Turns out the answer is: Anything by Lil Wayne. Weezy took five of the ten spots on June's edition of the "Ecast BarPulse" chart, which reflects purchases on jukeboxes operated by the Internet-juke company Ecast. (These are different than the ones operated by the Foreigner fans at TouchTunes. The Sugarland track is proving to be a real juggernaut, holding strong on the iTunes download charts as well. However, even Weezy can't knock off Katy Perry, which proves that my decision to never go anywhere is proving to be a good one.

The chart for June:

1. "I Kissed A Girl," Katy Perry
2. "A Milli," Lil Wayne
3. "Lollipop," Lil Wayne
4 "Viva La Vida," Coldplay
5. "Bust It Baby Part 2 (ft. Ne-Yo)," Plies
6. "All I Want To Do," Sugarland
7. "Mr. Carter," Lil Wayne
8. "Got Money," Lil Wayne
9. "Mercy," Duffy
10. "Mrs. Officer," Lil Wayne

Katy Perry Leads the Pack but Lil Wayne Comes Up Big on the June Ecast BarPulse [PR Newswire]

It's a risky move, because the Billboard Hot 100 is dominated by songs that scale the chart by amassing sales as well as airplay. But the song is so mindlessly catchy, the act's people figure it'll be a big chart hit anyway with radio alone.

I could be talking about M.C. Hammer's 1990 smash "U Can't Touch This," the "Superfreak"-sampling hit that made the Top 10, even as Capitol refused to issue it as a cassingle.

But I could also be talking about Kid Rock's "All Summer Long," a mashup of Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" and Lynyrd Skynrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" that debuts on the Hot 100 this week at No. 80 despite his lack of interest in releasing it digitally.

Can the erstwhile Robert Richie pull off in 2008 what one Stanley Kirk Burrell pulled 18 years ago?

A No. 80 debut might not seem all that impressive for the Kid's insanely catchy song, but it's appearing on the chart with one hand tied behind its back thanks to the lack of any digital single release. Just for comparison, in early May, Weezer's "Pork and Beans" debuted at No. 84, even with iTunes on its side—as well as radio, where the song has been massive, topping the all-airplay Modern Rock list for 10 weeks. (On the Hot 100, "Pork" never went much higher after its debut; it peaked at No. 64 a few weeks back.)

Right now, 99 songs on the Hot 100 are available at retail in some form, virtually all at iTunes. But "All Summer Long" is the only one with the Billboard footnote "PROMO ONLY," which is basically code for "radio can play this, but the consumer can't buy it." Atlantic has even provided a single-length "radio edit" of the song to programmers, but you can't buy that, either.

Kid's isn't the only song this year to make a splash without digital sales. You may recall that in February, Mariah Carey's album-leading single "Touch My Body" appeared on the chart on radio points alone, debuting way up at No. 57. That would seem to minimize Mr. Rock's achievement. But let's get some perspective: (a) Mariah is a massive pop artist who crosses multiple radio genres and treats the Hot 100 as her personal fiefdom; and (b) everyone knew ahead of time that the song would get a digital release eventually—which it did in April, shooting the song to No. 1 on the big chart.

Kid Rock is a different rock n' roll animal. He scores radio hits only every half-decade or so: massively in 1999, with a string of rock hits off his breakthrough Devil Without a Cause; briefly in 2003, with a country-pop crossover track, "Picture." And more important, he doesn't want to release any of his material—albums or singles—on iTunes. So, for radio program directors to play one of his songs, they've got to get great listener feedback; they're never going to have the kind of sales data that tells them when a song's connecting with the public.

So far, it looks like "Summer" isn't having trouble winning PDs' support. It's already more than halfway up the Hot 100 Airplay list and rising fast (No. 45 this week, up from No. 60). And it's got multiple radio formats providing it with a chart boost: Top 40, adult contemporary, mainstream and modern rock, and country stations are all playing it. Assuming it never goes on sale at iTunes or Amazon MP3, this Kid Rock single, more than Carey's "Touch," might prove to be a pure experiment in the reach, and limits, of an all-airplay single with huge listener appeal.

Kind of like "U Can't Touch This."

Beyond the gleeful pillaging of Rick James on Hammer's hit, and Zevon and the Van Zandt brothers on Kid Rock's, "U Can't Touch This" and "All Summer Long" would seem to have little in common. But for those of us who've watched the history of the retail single for the last 20 years, "U" is a pivotal record.

