The nitpickers among you will probably take great pains to note that "Before He Cheats" is, like, so 2006. But Carrie Underwood's ode to messing up her ex's ride had a slow climb into the pop world, and I didn't hear it until I caught the crime spree video late one night. The more exposure I got to it, though, the more I grew to appreciate its year-long reign on the pop charts; it combined minor-key, woman-scorned piano balladry, pitch-perfect lyrical details (that line about the cheater "dabbin' on three dollars worth of that bathroom Polo" distilled every noxious thing about a certain type of sleaze into nine words), and Underwood's voice—finally used in service of passion, and not Idol coronation-song puffery—into a country crossover hit that (for once!) didn't have to be a mushy-ass ballad to get mainstream love.

Carrie Underwood - Before He Cheats [YouTube]
Carrie Underwood [Official site]
Idolator's 2007 Top 40 List Of Awesomeness

20. Frankie Muniz - $3 million
19. Mandy Moore - $3.5 million
18. Lindsay Lohan - $3.5 million
17. Miley Cyrus - $3.5 million
16. Rupert Grint - $4 million
15. Emma Watson - $4 million
14. Dakota Fanning - $4 million
13. Mischa Barton - $4.5 million
12. Scarlett Johansson - $5 million
11. Carrie Underwood - $7 million
10. Keira Knightley - $9 million
9. Carmelo Anthony - $10 million
8. Avril Lavigne - $12 million
7. Hilary Duff - $12 million
6. Daniel Radcliffe - $15 million
5. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen - $17 million each
4. Michelle Wie - $19 million
3. Maria Sharapova - $23 million
2. Reggie Bush - $24 million
1. LeBron James - $27 million

Wow, Miley "Instant Sell-Out" Cyrus only at No. 17? (Perhaps because Forbes' list only measures from June '06 to June 07, before Hannah Montana concert mania kicked off in earnest.) But not counting Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan—and taking Mandy Moore as a grey area—that's three, count 'em three young folks best known for releasing records and doing concert tours and making videos: Lavigne, Carrie Underwood, and Cyrus. Plenty of explanations for this, i.e. bad contracts, evil managers, parents funnelling the money into offshore accounts. Still, does this mean that future teenpop stars and starlets are going to have to start getting into the game for the love of it?

20 Under 25 [Forbes via the Evil Beet]

It's been charting for less than three months, but Alicia Keys' "No One" feels like it's been around forever. It broke into the Top 10 of Billboard's Hot 100 after only four weeks, but then its movement slowed to a crawl; in each of the last four weeks, it's only moved up one spot. But that last one-spot move gives Keys' squonky, fascinatingly weird ballad the win, as it evicts Chris Brown's "Kiss Kiss" from No. 1.

Nothing Succeeds Like Success: Sometimes the charts really do tell the industry something it didn't already know. Sure, "No One" is already popular—it's led in overall U.S. radio airplay for weeks. Sure, Keys is beloved, and the album was expected to land successfully (even if some of us thought she'd be facing much stiffer competition). But I doubt whether anyone in the industry—besides Clive Davis—expected As I Am to ring up the second-fattest sales week of 2007, outdoing the mark set by the Eagles just two weeks ago.

In short, the message of this week isn't just "Alicia Keys is popular"; it's "You forgot how goddamned crazy-popular Alicia Keys is, and you'd better get behind her ASAP." Keys thumping Celine Dion by a three-to-one margin gives the greenlight to any radio program director still holding out on "No One" to give it a spin. The song has yet to even appear on the adult-contemporary chart, which might seem odd given the song's dayshift-friendly tempo. Keys has actually had a middling career at A/C stations thus far (only 2004's "If I Ain't Got You" came close to the chart's Top 10), and as we'll see in a minute, A/C radio is the key to chart longevity. So if more conservatively programmed stations, of any format, jump on the "No One" bandwagon, Keys' squeaker of a No. 1 hit could settle in for a long run, a la the 10-week, airplay-fueled camp-out enjoyed by Beyonce's "Irreplaceable" roughly one year ago.

