“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 »
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Lady GaGa Takes Slow and Steady Route to the Top
the biz
Ticketmaster Is Not Having A Great Week, But Neither Are Ticket Buyers
A few weeks ago, Bruce Springsteen fans were up in arms after tickets to his hotly anticipated homecoming shows appeared on Ticketmaster’s “secondary market” site TicketsNow suspiciously close to their onsale time. But somehow, the ticketing behemoth managed to top itself, faux pas-wise, with the No Doubt reunion shows in the band’s homeland of Orange County, Calif.: Tickets to those shows were listed on TicketsNow some 24 hours before they went on sale to fan club members, and more than a week before they were available to the general public. Bet you Irving Azoff is hoping that the local Congressional representatives aren’t big Gwen Stefani fans. MORE »
videodrone
Madonna Finances Her Divorce On The Road
Though I have gone to great pains here to debunk the idea that “making your money on the road” is a viable option for most independent artists, it ain’t so bad if you’re a hegemonic musical force like Madonna. Billboard’s Top Money Makers list is out, and the trade pub rightly notes the correlation between big-time tours and the top moneymaking acts. Recall that Madonna only had the 50th-best selling album in 2008, and you won’t be so surprised to find out that the artists with the biggest bankrolls are the same ones who have the hugest tours. The top 20 artists, and their 2008 grosses so you can feel even poorer than you already do, after the jump, MORE »
the new model
This Just In: Artists Who Don’t Sell Many Records Even Less Likely To Sell Lots Of Clothing
Ad Age reports that celebrities trying to earn some extra scratch from their name’s wattage might want to start looking somewhere that isn’t a fashion “partnership” with a retail outlet, what with the economy continuing its long, slow swoon and chains all over the country struggling to keep their lights on. Tough break, musicians who want to avenge those rejected FIT applications! MORE »
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Our “Now!” Comps Have So Much Growing Up To Do
Britain’s The Independent celebrates the 70th incarnation of the pop-comp series Now! with an extensive list of the hits and misses among the compilation’s selections, which number 2,701 songs over the last 25 years. While the quality level of our Stateside counterpart doesn’t nearly reach the heights of the original (the first volume of the UK series featured “Love Cats,” after all), surely I could do the same for the 28 volumes that have shown up on our shores, and in our stores. MORE »
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“Vibe” Just Wants To Celebrate (Itself)
Once again, we present Rock-Critically Correct, a feature in which the most recent issues of Rolling Stone, Blender, Vibe, and Spin are given a once-over by a writer who’s contributed to many of those magazines, as well as a few others! In this installment, he looks at the new issue of Vibe: MORE »
idolator\'s canadian idolatry
“Canadian Idol” Gets Smooth And Mellow
Any theme is going to be a bit of a letdown after “Rock and Roll Heaven” week, but last night, our music competition friends north of the border did their best to ease the tumble. MORE »
videodrone
Gavin Rossdale Gets His David Cook On
After a proud decade of fighting the flow, screaming “but I love Jesus Lizard!” and working with indie metal vets, Bush’s Gavin Rossdale has sucked it up and is finally dishing out some Cook rock. Maybe he was tired of Gwen Stefani bouncing a kid on her lap and looking bored while he played his demos to her. Maybe he hoped people would yell for a ballad other than “Glycerine” at shows. Either way, I’m guessing we won’t see another album from Institute, the band of Helmet and Rival Schools vets that put out an album in 2005. MORE »
Pharrell, Santogold, Julian Casablancas United By Converse
Once again, artists have come together to promote a common cause, and this time it’s a sneaker. Santogold, the refreshing new artist who sounds like Gwen Stefani reacting to M.I.A., has joined Strokes leader Julian Casablancas and renaissance man Pharrell Williams to record a new song/video/Converse ad campaign. Santogold says the final product is “such a Pharrell track,” which either means that it’s the R&B smash of the summer or an embarrassing trainwreck with noxious jazz keyboards. I would think the presence of Mr. Casablancas would edge things towards the latter possibility, but maybe I just don’t have enough faith in Converse. MORE »
