Tagged: 100andsingle

Back in 1997, when I was a critic for CMJ , I led off my review of a new album by vintage Britpoppers the Sundays with the following sideswipe at another band: "In the five years since their last album, [the Sundays] watched the Cranberries swipe their sound and turn it into three obscenely popular and dreck-filled albums." I can't front: I had a soft spot for the Cranberries' light-as-air Top 10 smash "Linger." But I could never get past the fact that the Sundays, a [...]

Remember Lost in Space ? What a timeless film: William Hurt, Mimi Rogers, Heather Graham, and TV greats Lacey Chabert and Matt LeBlanc. Back in 1998, there was such excitement for this cinematic recreation of the classic '60s CBS series. What's that? You say you don't remember this bit of Clinton-era movie magic? Or…you do, vaguely - but you seem to recall that it kind of blew chunks? Well, how could that be? After all, Lost in Space was the movie that evicted Titanic , the [...]

Now that the summer has ended, and the Black Eyed Peas have reached the half-year mark at the No. 1 spot on Billboard 's Hot 100, it's time to start thinking about who could knock them off. While looking for insight on which artists could achieve this heretofore-impossible feat, I ran across a Newsweek blog post that was seemingly written by someone who hasn't really looked at a copy of Billboard in months -i.e., a dude who really thinks that Mariah Carey's D.O.A. cover of Foreigner's "I Want To Know What [...]

In his 1990s heyday, Garth Brooks refused to release even his biggest songs, from "Friends in Low Places" to "Shameless," as singles. Sure, it pumped up his album sales. And mostly, he was following the Nashville convention at the time, wherein country hits were generally released only as noncommercial 45's for jukeboxes. But Brooks was no ordinary country act; he was the bestselling '90s act of any genre, period. If anyone could have sold truckloads of singles like a pop act, it would have been him. No, Brooks eschewed them, in part, to prove a point: in [...]

We complain often around here about the mainstream media's tendency to oversimplify music stories in their quest for an easy headline. This week, Billboard 's Hot 100 and Billboard 200 suggest splashy headlines that practically write themselves: Return of the Big-Voiced Divas! Topping the album chart is Whitney Houston's much-dissected comeback effort I Look to You , her first No. 1 disc in more than 16 years. And breaking into the Top 10 on the songs chart is her onetime rival and duet partner, Mariah [...]

As we approach the end of a summer in which some (including our esteemed editor) claim that there was no one Song of Summer thanks to Michael Jackson looming large in the afterlife, we are a few weeks away from a rare act of chart dominance: Total Hot 100 ownership by a single act for every week of a calendar season. The Black Eyed Peas have held the top spot on Billboard 's flagship chart for 21 weeks, so long that they've already set a new record for consecutive dominance by a [...]

The charts are in a bit of a Dog Days slumber, so let's try a little trivia: What's the most oft-recurring word on Billboard 's Hot 100 over the last decade? I'm thinking of a word that appeared virtually never prior to, say, 1990 and eventually became ubiquitous. "Bitch"? "Tha"/"Da"? "T-Pain"? No, the most common word on the chart, pretty much every week, is "Featuring." This week, for example, 16 songs with "featuring" credits are on the Hot 100-17 if you count a "duet with" credit on Keyshia Cole's latest single [...]

When the music story of 2009 is written, the year's debutante queen and king will be Lady GaGa and Drake, who have treated Billboard 's Hot 100 as their playground lately. Each is a lock for a Best New Artist Grammy nomination next winter, because each is exactly the sort of not-too-innovative, chart-friendly act the Recording Academy routinely rewards. For both acts, however, the path to the Top 10 has been a bit of a slog. GaGa's on a roll now, but she spent most of 2008 watching her debut "Just Dance" creep up [...]

What's stronger and more impregnable than the news judgment of network television, the fiscal wisdom of Los Angeles City Hall, or a celebrity's last will and testament? Answer: Billboard 's chart rules. Even as the early summer of 2009 has seen TV newscasters ignore global unrest in favor of Michael Jackson death coverage; L.A. spend millions amid a state budget crisis to police a Jackson memorial; and Jackson's heirs treat his final documented wishes as mere suggestions, Billboard has not budged. Since [...]

I'll probably always remember where I was when I heard the news of Michael Jackson's death, if only for the specificity of the circumstances: I was on a plane back from Los Angeles on Thursday afternoon when the news broke on my seatback TV. I'd boarded the plane planning to spend the bulk of my time writing this chart column, and I was all set to focus on the usual Billboard happenings. But that quickly went out the window. Within minutes of turning on the news on my seatback monitor, an MSNBC newscaster began rattling [...]