Such an airplay surge for Keys could be the one thing that holds back her main Hot 100 competitor, "Low" by rapper Flo Rida and... um, vocoderizer T-Pain. Up two more spots to No. 4, "Low" is now the second-best-selling digital single (and the top seller on iTunes; Keys edges out "Low" as Billboard's overall best-seller, thanks to other online sources like AOL and digital streams). Even after its explosion into the Top 10 last week, it's hard to say where "Low" goes from here, because its airplay still lags "No One" by a country mile. If Keys wilts more than we're expecting next week and "Low" takes a commanding lead in digital sales, "No One" could be shown the door. But Flo Rida's got to catch up in airplay fast if he's going to capitalize on his fat sales and enjoy the kind of chart run seen by Soulja Boy's "Crank That."

Carrie's Not So Merry: As Jess and Maura have pointed out, in recent years adult-contemporary radio has adopted the crazy-making all-Christmas format with gusto. Mere moments after doorstep jack-o-lanterns' candles are extinguished, numerous A/C stations stop spinning Celine 30 times a day to start burning out the Mel Torme chestnuts and Mariah Carey rafter-raisers. If there's a silver lining to this (and, god help us, it's microscopic), it's that A/C finally gives its tight, slow-moving playlists a rest for two months, sparing us the umpteen-billionth play of Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten." However, for artists who depend on A/C play, there are unintended consequences.

This year's casualty, if you can muster even a shred of pity for her: Carrie Underwood. Regular readers of the column will know we've been watching the record-setting Hot 100 run of her deathless hit "Before He Cheats" as it's climbed the list of all-time longevity champions. Now 64 weeks old, "Cheats" is the third-longest-lived song in Hot 100 history, an amazing achievement and even a respectable one, given the song's twangy sound and unlikely crossover from country to pop radio. But virtually the only thing keeping the song alive at this point is A/C radio airplay. This week, "Cheats" falls to No. 47, just three notches above the line where Billboard rules mandate that old songs must be permanently removed from the chart.

The influx of all-Christmas playlists will inevitably lead to a dropoff for Underwood's old smash, probably by next week. Which is a shame, because she's just two weeks away from taking over second place on the all-time list from its undeserving holder: Jewel's "You Were Meant for Me/Foolish Games," a "two-sided" hit that exploited a mid-'90s chart technicality to combine the runs of two separate radio hits into a 65-week chart listing. Underwood's more impressive, single-song hit will also fall well short of beating the champ, icky wedding staple "How Do I Live" by LeAnn Rimes (69 weeks).

Underwood's got a lot to be thankful for after the run she's had. But if she's feeling blue about losing out to an Alaskan yodeler and another country-to-pop ingénue, she should take it up with Mannheim Steamroller.

Stuff to Watch: As if we didn't have enough reasons to be annoyed by Fergie, this week her "Clmusy" moves into the Top 10 by displacing two marginally more interesting hits: Finger Eleven's "Paralyzer" and Rihanna's "Hate That I Love You." Both of the latter songs receive "backward bullets" from Billboard, meaning they grew in sales and/or airplay even while getting shoved backward on the chart. I continue to be amazed that the stick-to-your-brain Rihanna/Ne-Yo ballad isn't charting better, but it will probably wilt soon; Z100 in New York has already moved on to Ri's fourth single from Good Girl Gone Bad, the club-friendly "Don't Stop the Music." Expect that to debut soon, and expect "Clumsy" to continue its inevitable march into the Top Five.

