Top 5 Billboard Albums
Taylor Swift is unstoppable! Fearless makes a return to the top of The Billboard 200 after moving 92,000 copies, resulting in the album's ninth non-consecutive week at #1.
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss' Raising Sand got a huge boost following its album of the year win at the Grammys, Selling 77,000 on a whopping 715% increase, to leap from #69-#2. The album has now sold 1.26 million to date.
India.Arie's Testimony: Vol. 2 - Love & Politics swooped in at #3 with 76,000 copies sold, less than half the sales of her last release, 2006's Testimony: Vol. 1 -- Life & Relationship, which debuted at #1 with 161,000 sold.
The Fray's self-titled album falls from the top spot to #4, moving 75,000, followed closely by Lily Allen's sophomore album, It's Not Me, It's You, which opens at #5 with 70,000 sold (twice the opening take of her first release).
Billboard Hot 100 Update
A blitz from #58-#1 puts "Right Round" by Flo Rida on top of the Billboard Hot 100 this week, while a #9-#2 jump from "Dead and Gone" by T.I. featuring Justin Timberlake gives Atlantic records bragging rights, having locked up #1 and #2 on the charts with two different artists.
Last week's Hot 100 chart-topper, the weak-ass Eminem track "Crack a Bottle," slips to #3, while Kanye West's "Heartless" is down two spots to #4 and Lady GaGa's "Just Dance" drops two as well to #5.
MC Hammer's making yet another comeback bid, only this time it's on TV. A&E has picked up a new series starring the '90s parachute-pants rapper. Hammer, his wife and five children will be the central focus of the half-hour, 11-episode reality series that's set to premiere this year.
Of course, the title of the show is "Hammertime." How could it not be? Executive producer J.D. Roth promises that the show will be similar to an unscripted version of the Huxtable family from "The Cosby Show."
"Here's a dad with five kids, married to the same woman for more than 23 years, living in the same place where he grew up and going to church every Sunday," Roth said. "He's had his ups and downs, and it's what makes him such a character you root for."
No.
Kanye's coattails must be pretty long. Leave it to Diddy to issue a press release for an album that isn’t due out for another seven months. His upcoming concept album Last Train to Paris won’t come out until September 22nd, but the man who won't be king is insisting, “I’m ushering in a new movement called ‘train music’.”
Described as an “electro hip-hop soul funk” album, “Last Train to Paris is deeper than any of the other stuff I have ever made. It’s a profound love story. It’s me with my shades off. It’s the truth,” Diddy says. “I’ve been a businessman for the past two years. It’s time for me to focus on being an artist again. I am going to show the world a new refreshing side of me. Get on or get off!”
Uh, no. Anyone remembering 2007’s Press Play, or pretty much any of his solo work before, knows that Diddy has about as much individual artist talent to fill a thimble. Nevertheless, he's recruited some of the biggest hip-hop producers alive right now, including The-Dream, Tricky, the Neptunes, Mario Winans, T-Pain and Rodney Jerkins.
Naturally, this all comes with a special little TV promo: we're all supposed to tune in to watch the album’s progress on this season’s "Making the Band," which is evidently becoming more an more about himself and less about the pop jizz he whips into shape.
But wait, there's more!
“A movie is going to be shot to it too,” Diddy told MTV. “It’s definitely going to be an album you can seamlessly see. Not after the fact. When you get the album on that day, September 22, you will be able to see the whole album on your computer. I go into production of the movie in May.” Diddy also promised, “It’s not like I’m playing Prince and shit." God forbid.
J.D. Fortune was that dude from Canada who became the new singer for INXS after winning the reality show "Rock Star: INXS" - go J.D., right? Sounds like his '80s dreams came true. But evidently that's not the case at all - according to Canada’s The Star, Fortune is now homeless and out of a band. After INXS finished their long tour about a year ago, Fortune says the band just dropped him from their roster like Gary Cherone with bad tattoos. “I was in an airport in Hong Kong and literally got handshakes of ‘Thank you very much,’ ” Fortune said, “I found myself really alone because I had traveled with these guys for 23 months. Some of the audiences we played for were upwards of 80,000 people.” And that’s how his INXS career ended, stranded in a Hong Kong airport.
Before you go crying for the guy, let's back up. The singer reportedly became a heavy cocaine user while he was in the band, something that brought back a few too many memories of the devil inside their former singer, deceased frontman Michael Hutchence. “It got as bad as it needed to be for me to numb out the fact that this was going to come to a screeching halt,” Fortune said.
Fortune is homeless, reportedly off drugs and living in his pick-up truck while he tries to finish working on his solo album, The Death of a Motivational Speaker.
