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 better band with one major alternative hit to their name (the downy, warm-blanket 1990 Modern Rock chart-topper “Here’s Where the Story Ends”), had failed to cross over to the U.S. Top 40 while Dolores O’Riordan rampaged across my radio dial. The ’Berries weren’t awful, just… a little undeserving, and massively benefiting from someone else’s sound.
This week—unless he’s too busy counting his Twilight soundtrack money or canoodling with the missus—Ben Gibbard is probably feeling something similar. It’s got to be a bit galling that Owl City’s “Fireflies,” the new No. 1 song on Billboard’s Hot 100, is a candied replica of a sound he and Jimmy Tamborello codified six years ago.
Again, I can’t front: on a Top 40 radio dial awash in Black Eyed Peas’ faux-hop and Miley Cyrus’s shrill Autotunage, “Fireflies” is a nice contrast. But it’s basically The Postal Service for Dummies, and it’s mystifying how easily it shot to No. 1 during the same decade when “Such Great Heights,” which some of us consider one of the best-written pop songs of the ’00s, didn’t even grace the Hot 100.
But you don’t have to be a Gibbard fan to still find Owl City’s feat bizarre. Because even if you’ve never heard of the Postal Service, “Fireflies” represents a head-scratching rarity: a No. 1 hit by a solo white guy with no other radio format to call home. MORE »
Search Results
100 and single
Such Great Hoots? Owl City Is A Rare Boy-Pop Chart-Topper
100 and single
Belting Like It’s 1989: Mariah And Whitney Enjoy (Fleeting) Chart Redemption
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 Carey, with the beleaguered pre-album track “Obsessed” — the single that might bring her one step closer to tying the Beatles’ all-time record for Hot 100 chart-toppers.
So: mission accomplished, right? We can pretend pegged jeans and Bill Clinton are back in style, because Diva Era Redux is on? (Why not: Melrose Place is on the tube again!)
Sure, let’s let the two aging pop queens enjoy their week of glory; in Houston’s case especially, it’s earned (and all the intense press Carey’s been getting lately almost makes me feel for her). But a close look at the numbers that brought them back to the winners’ circle suggests that we might not be talking much about these two come Christmas. MORE »
names in the news
How Will You Be Meeting The Beatles Today?
Sept. 9 has finally come, and with it comes a slew of Beatles-related material: the remasters; the release of The Beatles: Rock Band; the maybe-but-maybe-not digital release of the band’s catalog. Instead of sifting through the many inches of virtual column space that have been devoted to these phenomena, or God help me trying to add to them, I’ll just ask: Are you buying any of the remasters, or the Rock Band tie-in? And if you’re buying the remasters, stereo or mono? And—perhaps the most interesting question to this pair of eyes—did you pick up your newly acquired albums at your local 7-Eleven alongside a Cheeseburger Big Bite?
[Pic via AFP/Getty] MORE »
mysteries
The Hidden Meaning Of The Rolling Stones-Quoting Apple Event Invitation
Next Wednesday is 09.09.09—a big day for the music business thanks to the release of the remastered Beatles catalog on CD, as well as the Fab Four’s very own, very splashy installment in the Rock Band franchise. So why would Apple schedule a big event for that day, and why would said event be presaged by an invitation with an old-school iPod silhouette-dancer and a slightly mangled Rolling Stones lyric? Is it to throw everyone off the Beatles-on-iTunes scent, or something more sinister? Hmm. Hmmm! [Ars Technica] MORE »
Rumors
Oh Hey, That “Beatles Albums Arriving On iTunes” Chatter Is Starting Again
According to the tech-news site AllThingsD, Apple has a music event scheduled for Sept. 9. ATD says that the event will involve “upgrades to the iPod line and an update to iTunes that may involve some sort of social element.” But since that date just happens to be a big one for Beatles fans—the band’s remastered catalog is coming out, as well as The Beatles: Rock Band—other news outlets are wondering if this will be the day that the Fab Four’s catalog finally comes to iTunes, after years and years of speculation on the part of the music press. And if it doesn’t happen? Well, music-tech reporters will probably be thanking their lucky stars that the dusty story about the band’s digital upgrade can have life breathed into it at least one more time. [AllThingsD] MORE »
100 and single
Fergie Power: How the Spun-Off Diva Dragged Her Homeboys to No. 1
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 reliable album-sellers but the kind of band able to score regular Top 40 radio hits. Grohl would be transformed, from Kurt Cobain’s potent-but-silent sidekick, to coequal band focal point.
It’s a little hard to imagine for all sorts of reasons, not least the fact that Grohl was too respectful of Cobain to form his own project until both Kurt and the band were dead and gone. But the scheduling is also fanciful—who has that kind of time, to get a successful solo career going while keeping up with a best-selling group?
The fact is, it’s exceedingly rare for a successful side project to not only coexist with the original group but bring that stalwart act to new pop-chart heights. In fact, in chart history, it’s only happened three times (really, more like two and a half).
The third of these three acts is this week sitting atop Billboard’s Hot 100, in the form of the Black Eyed Peas*. “Boom Boom Pow” is, oddly, the act’s first No. 1—but it’s gun-for-hire Fergie’s fourth. MORE »
100 and single
Lady GaGa Takes Slow and Steady Route to the Top
“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 slot. She’s the first act to step up to the plate, swing just twice, and hit two homers since Christina Aguilera’s first pair of hits, “Genie in a Bottle” and “What a Girl Wants,” topped the Hot 100 in 1999–2000.
That’s nice for the Lady and all, but it masks a more notable achievement: her slowness in achieving those hits. The amount of time “Dance” and “Poker” took to reach No. 1 is literally unprecedented in recent chart history.
In a sea of hits that explode up the charts based on faddish bursts of iTunes sales, GaGa’s chart pattern is contrary to everything going on in pop music promotion right now, recalling the more languid runs by songs in the ’70s through the mid-’90s. It’s almost enough to make an old-school chart geek like me root for her. MORE »
top
What It Takes To Get A Cover Feature In The “Phoenix New Times”: Little Talent, Big Ads?
Say a band lacks a record deal, an actual fanbase, or product to purchase, yet possesses a lifespan that’s as long as the cash in the drummer’s pocket holds up. Would that be the sort of band you’d like your local alt-weekly to dedicate 4500+ words to? If you live in the greater Phoenix area, you’re in luck, because Hollywood Heartthrob, an act that can’t even get its official site on the first page of the Google search for its name, is on the cover of the Phoenix New Times this week! MORE »
100 and single
Limey Lass Vs. Gator Crass: Predicting The Year-End Hot 100
When Billboard closes out 2008 next week by charting the year’s biggest hits, you can expect several songs from late 2007 to loom large on the year-end Hot 100.
But I doubt any will surpass the song that made an unrecognizable Tom Cruise shake his groove thing this past summer.
If there’s any chance that something will upset Flo Rida’s pop-rap smash, it’ll be by another newcomer whose big hit proved tough to follow: Leona Lewis. But I wouldn’t count on it. MORE »