The top 20, with last week's position and total weeks charted in parentheses:
1. Alicia Keys, "No One" (LW No. 2, 11 weeks)
2. Chris Brown, "Kiss Kiss" (LW No. 1, 10 weeks)
3. Timbaland feat. OneRepublic, "Apologize" (LW No. 3, 16 weeks)
4. Flo Rida feat. T-Pain, "Low" (LW No. 6, 4 weeks)
5. Colbie Caillat, "Bubbly" (LW No. 5, 21 weeks)
6. Soulja Boy, "Crank That (Soulja Boy), Soulja Boy Tell'em" (LW No. 4, 19 weeks)
7. Kanye West feat. T-Pain, "Good Life" (LW No. 7, 10 weeks)
8. Fergie, "Clumsy" (LW No. 12, 6 weeks)
9. Baby Bash feat. T-Pain, "Cyclone" (LW No. 8, 17 weeks)
10. Kanye West, "Stronger" (LW No. 9, 17 weeks)
11. Finger Eleven, "Paralyzer" (LW No. 10, 24 weeks)
12. Rihanna feat. Ne-Yo, "Hate That I Love You" (LW No. 11, 12 weeks)
13. Timbaland feat. Keri Hilson & D.O.E., "The Way I Are" (LW No. 13, 25 weeks)
14. J. Holiday, "Bed" (LW No. 14, 18 weeks)
15. matchbox twenty, "How Far We've Come" (LW No. 15, 12 weeks)
16. Jordin Sparks, "Tattoo" (LW No. 18, 8 weeks)
17. Fergie, "Big Girls Don't Cry" (LW No. 16, 31 weeks)
18. The-Dream, "Shawty is a 10" (LW No. 17, 11 weeks)
19. Daughtry, "Over You" (LW No. 23, 15 weeks)
20. Pink, "Who Knew" (LW No. 20, 24 weeks)

Biggest Debuts: Behind the Eagles and Britney came Avenged Sevenfold's self-titled album, which entered at No. 4; country singer Josh Turner's Everything Is Fine, which came in at No. 5; the Backstreet Boys' Unbreakable, which couldn't break the six-figure mark and landed at No. 7; and a best-of from Oprah favorite Andrea Bocelli, which came in at No. 9.

But there were also two semi-debuts that I noticed way down the chart, thanks to the rule-finagling that allowed the Eagles to get in: the mega-God-complex known as the Lakewood Church had its album Free To Worship, which is available at its Web site and at Wal-Mart, enter the chart at No. 131 (on a 22% drop); former American Idol contestant Bo Bice entered the chart at No. 150 with his album See The Light, which is also only available at Wal-Mart and online. (It debuted in the top 100 on the Comprehensive Albums chart last week, its first week on Wal-Mart's racks.) Just think: Even with God (maybe) on one (or both!) of their sides, neither of those artists' managers had the chart-altering power of Eagles heavy Irving Azoff!

Notable Jumps: The Jonas Brothers' self-titled album hopped up from No. 44 to No. 20 on a 90% increase in sales. While one could chalk a large part of this gain up to their opening-act slot on the Hannah Montana tour, it's also worth noting that the band's current single, the sprightly "S.O.S.," has started making the teensiest of inroads at pop radio (I heard it on New York's top-40 heavy Z100 over the weekend).

Dropping Off: Last week's other debuts did not fare as well as Underwood, Plant, and Krauss; cowboy Gary Allan plunged from No. 3 to No. 23, agitato Serj Tankian from No. 4 to No. 24, and groany-moaners Seether from No. 9 to No. 22. And poor Coheed and Cambria, after debuting at No. 6 last week, fell all the way down to No. 44. Guess everyone who bought that album had a very important D&D game to get back to.

Nickelback Award For Inexplicable Durability: Kid Rock, how can I learn to like you again if you won't go away? OK, it'll probably never happen, fine. That said, I continue to be amazed by the staying power of Rock N' Roll Jesus, which slips from No. 7 to No. 12, thanks in part to the six debuts crowding the top of the chart. I mean... doesn't this routine seem just a smidge cartoonish by now? Is that the appeal? Or do people actually want to be this dude, possibility of disease and all?