Tapped as the second single from 1990's Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em after the modest R&B hit "Help the Children," "U" was only issued as a 12" vinyl single, a clever tactical move. That allowed "U" to qualify for the Hot 100 (until 1998, all singles had to be released at retail in some form to be eligible for the big chart) but guaranteed that the overwhelming majority of consumers desiring the song would have to buy Hammer's album on cassette or CD. For all intents and purposes, "U" was a grand experiment on Capitol's part, a de facto airplay-only hit on a chart where every other record had a mainstream retail component—cassingle or maxi-cassette, CD-single—providing chart points. And they didn't do it with a low-priority song, either; they did it with a preordained rap-pop crossover smash with huge MTV play.

Long story short: the experiment worked like a charm. "U" made the Top 10 anyway, thanks to its blanketing of the Top 40 airwaves in the summer of 1990. If a cassingle had been released, the song indubitably would have gone to No. 1 and stayed there for months... but what did Capitol care? They made money hand over fist: Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em spent a staggering 21 weeks atop the Billboard album chart and went 10-times-platinum, the first hip-hop album of any kind to see that kind of success. Since 1990, no other album has spent that long on top of the chart (Billy Ray Cyrus, Whitney Houston, and Alanis Morissette have come closest).

In short, "U Can't Touch This" was the song that kicked off the record industry's decade-long campaign to bury the single as a retail medium. (Don't get me started—I could go into a long diatribe about all the other experiments, from deleting singles early to limited releases, the labels used to get out of releasing retail songs over the next 10 years.) By the start of the 2000s, virtually no song on the Hot 100 had a retail component. Billboard caved in '98 in allowing non-retail tracks to chart, and the first all-airplay song to top the chart was Aaliyah's "Try Again" in 2000.

Since the early 2000s, of course, the paradigm has shifted again, thanks to the inclusion of digital song sales on the Hot 100 starting in 2005. Consumer sales once again have a major impact on the chart. In fact, sales skew the Hot 100 more radically now than at any time in the chart's history. The tide has turned against radio: it's now virtually impossible to make the Top 10 without sales—as proved this spring by Carey's hit, which couldn't get higher than No. 15 on airplay alone before iTunes propelled it to the top.

I doubt that quite as much thinking has gone into Atlantic's withholding of "All Summer Long" from iTunes as went into keeping Hammer's hit off mall-shop shelves in 1990. (Mostly, it seems the Kid has a beef with his label's digital-release royalties, or Steve Jobs, or something.) Still, the effect has been the same: this week, Rock's nine-month-old Rock N Roll Jesus disc is back in the Top 10 for the first time since last fall.

Good for Kid Rock and Atlantic—but I think we can agree that this year's anti-single experiment will not prove a Hammer-sized success, even if Jesus does return to No. 1 on the album chart for a week or two, and even if "Summer" does manage to make the Hot 100's upper reaches. If the Kid, as he claims, doesn't care about people illegally downloading or torrenting his music, there's got to be a slew of people too cheap to buy a full-price CD and too savvy to do without his hit on their iPods.

Here's a rundown of the rest of this week's charts:

• It's been eight weeks since Rihanna's "Take a Bow" topped the Hot 100, and it looks like she might claw her way back. The song, which never left the Top Five, moves up two spaces to No. 2 this week, right behind Katy Perry's three-week champ "I Kissed a Girl." In the modern, sales-skewed Hot 100, the chart pattern we've seen by "Bow" is becoming more typical: an explosion in sales, followed by a radio catch-up.

The iTunes release of the song sent Ri hurtling more than 50 spots to No. 1 in May; since then, her sales have cooled, but the song has risen in the airplay rankings to become the second most-played track in the country behind Lil Wayne's "Lollipop." (R&B programmers, in particular, have only recently caught on; "Bow" reaches the Top 10 for the first time this week on the airplay-centric Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs list.) Perry continues to have the top-selling digital song, but if Ri can keep her sales respectable—it's ranked seventh on the digital chart this week—and keep growing her airplay, we could see a coup.

If Ri were to pull off the repeat appearance in the penthouse, the nine-week gap between No. 1 stints would likely go down as the second-largest in Hot 100 history. It's unlikely that any song will ever top the all-time record-holder: Chubby Checker's "The Twist," which went to No. 1 in 1960 and then again, 16 months later, in 1962. (Reportedly, the kids got into the dance first, and then their parents caught on later.)

• I didn't realize this until Fred Bronson told me, but the new song on top of the Hot Country chart this week is actually a remake of a modern-schlock smash. "Home," originally written and recorded by the millennium's New Sinatra, Michael Buble, topped the Adult Contemporary chart in the summer of 2005. Covered by Blake Shelton for a fan-soaking rerelease of his 2007 album Pure BS (man, I'll say!), "Home" is now a Country chart-topper, as well.