What makes American Idol such a pop-hit-generating juggernaut? The show-closing singles its winners are forced to sing are uniformly awful, so there must be something about Idol itself that ensures hits. Is it the fact that it's a cannily crafted competition that gives pop fans a rooting interest in budding acts with compelling backstories? It's been said that Idol is the closest thing we Americans have to Eurovision , the annual nation-vs.-nation song smackdown, which has been generating pop hits reliably since the middle of the last century. [...]

It's now been just over a month since Apple flipped the switch at the iTunes Music Store and gave the major labels what they wanted: higher-priced hit singles. Since April 7, downloads at the world's largest music retailer have varied in price-from 69 cents for hundreds of low-profile catalog tracks to $1.29 for best-sellers, both new and vintage. For most observers, the question has been what effect these changes would have on what remains of the music industry, and, to a lesser extent, on Apple's bottom line. But I'm equally interested in how [...]

The most notable move on any of Billboard 's flagship singles charts this week isn't on the Hot 100 , where the Black Eyed Peas make it a month at No. 1 with the tiresome "Boom Boom Pow." Instead, over on the normally snoozy Modern Rock chart, a veteran band makes the second-biggest leap to No. 1 in a decade and a half, and in the process breaks out of a tie with U2 for the second-biggest roster of penthouse-dwellers in this chart's history. I'm speaking of Green [...]

Let's imagine that in 1992, just after Nevermind peaked, Dave Grohl took a break from Nirvana to form Foo Fighters. I mean, why not? Grohl was a gun for hire, at least the sixth drummer to sit in with the band before they finally broke big. And let's say he scored some of those juicy Foos radio hits right away: "This Is a Call," "Big Me," maybe "Monkey Wrench" too. And then imagine he came back in '93 to Nirvana in time for In Utero , making them even bigger than they already were—not just [...]

" Lady GaGa Scores Hot 100 Milestone," a Billboard headline trumpeted yesterday upon the release of the new Hot 100 . What could this milestone be? you might ask yourself. Biggest self-aggrandizer since 50 Cent to reach the top slot? Most similar-sounding pair of hits since Rick Astley? Most successful pantsless act? As it happens, GaGa's achievement has to do with her Billboard batting average: two chart hits, two No. 1's. This week, "Poker Face" follows January's smash "Just Dance" into the top [...]

Lately, when I look at images of teen-pop dominator Miley Cyrus , she's looking less and less like a typical starlet. The big hair, the husky voice, that Bubba smile: Does this girl look like a future Viper Room denizen to you? 'Cause to me, she's all Opry. Maybe it's her Nashville lineage finally asserting itself on her face, but as Miley nears voting age, she's starting to look, not so much like the next Britney, but as a pint-size version of country queens like Tanya Tucker or Reba McEntire. Maybe her management feels the same way. [...]

Obviously, we need to talk about the new song that takes over the top of Billboard 's Hot 100 , and the mind-blowing record it sets. But before we do that, let's talk about Hilary Swank . I find Swank's movie career totally incomprehensible: She either wins Oscars, or she tanks. Not even Meryl Streep has won two Best Actress statues, yet in under a decade Swank has gone to that podium twice , like some kind of modern-day Katharine Hepburn. You'd think that would make her one of [...]

Maura and I have already taken a victory lap about our fulfilled prediction that Kelly Clarkson would vault to the top of Billboard 's Hot 100 . Clarkson's "My Life Would Suck Without You" dominates the list again this week, thanks to commanding sales and fast-rising radio airplay. How long will she stay there? Nothing in the Top 10 looks like a threat. The few songs that are on the rise, including Kanye West's "Heartless" and All-American Rejects' "Gives You Hell," appear to be losing momentum. The Fray's "You Found Me" will [...]

As predicted in this space last Friday , Kelly Clarkson 's "My Life Would Suck Without You" is your No. 1 single this week, jumping to the top spot from No. 97. Clarkson's record-setting leap comes on the heels of the song shifting 280,000 paid downloads and racing up the radio charts last week; "Suck" is the second chart-topping single of her career. [ Billboard ]

The most interesting news on Billboard 's Hot 100 isn't at the summit, where the entire Top Five has been static for the last couple of weeks. It's in the basement, where a flotilla of new songs—many by established acts—debuts. We could talk about the return of Eminem to the Hot 100, for the first time in nearly three years, with his 50 and Dre-supported "Crack the Bottle," at No. 76. Or the third single and first ballad from the omnipresent Katy Perry, one notch below. (More on her in a minute.) [...]