The top 20, with sales totals in parentheses:
1. Eagles, Long Road Out Of Eden (711,000)
2. Britney Spears, Blackout (290,000)
3. Carrie Underwood, Carnival Ride (170,000)
4. Avenged Sevenfold (94,000)
5. Josh Turner, Everything Is Fine (84,000)
6. Alison Krauss and Robert Plant, Raising Sand (81,000)
7. Backstreet Boys, Unbreakable (81,000)
8. Josh Groban, Noel (76,000)
9. Andrea Bocelli, The Best Of Andrea Bocelli: Vivere (67,000)
10. Rascal Flatts, Still Feels Good (53,000)
11. High School Musical 2 soundtrack (51,000)
12. Kid Rock, Rock N' Roll Jesus (49,000)
13. Colbie Caillat, Coco (43,000)
14. Bruce Springsteen, Magic (42,000)
15. Reba McEntire, Reba Duets (39,000)
16. Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus (37,000)
17. Kanye West, Graduation (35,000)
18. Keyshia Cole, Just Like You (35,000)
19. Soulja Boy Tell 'Em, souljaboytellem.com (34,000)
20. Jonas Brothers (33,000)

The six-week history of this column has been dominated by a single YouTube-fueled, "YOOOOOOOU!!"-chanting chart-topper. This week, we finally have a changing of the guard atop Billboard's Hot 100, and—surprise, surprise—the 17-year-old Soulja Boy has abdicated to another pipsqueak. Voting-age Chris Brown dances up to No. 1 with "Kiss Kiss" after a 20-spot move to No. 2 last week. It's Brown's second career No. 1 hit, after 2005's "Run It!"; meanwhile, featured vocalist T-Pain is taking second trip to the top of the chart this year, following "Buy You a Drank (Shawty Snappin')" last spring.

Ain't No Particular Sound He's More Compatible With: We really called it wrong on "Kiss Kiss" last week. After scoring a fat first week of iTunes sales, my suspicion was that Brown would have a tough time moving into the Hot 100 penthouse, thinking that his sales couldn't possibly move much higher and his airplay was still building. Well, guess what? Digital sales on "Kiss Kiss" grew in week two—up 18% to an even fatter 187,000—and Brown's airplay is also exploding: "Kiss Kiss" is now the third-most-played song on the radio, up from ninth last week. The moral: radio programmers watch the charts, too. I'd lay good money that Brown's latest would've grown much more slowly at Top 40 radio (especially after the failure of Brown's teaser single this summer, "Wall to Wall") if PDs hadn't observed the data showing the song had momentum.

Significantly, "Kiss Kiss" actually grows in airplay faster than the song that rises one spot to No. 2, "Apologize." That's bad news for Timbaland and OneRepublic, who have likely gone as far as they can; Brown and T-Pain are both outselling them and out-playing them, and the momentum's on their side.

As far as who'll evict Brown in the weeks to come, the songs in the Top Five to watch remain Alicia Keys' "No One"—still at No. 4, but still the top song at radio—and Colbie Caillat's "Bubbly," holding at No. 5 and now moving into the top 10 in radio airplay. If you live in a Top 40-centric (read: white radio) universe, you'd be fair in thinking that "Bubbly" is the most massive song in the universe right now; it's the highest-charting song this week that relies entirely on non-R&B radio airplay. The Top 40 and Hot AC stations spinning "Bubbly" are playing the living crap out of it.

The Album Effect: Ever since iTunes and other digital-store sales were added to the data fueling the Hot 100, it's been interesting to observe how the release of an album affects activity on the singles chart. The record industry spent most of the '90s convinced that singles "cannibalize" album sales (hence, the disappearance just before the turn of the century of the cassingle and CD-5 for most pop hits); like it or not, they're now reaping the karma from that decision, as 99-cent song volume begins to outstrip full-length album sales for many pop acts. But the principle doesn't seem to hold in the opposite direction: the release of an album seems to help, not hurt, already-rising songs whose release preceded their respective albums.

