Fri May 23 2008 by Chris Molanphy
Ed. note: Chris “dennisobell” Molanphy, our resident chart guru, looks at the upward, downward, and lack of movement on this week’s Billboard charts:
Last week I poured cold water on the chart comeback of New Kids on the Block, who appeared on Billboard’s less-heralded Pop 100 chart but remained M.I.A. on the all-genre Hot 100.
But I snarked too soon. This week, Danny, Donny Joey, Jon and Jordan have the week’s highest Hot 100 debut with “Summertime,” their un-Jazzy Jeff-related bid for postmillennial Top 40 radio. By debuting at No. 57, “Summertime” breaks a 14-year drought for NKOTB, who last made the middle rungs on the big chart with 1994’s “Dirty Dawg.”
It’s poetic that the ur-boy band of the modern-pop era resurfaces the very same week boy-band impresario Lou Pearlman gets thrown in the clink. After all, 1994 was pretty much the moment when Pearlman began dreaming of rejiggering the five-boy New Kids template, launching the Backstreet-*N Sync era that entrenched the boy band in pop lore.
It’s like a passing-back of the baton, from one pop era to its forbear. Not that I’d accept anything baton-shaped from Lou Pearlman…
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Wed Apr 30 2008 by Maura
Our month-ending Rule Of Sevens column series continues with a series of post ideas that didn’t quite make it to the “publish” stage: 1. AC radio and how it’s become the province of young adults/teenagers (inspired by James Montgomery’s column on Robyn); 2. More »
Wed Apr 23 2008 by Maura
MTV News’ James Montgomery describes how soul-sucking and Google history-killing the life of a music journalist can be in 2008, the year that Miley Cyrus bra shots, High School Musical nude pictures, and Ashlee Simpson pregnancy rumors line the expressway that leads to the promised land of… More »
Wed Nov 7 2007 by Maura
Welcome to Idolator’s liveblog of the 41st Annual CMA Awards, coming to you live from Nashville and my couch in Astoria. Expected tonight: Carrie Underwood, Brad Paisley with a marching band, and this band called … Eagles Fly? Where Eagles Dare? Oh, right. The Eagles. I don’t know much about them, but apparently they have a new album out?
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Mon Oct 29 2007 by Maura
I swear I’m not solely posting the clip for the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s “Talk About The Blues”–which stars Winona Ryder in the role of the band’s titular leader–because of the fact that it’s Ryder’s birthday today (although, OK, that’s probably a good 60% of the reason.). But it’s also a convenient excuse to point you to James Montgomery’s CMJ-inspired musings from last week on whether or not a band like the Blues Explosion–which, as he notes, had a mid-’90s career arc that resembled, well, an arc, and not a cliff–could have existed, and evolved as they did, in the Black Kids/Vampire Weekend/oh man are we living during the Best Week Ever or what era, since that whole topic was so much fun to chat about last time out. Anyway, as another piece of evidence for you to chew on, check out their (”Weird Al” Yankovic-directed) video for “Wail” after the jump.
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Wed Jul 25 2007 by Maura
This week’s edition of the MTV.com column “Bigger Than The Sound” is a curious mea culpa for last week’s installment, which was a (kind of funny! and we’re not just saying that because it linked to us!) look at the idea of “anti-buzz” and how any press is conceivably good press. That piece isn’t on MTV’s site anymore, in large part because writer James Montgomery tried to start some anti-buzz by offering wild predictions about why a few artists’ next albums would be disappointing. (As Montgomery puts it, “a representative for one of the artists I singled out was unhappy — and made her feelings known to my higher-ups.”)
The piece has been erased from the collective RAM of MTV’s servers, but Google cache never forgets; as it turns out, the six artists Montgomery mentioned in the piece were Panic! At The Disco, 50 Cent, Thrice, Blake Lewis, Weezer, and Cobra Starship. So which artist’s “people” complained about the satirical suckage-prediction? Time for another poll:
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