Saturday, November 05, 2005

US Chart Commentary (11/12/05)

Billboard Hot 100 Singles:

Kanye West's "Gold Digger" is the top single for the 9th straight week, tying him for second place in longevity at #1 this year with 50 Cent's "Candy Shop" and Mario's "Let Me Love You." Mariah Carey is still way out ahead with 14 weeks for "We Belong Together." He is also #1 on the Billboard Pop 100. Chris Brown remains in pole position for a third week with "Run It." Fall Out Boy climbs back into the top 10 at #10 with "Sugar, We're Going Down." An initial sales boost had the single as high as #8, after which is spent three weeks outside the top 10. It is no ricocheting between #10 and #11, having charted at 10-11-10-11-10 over the last 5 weeks. After an impressive debut at #20 last week, Madonna falls to #21 with "Hung Up." Expect the single to climb up again though, once airplay catches up with its first week sales boost. Pussycat Dolls are back-to-back at #24 with "Don't Cha" and #25 with "Stickwitu," which makes an impressive 15 notch leap from#40. Also making a big jump from #36 to #26 is Mariah Carey with "Don't Forget About Us," the newly added track to the upcoming re-release of The Emancipation of Mimi. Sadly, iTunes is still not offering this title, and if it appears as an "album only" purchase the week of Mimi's re-release, I'm going to be really pissed off. Fall Out Boy score their second top 40 hit at #32 with "Dance, Dance," which moves up strongly from #66. Of this weeks debuts, I'm most excited to see James Blunt's first single, "You're Beautiful" debut at #88. The track spent 5 weeks at #1 on the UK chart last summer and pushed his album Back to Bedlam to nine weeks at #1 on the UK album chart, making it the best-selling album of the year there so far.

Billboard 200 Albums:

Destiny’s Child debut at #1 with #1’s, their greatest hits collection and swan song. This is their second #1 album, after 2001’s Survivor. After falling to #4, Nickelback return to pole position with All The Right Reasons. At #7 is a debut for Joe Nichols, who I don’t know a thing about, other than that this is his third album, and by far the highest charting of them. At #10, Bette Midler debuts with Bette Midler Sings The Peggy Lee Songbook, which is apparently self-explanatory. The Christmas music season kicks off at #32, with the debut of “classical” singing boyband Il Divo’s Christmas album, The Christmas Collection. A real, albeit washed up, boyband’s greatest hits collection debuts at #48. Finally we have ‘N Sync’s Greatest Hits, released without any fanfare or new material, other than "I’ll Never Stop," which was available on non-US versions of No Strings Attached, but until now was not released in the US, even though it achieved single status in the UK (peaking at #13). I think this is a clear indication that their record label is resigned to the fact that the group is no more, and therefore cashed in on their collection of hits while a shred (if that) of popularity still exists. My question is—when will Justin Timberlake get his act together and put out a second long-player?

Radio & Records Top 40 Airplay:

Kanye West tops the pop airplay chart for a second week with “Gold Digger,” but former #1 single “Because of You” by Kelly Clarkson is hot on his heels. Both songs are still gaining spins, and West is only 21 spins ahead of Clarkson. Over at Mediabase, these two have been neck-in-neck all week, with West ahead on the Mainstream list and Clarkson ahead on the CHR/Pop list. I’m not sure how these two charts differ, but Mainstream appears to include more stations. Nickelback (up #6 to #3) and Chris Brown (up #9 to #6) are also moving up strongly in the top 10 with “Photograph” and “Run It,” respectively. Below the top 10 are three strong movers that will surely be top 10 within a couple of weeks. The Pussycat Dolls are up from #21 to #13 with “Stickwitu,” their follow-up to former top 10 hit “Don’t Cha.” Also moving up fast are “Don’t Forget About Us” by Mariah Carey (#22 up to #15) and Sean Paul’s “We Be Burnin’,” up from #23 to #17. Madonna also makes an 8-spot jump to #24 with “Hung Up,” edging above the #25 peak of her last solo single, “American Life.” The biggest move within the top 40 this week belongs to Young Jeezy Featuring Akon, who moves up 9 places to #26 with "Soul Survivor." New entries in the top 40 are Shakira with "Don't Bother," her first top 40 single in three years; Howie Day, with "She Says," the follow-up to "Collide;" and Santana Featuring Michelle Branch with "I'm Feeling You." This is Santana's second collaboration with Branch, the first being the #5 hit "Game of Love" in 2002.

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