realize that I spent most of the past seven days talking about how great music was in 2010, and like I’ve said before, last year was one of the best years for music (no matter the genre) in quite some time. That said, there were a number of musicians who disappointed me last year-either by making substandard records or by being complete asses publicly. Here are five artists who either need to right the ship from a musical standpoint, […]
Hear Here: DJ Earworm Mashes Up the Top Songs of 2010
Check out DJ Earworm’s mash-up of the best in pop music this past year, featuring Taio Cruz, Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Usher and The Black Eyed Peas.
Chart Stalker!: Billboard Year-End Version
Welcome to the first of two year end editions of Chart Stalker! Why two, you ask? Simple answer-Billboard’s year-end issue comes out before the end of the actual calendar year (to allow for publication time and ad purchasing). Generally speaking, it covers the year from December 1st of the previous year to November 30th of the current year, or thereabouts. Additionally, Billboard calculates it’s rankings by using a formula based on chart position, so where an artist ends up on […]
The People Speak: Eminem & Antebellum Lead the American Music Awards
Well, folks, we’re in the thick of music award show season. The MTV Video Music awards kicked things off at the beginning of September, and the season concludes at the end of January with the Grammy Award ceremony. Smack dab in the middle, we have Dick Clark’s American Music Awards: an almost 40-year old institution that prides itself on being the people’s choice. Unlike the Grammy nominees, which are chosen by a “blue-ribbon” panel of music industry professionals, AMA nominees […]
Chart Chat 9/23/10: Linkin Park and Trey Songz In A Photo Finish!
1,005 units separate this week’s #1 and #2 albums in one of the closest races for the top spot in history. The eventual victor? Rock giants Linkin Park score the top spot with 241,000 units sold of their fourth studio album, “A Thousand Suns”. While that sum is healthy, it is cause for alarm considering that LP’s last album, “Minutes to Midnight”, debuted with triple that sum just three short years ago. Linkin Park’s sound has gradually evolved over the […]
Ushering in a New Era of Mediocrity with “Versus”
I stand corrected. When Usher’s “Raymond V. Raymond” came out earlier this year, I predicted that after a solid first week, it was going to flop hard. Well, I guess I have egg on my face. Thanks to the inexplicable success of the will.i.am-assisted hit “OMG”, “Raymond” has already outsold Usher’s (much better qualitatively but not as pop-friendly) previous record “Here I Stand”. In order to keep the momentum going (and maybe to hoodwink Usher’s fans into buying material that […]
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 […]
New Release Report 8/24/10: Teenage Dream or Adult Nightmare?
I don’t TOTALLY hate Katy Perry. You have to know someone to hate them, and I don’t know the woman personally. So there’s that. Otherwise, she just seems like an exploitative whore for fame-kinda like GaGa without the talent. So needless to say, I won’t be picking up Katy’s latest release, “Teenage Dream” today. However, I’m pretty sure a couple hundred thousand folks will, injecting some life into the music industry, which has been running on fumes for most of […]
Chart Stalker! 8/18/10: Change Soon Come
I’ll stand by for a sec and let you try to guess who has this week’s #1 album. Give up? It’s Eminem!! “Recovery” scans another 133,000 units this week and spends it’s 6th non-consecutive week at the top of Billboard’s album chart. “Recovery” also spends it’s 8th consecutive week at the top of Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Album chart. It’s the longest consecutive stay at the top for a rap album in 20 years. Last album to hang around that long? MC […]
Chart Stalker 7/21/10: The Singles Bar
There’s not a heck of a lot to report on the album chart this week-we are officially in the summer doldrums, although the first serious challenger to Eminem’s four weeks and counting run at the top of the chart arrived in the form of Rick Ross. If his “Teflon Don” can squeeze out 130,000 or so copies (not a stretch considering the rapper is inexplicably popular), he has a chance of sliding Slim Shady out of the perch he’s inhabited […]
Chart Chat 6/24/10: Thank Drake Now!!
Rapping/singing Canuck Drake slams into the top spot on this week’s Billboard 200 album chart with a vengeance. “Thank Me Later” scores 2010’s biggest week for a debut album, with 447,000 units sold. It’s the third overall biggest week for an album this year, following the first weeks for the latest albums by Lady Antebellum and Sade. A couple more interesting things to note: in just one week, Drake practically equals the entirety of what his introductory EP “So Far […]