Can't wait for the inevitable R&B revamp by Robin Thicke, or maybe Eric Benet... with special guest T.I., of course.

Top 10s
Last week's position and total weeks charted in parentheses (Digital Songs chart includes total downloads/percentage change in parentheses):

Hot 100
1. Katy Perry, "I Kissed a Girl" (LW No. 1, 9 weeks)
2. Rihanna, "Take a Bow" (LW No. 4, 13 weeks)
3. Lil Wayne feat. Static Major, "Lollipop" (LW No. 2, 17 weeks)
4. Leona Lewis, "Bleeding Love" (LW No. 3, 21 weeks)
5. Coldplay, "Viva la Vida" (LW No. 6, 9 weeks)
6. Chris Brown, "Forever" (LW No. 8, 11 weeks)
7. Natasha Bedingfield, "Pocketful of Sunshine" (LW No. 10, 21 weeks)
8. Jonas Brothers, "Burnin' Up" (LW No. 5, 2 weeks)
9. Plies feat. Ne-Yo, "Bust It Baby (Part 2)" (LW No. 7, 15 weeks)
10. Miley Cyrus, "7 Things" (LW No. 16, 5 weeks)

Hot Digital Songs
1. Katy Perry, "I Kissed a Girl" (LW No. 1)
2. Jonas Brothers, "Burnin' Up" (LW No. 2)
3. Miley Cyrus, "7 Things" (LW No. 6)
4. Coldplay, "Viva la Vida" (LW No. 4)
5. The Pussycat Dolls, "When I Grow Up" (LW No. 7)
6. Rihanna, "Disturbia" (LW No. 5)
7. Rihanna, "Take a Bow" (LW No. 10)
8. Metro Station, "Shake It" (LW No. 9)
9. Lil Wayne feat. Static Major, "Lollipop" (LW No. 8)
10. Chris Brown, "Forever" (LW No. 14)

Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
1. Keyshia Cole, "Heaven Sent" (LW No. 1, 15 weeks)
2. Lil Wayne, "A Milli" (LW No. 2, 11 weeks)
3. The-Dream, "I Luv Your Girl" (LW No. 4, 19 weeks)
4. Plies feat. Ne-Yo, "Bust It Baby (Part 2)" (LW No. 3, 19 weeks)
5. Alicia Keys, "Teenage Love Affair" (LW No. 6, 21 weeks)
6. Chris Brown, "Take You Down" (LW No. 5, 15 weeks)
7. Lil Wayne feat. Static Major, "Lollipop" (LW No. 7, 17 weeks)
8. Rihanna, "Take a Bow" (LW No. 11, 11 weeks)
9. Young Jeezy feat. Kanye West, "Put On" (LW No. 10, 9 weeks)
10. Usher feat. Beyonce and Lil Wayne, "Love in This Club, Part II" (LW No. 8, 11 weeks)

Hot Country Songs
1. Blake Shelton, "Home" (LW No. 2, 24 weeks)
2. Alan Jackson, "Good Time" (LW No. 4, 13 weeks)
3. Montgomery Gentry, "Back When I Knew It All" (LW No. 1, 20 weeks)
4. Kenny Chesney, "Better as a Memory" (LW No. 3, 16 weeks)
5. Brooks & Dunn, "Put a Girl in It" (LW No. 6, 11 weeks)
6. Dierks Bentley, "Trying to Stop Your Leaving" (LW No. 5, 26 weeks)
7. Sugarland, "All I Want to Do" (LW No. 8, 7 weeks)
8. Keith Anderson, "I Still Miss You" (LW No. 10, 23 weeks)
9. Keith Urban, "You Look Good in My Shirt" (LW No. 12, 7 weeks)
10. Taylor Swift, "Should've Said No" (LW No. 13, 8 weeks)

Hot Modern Rock Tracks
1. Weezer, "Pork & Beans" (LW No. 1, 12 weeks)
2. The Offspring, "Hammerhead" (LW No. 2, 9 weeks)
3. Foo Fighters, "Let It Die" (LW No. 3, 14 weeks)
4. Linkin Park, "Given Up" (LW No. 4, 18 weeks)
5. Seether, "Rise Above This" (LW No. 5, 20 weeks)
6. Coldplay, "Viva la Vida" (LW No. 8, 5 weeks)
7. Disturbed, "Inside the Fire" (LW No. 7, 15 weeks)
8. Death Cab for Cutie, "I Will Possess Your Heart" (LW No. 6, 16 weeks)
9. Saving Abel, " Addicted" (LW No. 11, 16 weeks)
10. 3 Doors Down, "It's Not My Time" (LW No. 12, 20 weeks)

CD sales are down 16.3%, but digital-album sales are up 34.4%, accounting for 31.6 million units and now account for 15.4% of album sales. Digital track sales are at 532.7 million units through June 29, a whopping 30% increase over last year.

