This week's billboard chart

Wow, Steely Dan's "Everything Must Go" is falling down the charts (#49). It's only been out for three weeks, yet it's being outsold by some pretty mediocre albums (Good Charlotte anyone?).

My pick for album of the year (so far) is Radiohead's "Hail to the thief". It's hanging in at #11 in it's third week on the chart. The rest of the top ten is:

1. Beyonce, Dangerously In Love
2. Michelle Branch, Hotel Paper
3. Luther Vandross, Dance With My Father
4. Three 6 Mafia, Da Unbreakables
5. Metallica, St. Anger
6. 50 Cent, Get Rich Or Die Tryin'
7. Monica, After The Storm
8. Evanescence, Fallen
9. Norah Jones, Come Away With Me
10. Annie Lennox, Bare

To see the top 50 albums, check out this link: http://www.billboard.com/bb/charts/bb200.jsp

 

I would only buy # 10....already have #9

Three 6 Mafia????????

What the??????????????????

 

The ubiquitous presence of rap music in the Billboard charts Top 10 means one of two things to me: either rap fans love to buy CDs, or they're not much on burning and sharing their rap CDs with each other.

Too bad about the Steely Dan. This probably means a long dry spell before we can expect another Steely Dan release, if ever.

 

Or maybe (3): Rap music really IS popular.

 

No, that can't be it...

 

Yes, simply because it's a good album. It didn't deserve to fall to #49 in three weeks. If more people got the chance to hear the material (especially "Green Book") sales would improve.

Seeing Good Charlotte's album higher on the charts than "Everything Must Go" is really sad.

 

Actually, the popularity of rap was somewhat implied by my first point, but you would never know it from the coverage in popular media or even around here. Go ahead and search for Three 6 Mafia and 50 cent in the Hoffman search engine, and you'll see what I mean. It's kind of like with country music. Until soundscan was incorporated into the Billboard charts, no one ever realized how much of this product sold on a weekly basis.

 

I'm going to try to put an optomistic spin on this. As far as I'm concerned it's the lowest common denominator. I don't think that "Three six mafia" is going to have much staying power on the chart.

 

For all info on Three 6 Mafia and their "affiliates", check out this website:

http://www.triplesix.com/

Oh, yeah... they're popular!

 

Three 6 Mafia in all their glory...

 

It's been decades since I stopped having more than a passing interest in the charts. SoundScan and Billboard have nothing to do with what I choose to listen to. I'm only affected by chart performance in that a band or artist that I feel deserves more exposure may find it difficult to release another recording if their last one is regarded as a commercial failure. And if I'm late to discover a worthwhile musical act, chart failure may have led their catalogue to go OOP and become hard to find by the time I go looking.

That said, I do believe that, in all of chart history, the gap between what sells and what is actually worth hearing has never been wider than it is now.

 

I never let the charts dictate what I buy. I am interested in how well a particular title is doing, and how many copies were sold. Seeing this week's chart just confirms how far off my listening tastes are from the mainstream music buying public.

 

It's all about promotion too. Steely Dan has gotten zero promotion from their label- my store couldn't even get a promo copy from our label rep. I can't believe that such a mediocre lounge album (my opinion) has still got such chart staying power. Of course she's hot and won "Album Of The Year" (which does not equal chart success for your next album appearently). I dare say she would not have such huge promotion if she looked like Diane Schuur, but anyway....

That chart doesn't reflect my particular store. It always seems to be biased towards what's SUPPOSED to be selling- not what is.... We've had more Three 6 Mafia stolen than sold, and we have over 100 copies of Metallica sitting in the bins now collecting dust. Nobody is buying it. Word has gotten out what crud it is.


James

 

Where's Justin & Kelly?

 

Currently they're starring in a crappy movie. I think it's a federal law that you can't have a crappy movie, and crappy album out at the same time (unless you're JLO or Mariah Carey).

 

I swear when I saw that three 6 mafia/whatever cover I thought it was a comic parody!