Just two months ago, the same week Kanye West topped the album chart with Graduation, his nearly stalled single "Stronger" got a one-week burst of iTunes sales that allowed him to top the Hot 100 and interrupt Soulja Boy's run for a single week. This week we have Carrie Underwood, whose release of the half-million-selling Carnival Ride provides rocket fuel to her single "So Small." It crashes into the Top 20 on the big chart, mostly on the strength of a 155% increase (not a typo) in digital song sales.

On the country chart, which is based only on airplay, Underwood's latest moves up just one notch to No. 3, indicating solid, but not spectacular, growth on the radio. You'd think that die-hard Underwood fans would have spent last week buying her CD (physically or digitally) and ignoring her single. (Just to clear this up: a full-length album sale on iTunes is tracked on the Billboard 200 album chart; the songs on that album do not receive a data boost on the Hot 100.) It seems that the promotion around dropping an album serves as a reminder to the more casual fan to go download the big hit.

Stuff To Watch: Following on from our album-boost theme, I know I sound like a broken record, but Alicia Keys still has one more trick up her sleeve: her third studio album, As I Am, which drops in mid-November. That should give "No One" the final sales blast she needs to top the chart, but in the meantime, Chris Brown and T-Pain are likely to get comfortable, especially since Brown's album drops this coming Tuesday.

The top 20, with last week's position and total weeks charted in parentheses:
1. Chris Brown, "Kiss Kiss" (LW No. 2, 7 weeks)
2. Timbaland feat. OneRepublic, "Apologize" (LW No. 3, 13 weeks)
3. Soulja Boy, "Crank That (Soulja Boy), Soulja Boy Tell'em" (LW No. 1, 16 weeks)
4. Alicia Keys, "No One" (LW No. 4, 8 weeks)
5. Colbie Caillat, "Bubbly" (LW No. 5, 18 weeks)
6. Kanye West, "Stronger" (LW No. 6, 14 weeks)
7. Kanye West feat. T-Pain, "Good Life" (LW No. 8, 7 weeks)
8. Baby Bash feat. T-Pain, "Cyclone" (LW No. 7, 14 weeks)
9. Rihanna feat. Ne-Yo, "Hate That I Love You" (LW No. 9, 9 weeks)
10. Timbaland feat. Keri Hilson & D.O.E., "The Way I Are" (LW No. 10, 22 weeks)
11. J. Holiday, "Bed" (LW No. 11, 15 weeks)
12. Fergie, "Big Girls Don't Cry" (LW No. 12, 28 weeks)
13. 50 Cent feat. Justin Timberlake & Timbaland, "Ayo Technology" (LW No. 14, 12 weeks)
14. matchbox twenty, "How Far We've Come" (LW No. 16, 9 weeks)
15. Pink, "Who Knew" (LW No. 15, 21 weeks)
16. Britney Spears, "Gimme More" (LW No. 13, 8 weeks)
17. Nickelback, "Rockstar" (LW No. 17, 38 weeks)
18. Finger Eleven, "Paralyzer" (LW No. 21, 21 weeks)
19. Maroon 5, "Wake Up Call" (LW No. 19, 12 weeks)
20. Carrie Underwood, "So Small" (LW No. 36, 11 weeks)

Biggest Debuts: The Robert Plant/Alison Krauss duets album Raising Sand came in at No. 2, selling 112,000 copies, while Gary Allan completed the twangy trifecta by selling 69,000 copies of Living Hard. Behind them at No. 4 was System Of A Down lead singer Serj Tankian, whose Elect The Dead sold 66,000 copies; Coheed and Cambria's No World For Tomorrow entered at No. 6, moving 62,000 progged-out units. Completing the top-10 debuts was Seether, who sold 57,000 copies of Finding Beauty In Negative Space to people who don't get embarrassed over buying records with terrible covers around the country.

