The Black Eyed Peas hit up Saturday Night Live this past weekend, and also hit (and bludgeoned and pounced on repeatedly) Kathie Lee Gifford. The big letdown was that a.) it was just a SNL skit mocking the Today Show, and not some spontaneous act of rage brought about by rogue, anti-Kathie Lee BEP members, and b.) it wasn’t even the real Kathie Lee, but rather Kristen Wiig’s boozy take on her. MORE »
This week’s installment in the sorta-halfhearted scuffle between songs that are biding time at the top of the Hot 100 until the Black Eyed Peas return to the No. 1 slot for the kajillionth week this year: Jay Sean’s “Down” reclaimed the top spot after last week’s No. 1, Britney Spears’ Real Dollish “3,” sagged in sales by 33% and fell to No. 5. (It’s gaining in airplay, though, so don’t count her out just yet.) Rounding out the top 5 is a trio of familiar tunes to any chart-watcher: Jason DeRulo’s “Whatcha Say” (No. 2), Miley Cyrus’ “Party In The U.S.A.” (No. 3), and the Jay-Z/Rihanna/Kanye collab “Run This Town” (No. 4). [Billboard] MORE »
Just when you thought we’d escape 2009 without another No. 1 single from the chart-dominating Black Eyed Peas, the group’s plaintive DirecTV tie-in “Meet Me Halfway” is up a whopping 119% on this week’s Hot Digital Tracks chart, selling 127,000 copies and vaulting from No. 16 to No. 5. Ahead of the Peas: MORE »
Apparently the ’80s-tastic CGI of the Black Eyed Peas’ “Meet Me Halfway” video would have shocked me a lot less if I was a college football watcher; last night I caught the above clip-referencing during the Phillies-Dodgers telecast, and I was initially surprised by how fast the clip’s turnaround from “current cultural product” to “easily referenced bit of minutiae” was. (Other ads for the satellite-TV service have, you may recall, referenced curios much older, like Back To The Future and Star Trek.) But as it turns out, I was dumb for underestimating the Peas’ ability to quickly ride any cross-promotional wave! MORE »
Apparently taking their visual cues from both the later entrants in the Star Wars series and the Trapper Keepers that Stacy Ferguson toted around the Kids Incorporated set back in the day, the Black Eyed Peas have released a CGI-filled (unembeddable) video for “Meet Me Halfway,” the third single from their album The E.N.D. One wonders if this song’s path to the top is as inevitable as previously thought, as the iTunes Store right now is selling the full-length for the reduced price of $7.99—but then again, radio programmers seem to have a bit of a thing for the vocal stylings of Ms. Fergalicious when she’s in “balladeer” mode, so expect to hear this track a lot at your local Walgreen’s by the time that Halloween candy goes on deep discount. [YouTube / iTunes] MORE »
Remember Lost in Space? What a timeless film: William Hurt, Mimi Rogers, Heather Graham, and TV greats Lacey Chabert and Matt LeBlanc. Back in 1998, there was such excitement for this cinematic recreation of the classic ’60s CBS series.
What’s that? You say you don’t remember this bit of Clinton-era movie magic? Or…you do, vaguely — but you seem to recall that it kind of blew chunks?
Well, how could that be? After all, Lost in Space was the movie that evicted Titanic, the highest-grossing and Oscar-winningest movie of all time, from the top of the U.S. box office after a record-setting, still unbeaten run.
This bit of throwaway trivia (regarding a movie that, all kidding aside, was a serious flop) leaps to mind as I consider the song that finally terminates the Black Eyed Peas’ half-year run atop the Billboard Hot 100.
Jay Sean’s “Down,” to be fair, isn’t half as bad a song as Lost in Space was a movie. It’s a pleasant little ditty, a Chris Brown‒like midtempo jam with a not-embarrassing supporting rap from prodigal chart hero Lil Wayne. London native Sean — born Kamaljit Singh Jhooti — also earns the happy status as one of the few people of South Asian descent to top our singles chart, after a successful half-decade career hitting charts in the United Kingdom and India.
Still, there’s no question that the Hot 100 win by “Down,” over a very competitive field of songs-in-waiting, has less to do with love for the track than with the Peas at last letting go. Jay Sean should enjoy the victory he’s eked out, because it will likely be short-lived. MORE »
Yes, it’s true: Jay Sean’s Lil Wayne-assisted R & B track “Down” will be your No. 1 single beginning tomorrow, evicting the Black Eyed Peas from their 26-week run at the top of the Hot 100 and answering the question plaguing many will.i.am-weary chart-watchers for so, so long. The question, of course, is this: Can you hum a few bars of the British crooner’s debut single? Sure, it may be the most-played-song on radio, but that doesn’t necessarily mean “widespread recognition” in 2009’s crazy pop-music marketplace. A video of the track, and a few fun facts about the singer with which you can impress your friends at parties, after the jump! MORE »
Now that the summer has ended, and the Black Eyed Peas have reached the half-year mark at the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Hot 100, it’s time to start thinking about who could knock them off. While looking for insight on which artists could achieve this heretofore-impossible feat, I ran across a Newsweek blog post that was seemingly written by someone who hasn’t really looked at a copy of Billboard in months—i.e., a dude who really thinks that Mariah Carey’s D.O.A. cover of Foreigner’s “I Want To Know What Love Is” is going to burn up the charts, despite it sounding not so much “radio ready” as it is “ready for a time-travel trip to a 20th-century dentist’s office.” To clear things up a bit, Idolator’s resident chart expert Chris Molanphy and I took some IM time and tried to figure out which artists realistically had a chance of knocking off the Peas. Lady GaGa? Jason DeRulo? Britney? Nobody??? Our thoughts, after the jump. MORE »
It’s now been 26 weeks since the Black Eyed Peas first reached the summit of Billboard’s Hot 100 with “Boom Boom Pow,” which had a 12-week run at the top of the charts before being relieved by the group’s follow-up single “I Gotta Feeling.” 26 weeks! That’s half a year! At least the band’s April ascent to the top means that they won’t rule the entirety of this year’s Daylight Savings stretch, but still, yeesh. MORE »
“‘I Gotta Feeling’ also holds at No. 1 on the Hot 100 for the 12th straight week. This matches the 12 weeks that the Peas held the top spot with ‘Boom Boom Pow’ immediately prior to this hit. Since 1955, only two other acts, Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men, have had two or more singles that logged 12 weeks at No. 1. Now, here’s the amazing part: With just two No. 1 hits, the Peas have spent more weeks at No. 1 than such heavyweights as Diana Ross & the Supremes, which amassed 12 No. 1 hits, and George Michael, who had 10 (counting his hits with Wham!).” [Chart Watch] MORE »
