Rapper Lil Wayne (most recently in the news for giving a perplexing and much meme’d deposition in a case against Quincy Jones’ son) is now the all-time king of the Hot 100 among male solo artists. Thanks for a featured appearance on Game’s latest single, “Celebration,” Weezy hits the Billboard Singles chart for the 109th time, passing Elvis Presley for 1st place on the list and standing behind the “Glee” cast overall for most Hot 100 entries.
Of course, this record comes with a humongous asterisk. We live in an era where it’s become increasingly common for artists (particularly hip-hop and R&B artists) to share credit on their singles. Lil Wayne has become well-known for jumping on tracks by well…just about everyone. Wayne has served as the lead artist on only 42 of his chart entries, while Elvis doesn’t have featured artist credit on any of his 108 hits. As with just about every record that gets broken with the passage of time, there’s a hell of a caveat.
Speaking of chart records, The Beatles have more #1 albums than any other act (although Jay-Z is creeping up close.) Many of their chart-topping albums (the entire Fab set that was remastered and released digitally last year) are being released on vinyl November 13th. In addition, the 14 albums (all 12 original UK releases + Magical Mystery Tour + Past Masters Vol. 1 & 2) are being made available as a box set. The box set will contain a hardcover book featuring a chapter on each album as well as rare photographs, and will likely be QUITE expensive.
Much as I love the Fabs (and vinyl, in general) I’m pretty sure I (and most casual music listeners) will be priced out of this one. However, even the individual volumes will have treats like a reproduction of the poster that originally accompanied The White Album.
Finally, those of you anticipating the 7th season premiere of “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” (one of my favorite shows) has to get a load of this. What if they replaced the “Sunny” cast with the likes of Xzibit, Candace Cameron and Andrew “Dice” Clay, among others? Truly a C-list to remember. Haley Joel Osment looks like he ate his “Sixth Sense” self, and who knew DJ Tanner (sister to the most self-righteous tool of a former teen actor in the world) had it in her?