The top three albums:
Lil Wayne, Tha Carter III (1.525,000 scans, 209,000 last week)
Jack Johnson, Sleep Through The Static (1,247,000 scans, 15,000 last week)
Mariah Carey, E=MC² (1,063,000 scans, 17,000 last week)

Coldplay's Viva La Vida will likely join that pantheon next week, as it's currently at the 971,000-sold mark and it sold 249,000 copies from June 23-29.

The top three tracks:
Leona Lewis, "Bleeding Love" (2,656,000 sales, 84,000 last week)
Flo Rida, "Low (ft. T-Pain)" (2.4 million 2008 sales, 3,994,000 overall sales, 27,000 last week)
Jordin Sparks, "No Air (ft. Chris Brown)" (2,153,000 sales, 47,000 last week)

Coming up behind those tracks: Madonna's "4 Minutes" and Lil Wayne's "Lollipop." (Chris Molanphy gets more into this data, and its further-reaching ramifications for the charts, in this week's 100 & Single.)

The biggest label groups:
Universal Music Group: 31.2% (last year: 31.5%)
Sony BMG: 24.8% (last year: 25.3%)
Warner Music Group: 20.8% (last year: 20%)
EMI: 9.4% (last year: 10.4%, and who knows, those numbers may get better once the Coldplay album's out for longer than a week)
Indies: 13.9% (last year: 12.9)

Mid-Year Sales Report: Top Sellers, Market Share And More [Billboard.biz]
Album sales down 11% in 2008 [Variety]

Sheriff's "When I'm With You" hit No. 1 on Feb. 4, 1989. YouTube hasn't turned up much in the way of official videos, and I don't even remember if there was one, but I figured this tribute to Jack Deveraux and Jennifer Horton from Days Of Our Lives would suffice, since I watched Days any day that I stayed home from school during this period. (And I always had something of a crush on Matthew Ashford, who walked the "goofy"/"romantic hero" line very well.)

Surely there are those of you out there who remember the subtitled version of the video for Snow's "Informer," which aired on MTV around the time the lyric-assisted version of the clip for Guns N' Roses' "Garden Of Eden" also graced the channel's playlist? Snow's singalong challenge topped the charts for seven weeks beginning on March 13, 1993, and was followed by the more downbeat "Girl I've Been Hurt, which went top 20.

Guess what? This song was No. 1 for... one week. (Oct. 17-24, 1998, to be exact.) God, I apologize for putting this in your head for the rest of the day.

Like I wasn't going to post the 21st century's favorite piece of pop-song catharsis? Hello, it was only the No. 1 song of all of 2006 after topping the charts from April 8 to May 6.

And now, a song that got nowhere near the top of the charts, but which is near and dear to many peoples' hearts (thanks in part to They Might Be Giants):

List of songs by Canadian artists which reached number one on the Hot 100 (US) [Wikipedia]
Alannah Myles - Black Velvet [YouTube]
Jack And Jennifer/When I'm With You [YouTube]
Informer - Snow [YouTube]
Barenaked Ladies - One Week [YouTube]
Daniel Powter - Bad Day [YouTube]
CUB - New York City [YouTube]

1. David Cook, "Time Of My Life" (236,000 downloads)
7. David Cook, "Dream Big" (111,000 downloads)
9. David Cook, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" (98,000 downloads)
14. David Cook, "The World I Know" (80,000 downloads)
18. David Cook, "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" (60,000 downloads)
21. David Cook, "Billie Jean" (56,000 downloads)
23. David Archuleta, "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" (51,000 downloads)
25. David Archuleta, "In This Moment" (49,000 downloads)
27. David Cook, "Always Be My Baby" (47,000 downloads)
30. David Cook, "Hello" (42,000 downloads)
36. David Archuleta, "Imagine" (39,000 downloads)
40. David Cook, "Music Of The Night" (36,000 downloads)
45. David Archuleta, "Imagine" (32,000 downloads)
52. David Cook, "Eleanor Rigby" (28,000 downloads)
60. David Cook, "I'm Alive" (25,000 downloads)
64. David Cook, "Little Sparrow" (24,000 downloads)
69. David Cook, "Hungry Like The Wolf" (23,000 downloads)
70. David Cook, "Innocent" (23,000 downloads)
80. Jason Castro, "Hallelujah" (19,000 downloads)
81. David Cook, "Day Tripper" (19,000 downloads)
83. David Archuleta, "Longer" (19,000 downloads)
89. David Cook, "All Right Now" (18,000 downloads)
94. David Archuleta, "Think Of Me" (18,000 downloads)
96. David Archuleta, "Angels" (17,000 downloads)
98. David Cook, "Happy Together" (17,000 downloads)
102. Jason Castro, "Over The Rainbow" (16,000 downloads)
106. David Archuleta, "When You Believe" (16,000 downloads)
109. David Archuleta, "Love Me Tender" (15,000 downloads)
123. David Archuleta, "The Long And Winding Road" (14,000 downloads)
131. Brooke White, "Let It Be" (12,000 downloads)
145. David Archuleta, "Sweet Caroline" (11,000 downloads)
153. David Archuleta, "You're The Voice" (10,000 downloads)
161. David Archuleta, "Another Day In Paradise" (9,800 downloads)
171. Michael Johns, "Dream On" (9,100 downloads)
194. David Archuleta, "Smoky Mountain Memories" (8,300 downloads)