Notable Jumps: Not much in the way of notable album-sales spikes—aside from Sugarland and Taylor Swift seeing bumps, thanks in part no doubt to the many country fans who showed up to buy record sales this week—but it's definitely "time for people to freak out about seasonally appropriate music for a Halloween party" on the digital tracks chart. "Thriller" jumped up to No. 40, selling 20,000 e-singles, while "The Monster Mash," "Ghostbusters," "Werewolves Of London," and the theme to Halloween all popped into that chart's top 200.

Dropping Off: Waiting to see when Jennifer Lopez's Brave breaks the six-figure mark is going to be almost as fun as waiting to see when Curtis broke seven figures (that finally happened last week). This week, it skidded from No. 38 to No. 59, selling 14,000 copies. That's a total of 85,000 copies sold so far. Well, at least her total copies sold have exceeded a 1:1 ratio with her album-cover budget!

Nickelback Award For Inexplicable Durability: Kid Rock's Rock N' Roll Jesus hung tough in its third week on the chart, taking a 21% sales hit and falling from No. 2 to No. 7. You know what that means, right? The Waffle House ploy worked.

The top 20, with sales totals in parentheses:
1. Carrie Underwood, Carnival Ride (527,000)
2. Alison Krauss and Robert Plant, Raising Sand (112,000)
3. Gary Allan, Living Hard (69,000)
4. Serj Tankian, Elect The Dead (66,000)
5. Josh Groban, Noel (65,000)
6. Coheed & Cambria, No World For Tomorrow (62,000)
7. Kid Rock, Rock N' Roll Jesus (61,000)
8. Rascal Flatts, Still Feels Good (57,000)
9. Seether, Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces (57,000)
10. High School Musical 2 soundtrack (57,000)
11. Neil Young, Chrome Dreams II (54,000)
12. Bruce Springsteen, Magic (51,000)
13. Juanes, La Vida ... Es Un Ratico (47,000)
14. Reba McEntire, Reba Duets (44,000)
15. Colbie Caillat, Coco (43,000)
16. Kanye West, Graduation (43,000)
17. Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus (37,000)
18. Soulja Boy Tell 'Em, souljaboytellem.com (35,000)
19. Keyshia Cole, Just Like You (32,000)
20. matchbox twenty, Exile On Mainstream (30,000)

• "She's not wrong, though, to believe that one of her high notes is enough to make everything else seem inconsequential. In 'Crazy Dreams,' one of a few songs she helped write, there's an electric guitar and a jolly banjo and an inspirational message: 'Here's to you longshots, you dark horse runners/Hairbrush singers and dashboard drummers.' Yes, it sounds like a TV commercial. But there's a good reason TV commercials sound like that." [NYT]
• "It's hard to be this blank a slate for this long a time, but Underwood clearly works at it. She's trying to be a singer, not a personality—kind of refreshing, in a time when private lives so often triumph over public work. But as nice as Carnival Ride has turned out, Underwood will simply be going around in circles until she invests a little more of herself into the process." [Newsday]
• "With more than 20 instruments listed in her liner notes, plus the 28 players that made up the Nashville String Machine, this effort brings in everything that keeps the music traditional while allowing it cross genre boundaries. That, fused with her vocals, makes for a solid album that transcends country.
Still, the odds are not on Underwood's side. Her debut album Some Hearts sold almost six million copies, but most country artists with an initial success like that never reach it again. Carnival Ride is good. But is it good enough, and country enough, to break her own record?" [Chicago Tribune]
• "That's the crux of the problem with Carnival Ride. It's less a second album than a pale continuation of the first album. Nothing Underwood attempts here indicates an ambition or desire to push outside of the neat, clean image she's carefully sculpted over the last 24 months. That title is appropriate in more ways than one — you hear the new tunes and stumble off almost an hour later, dizzy and slightly nauseated." [Fort Worth Star-Telegram]