DJ Envy of NY hip-hop station Hot97 was the first to play the freshly leaked Dr. Dre track "Topless" yesterday, presumably from his long-boiling comeback album Detox. There’s no guarantee that this version will end up on the album, which is increasingly being referred to as the Chinese Democracy of hip-hop- especially because, sick as it is, it’s clearly unfinished- and Dre’s known for scrapping projects that get exposed before they’re done cooking.
Yesterday Kanye West released the video for "Welcome To Heartbreak" on his blog, saying that he'd been working on it with the director Nabil Elderkin for the last month but upon finding out that another clip using a similar technique was already out there, he'd scrapped plans to release it officially. The distorted-pixel effect featured in the clip was also used in a video for iPod-loving electrolytes Chairlift, which premiered online last week and called the technique "holy datamosh." Wonder if that name will stick.
I still don't care what anybody says: this album is amazing, and it'll be remembered more than any other release in 2008.
Simon and Garfunkel reunited last week for three songs at New York’s Beacon Theatre, and it went so well that the pair of singer-songwriters are talking about hitting the road. “Our plan to work together is coming together,” Art Garfunkel told the BBC. “But it doesn’t go through England this time.”
Paul Simon’s manager Jeff Kramer confirmed this in a statement to Rolling Stone: “Yes there have been conversations taking place, but nothing has been confirmed.”
2003's Old Friends reunion tour, which was their first outing in 20 years, the trek grossed $123 million. At the time Simon, declared it was unlikely they’d tour again. “Because we do this every 10 or 12 years, this is probably the last time we’re going to do this,” he said.
The reunited original lineup of Jane's Addiction, who played a blistering club show Monday night, will headline the eighth Sasquatch! Music Festival, to be held May 23-25 at the Gorge in Quincy, Wash. It will be the first major concert the band has played in several years, but merely a prep for their planned tour this spring with Nine Inch Nails, who are also confirmed for Sasquatch.
Kings Of Leon, Ben Harper & Relentless7, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Erykah Badu, the Decemberists, Fleet Foxes, TV On The Radio, Animal Collective, Silversun Pickups, Bon Iver, Santigold, Girl Talk, Doves, Grizzly Bear, M. Ward, Sun Kil Moon, M83 and Of Montreal round out the Sasquatch lineup.
Among the comedians set to appear are Zach Galifiankas, Demetri Martin, Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job, Todd Barry, Jon Benjamin, God's Pottery and People's Republic of Komedy.
Tickets go on sale Feb. 28. For more information, visit SasquatchFestival.com.
Naturally, as hype and rumors continue to swirl around Chris Brown's arrest after kicking the almighty shit out of Rihanna on Grammy night, industry execs are wondering about
"It's solely up to the fans who buy and listen to music to decide where his career goes from here," says Jeff Anderson, OM of Radio One's urban WCDX Richmond, Va. "In my personal opinion, his clean image has been bruised. But with damage control of an apology and anger management, he'll find a way to bounce back ... if his music is hot." Clearly that asshole didn't see the recently-leaked pic of the aftermath. Once you take a gander at the hearty beating he gave Rihanna, all compassion goes right out the window. The world doesn't need another Ike Turner.
If you're looking to see it, TMZ tracked down the pic, so you can head over there. We're not promoting that shit here. It's just too heartbreaking.
On the flipside, as tragic as this event was, it sets Rihanna apart as a personality. Many, many more people are going to tune into what she has to say, and if she rises from it and is strengthened by it, there's no stopping her. It shouldn't be considered a bad thing when she's sitting on Beyonce's throne in two years. Watch it happen.
Because NBC is a batch of cheap asses and the record labels are stuck in technological infancy, the Roots will have to write more than 200 songs for their job as the house band on Jimmy Fallon's upcoming "Late Night" talk show. They've written 55 so far, somehow finding the time in their new, grueling work schedule.
The entire band commutes to New York City from Philly to tape their Fallon segments: "Were commuting via tour bus every morning at 8 am," drummer ?uestlove told Rolling Stone. "I have to do adult shit now, like go to bed before 11, which I've yet to do."
The Roots don't plan on retiring from touring, regardless of what you may have heard. "We didn't tell anybody we were retiring! I never want to pull some Eagles/Kiss shit where it's like, 'Okay, this is the last time you'll see us.' "They'll allow us ten weeks of touring time every year. We'll start with five shows each week night, but I'm certain that Jimmy will want to do it Letterman-style, taping two shows one night so we can get Fridays off. That's an extra 52 days so I'm sure we'll fill those up with shows."
Sounds fantastic. They're also planning to host a regular late-night residency at New York's Highline Ballroom, beginning March 5th.