69 weeks: "How Do I Live," LeAnn Rimes (1997)
65 weeks: "You Were Meant for Me" / "Foolish Games," Jewel (1997)
62 weeks: "You and Me," Lifehouse (2005)
60 weeks: "Macarena" (Bayside Boys Mix), Los Del Rio (1996)
58 weeks: "Smooth," Santana featuring Rob Thomas (1999)
58 weeks: "How to Save a Life," The Fray (2006)
56 weeks: "I Don't Want to Wait," Paula Cole (1998)
56 weeks: "The Way You Love Me," Faith Hill (2001)
55 weeks; "Missing," Everything But the Girl (1996)
55 weeks: "Barely Breathing," Duncan Sheik (1997)
55 weeks: "Amazed," Lonestar (2000)
55 weeks: "Before He Cheats," Carrie Underwood (2007)

Wow, right? It's like a trip through a playlist of the worst hot-AC station ever. Actually, as Chris put it, "Basically the rule is: soccer-mom-friendly ballads w/heavy AC airplay live on and on and on" (though "Missing" gets a pass from both of us).

(Also, only 58 weeks in the Hot 100 for "Smooth"? It seemed like at least 108 to these ears, although that could have been because of the endless days I spent subjected to others' car-radio tastes during that time.)

Chart Beat [Billboard]

11:51 a.m. So far, the commercials-to-Carrie ratio on this broadcast is about 1:1.

11:53 a.m. I think I like Carrie with curlyish hair better than straight, to be honest.

11:54 a.m. The top-left corner: "See it again after the commercial break." Oh come on, there are only six minutes left to go in this thing! You mean to tell me Underwood's label couldn't have bought this morning as an ad block? It's pretty much the same thing anyway.

11:55 a.m. Car crash!

11:55 a.m. OK I know that the two protagonists were just in a car crash, but I'm kind of jealous that the magic of special effects has apparently given them the same "stop time and walk around and look at the world" power that the lead character in the crap syndicated sitcom Out Of This World had.

11:56 a.m. And now they can turn back time!

11:56 a.m. How is CMT going to fit another ad in between now and noon? A world waits!

11:57 a.m. "We want as many people to see this as possible," says the annoying announcer in what is almost his last voice-over. Presumably that's why this didn't air during a time when, you know, people might actually be home.

11:58 a.m. Is this the Band of Horses Wal-Mart ad? This song is actually not bad, and I'm shocked to be saying that.

11:59 a.m. They're still showing ads! Won't this cut into CMT's Direct Effect ripoff, Power Picks?

12:01 p.m. More ads. This one's for the Marines.

12:01 p.m. The videos are back, along with the annoying voice-over guy! Wait, does this mean that Carrie Music Television is bleeding into more programming? Developing...

12:03 p.m. Carrie's hair may be sort of weirdly lifeless, but I really do like the eyeshadow she has going on. Its purpley-black smudge goes very nicely with her "trashy Ren-Faire attendee" dress.

12:05 p.m. And ... just like that, it's over. No smarmy voice-over from the Jack-FM guy, no message from Carrie. Instead, we get a video by Josh Turner, a deep-voiced singer whose forthcoming album is, apparently, titled TBD. Inside joke or someone else in the MTV Networks graphics department being asleep at the wheel? Who can tell anymore.

Vince Neil Joined By Carrie Underwood In Nashville [Blabbermouth]

That makes it hard nowadays to score a hit the '70s-'80s-'90s way: earning it. Pop hits don't unfold anymore, they explode. Which makes a couple of hits closing in on the pop Top 10 right now special.

Pink had to know she was asking for ironic headlines a year ago when she titled an album I'm Not Dead. But coming off a flop album, Try This (2003), that followed a quintuple-platinum smash, M!sundaztood (2001), had placed a rather large chip on her shoulder. Last spring, Dead's first single, the buzzy, Paris-and-Lindsay-hating "Stupid Girls," followed the iTunes trajectory and slammed onto the charts quickly, peaked just outside the top 10, then died within a couple of months, taking Pink's CD down with it. Nary a peep was heard from the erstwhile Alecia Moore the rest of '06.

One year later, you may be agog to hear to hear Pink back on the radio. This week, her go-home-and-whack kiss-off "U + Ur Hand" becomes Pink's first Top 10 hit since 2002's "Just Like a Pill." The notable feat: Zomba, Pink's label, actually waited out slow-moving radio stations rather than trying to push the song on iTunes. One by one, Top 40 stations added "U + Ur Hand"—beguiled by the song's sticky hook (which owes more than a little to Bon Jovi's "It's My Life," but nevermind)—and digital sales eventually followed. Zomba's Tom Carraba, thumping his chest a bit overmuch, told Billboard a few weeks ago that the song was "reignit[ing] the U.S. marketplace. We think we have a number-one record on our hands." We wouldn't go that far, but it's fair for him to crow. A decade or two ago, a 17-week climb into the Top 10 wouldn't be a big deal, but these days it's a major achievement.

Speaking of slow-climbing hits: Pink thinks she's had a long slog? Check out Carrie Underwood, whose nearly year-old country hit "Before He Cheats" is up to #11 in its 34th week. Hmmm: Pink's song is about telling a no-good bar pickup to get reacquainted with his kung-fu grip; Carrie's is about going all Angela Bassett on a faithless man's pickup. And they're both on Sony BMG. Yo, Clive: we smell duet!

The Billboard Hot 100 [Billboard]

Editor's note: Aside from a few Clash lyrics, your Idolators know nothing about the law. Which is why we're proud to present another missive from the IdoLawyer, an anonymous California attorney who will be weighing in on various music-related matters. While her column isn't intended as legal advice, it is sage advice nonetheless, and this week she looks at the legally iffy video for Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats":

It was all fun and games last month trying to figure out whether a fictional Justin Timberlake could be guilty of murder in the "What Goes Around Comes Around" clip. This week we're taking on the video for Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats," a clip that has the potential to make thousands of impressionable young women liable for a lot of money.

When your man is cheating, Carrie recommends a well-balanced diet of revenge tactics:

- Keying his car
- Carving your name into its backseat
- Smashing out its headlights
- Putting a hole in each of its tires

Clearly, girlfriend isn't the let's-talk-it-out type. But will her swift temper lead to even swifter legal consequences? Considering the extent of the damage, Carrie probably assumed she'd have to pay some repair costs. What she might not have expected is being forced to pay for the entire car. In all states, she could be sued for "conversion," which, in layman's terms, means that that you've made a piece of property your own. Even if you don't outright steal the thing, you're liable if you've made the property unusable to its owner, or effectively dispossessed him of it.

There's a plausible argument to be made that Carrie's boyfriend could never use the car again now that her name has been carved into every leather surface. What country boy could possibly stand to get behind the wheel of the Carriemobile? Especially when her signature looks so similar to the infamous Carrie Bradshaw necklace. The mere association is emasculating.

So, if Carrie were to lose in court, she could well be on the line for the full fair market value of the property (before she destroyed it). What's more, Carrie could be forced to keep the piece of junk, too, smashed headlights and all. Conversion is basically a forced sale.

Of course, Carrie is not without her defenses. She could argue she destroyed the car to prevent a greater harm from befalling her bastard beau—like, for example, deadly assault with a Louisville Slugger. She could also argue she had a legal duty or contractual right to destroy the car—but that might only hold up in the southern states.

Carrie may have won American Idol, but we haven't heard about her passing the bar. So, ladies, don't take her word for it—exacting revenge on your boyfriend can be costlier than you think (Suze Orman would definitely disapprove). In the meantime, it's probably better to take Avril Lavigne's approach to love triangles, as spelled out in her video for "Girlfriend": Steal him back. You're not only entitled to the guy, you won't have to pay anybody anything, because a cheating boyfriend ain't worth much.

Carrie Underwood - "Before He Cheats" [YouTube]
Earlier: The IdoLawyer Archives