The biggest first weeks of the year so far have been Mariah Carey's E=MC2, with close to 475,000 sold, followed by the Jack Johnson album I'm too indifferent about to look up the title for with 380,000. You'd have to think Usher will top Johnson for certain, and likely Carey as well, but when Confessions opened with nearly 1.1 million in 2004, that topping the half million mark first week is a question says something about the last four years for the industry.

So, Idolator readership, where will Usher end up next Wednesday?

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

"Jumping All Over The World" is nearly four minutes of music that you would imagine challenging someone to listen to on a dare, like a pop music rodeo, but maybe this is another step in the early '90s dance revival I've been waiting for. As a nice bonus, their album Jumping All Over The World includes a bonus disc of the group's greatest hits, so you can relieve this masterpiece:

Oh, Germany: So much good music, so little time.

Scooter Unseats Madonna On U.K. Album Chart [Billboard]

"I was fascinated with the idea of creating content that was sexual from a male perspective that wasn't obscene and vulgar in any way," 50 told SOHH. "So, I went back to create 'Amusement Park.' The metaphor within 'Amusement Park' and being sexual [and] 'Candy Shop' and being sexual was too close."

According to 50, the public could not accept another female record from him. "If that record came from someone else they would've accepted it like, 'Lollipop,' 50 says of Lil' Wayne's current smash single.

"Because it's the first time that [Wayne is] doing it they go, 'Ok, we like it?' 'Don't we like it?' 'We like Wayne right?' And they agree to do it but he won't be able to do that again."

I have no idea what that argument-with-the-self Curtis is having at the end there actually means, but I guess it's nice that even in the face of commercial indifference dude still sort of believes in his "art."

SOHH Exclusive: 50 Cent Warns Lil' Wayne, No More "Lollipop" [SOHH]

Here's a trick question—look at the following Top 10 chart and guess how long ago it was compiled:

1. Colbie Caillat, "Bubbly" (Universal Republic)
2. Sara Bareilles, "Love Song" (Epic)
3. Michael Bublé, "Lost" (143/Reprise)
4. Fergie, "Big Girls Don't Cry" (will.i.am/A&M)
5. Timbaland ft. OneRepublic, "Apologize" (Mosley/Blackground)
6. Daughtry, "Home" (RCA)
7. Taylor Swift, "Teardrops on My Guitar" (Big Machine)
8. Pink, "Who Knew" (LaFace)
9. Michael McDonald, "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher And Higher" (Universal Motown)
10. Alicia Keys, "No One" (MBK/J)

You've probably figured it out already: that list was compiled this past week and is therefore absolutely current. Well, sort of. To be strict, it's Billboard's Adult Contemporary Tracks Top 10 for May 3, 2008, and the way some of these songs' other numbers shake out is worth looking at closely. The average A.C. Top 10 entry for this week has spent over half a year on the chart—27.2 weeks. Half of them are also in the current Top 40—and those five have been in the Hot 100 for significantly longer than they've been in the A.C. Top 30. Here's that list again, with the number of weeks each song has spent in the A.C. Top 30 in parentheses and, where applicable, the current position and number of weeks in the Hot 100 in brackets:

1. "Bubbly" (38 weeks) [No. 36; 43 weeks]
2. "Love Song" (15 weeks) [No. 8; 25 weeks]
3. "Lost" (15 weeks)
4. "Big Girls Don't Cry" (43 weeks)
5. "Apologize" (25 weeks) [No. 18; 38 weeks]
6. "Home" (50 weeks)
7. "Teardrops on My Guitar" (17 weeks) [No. 38; 46 weeks]
8. "Who Knew" (37 weeks)
9. "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher And Higher" (15 weeks)
10. "No One" (17 weeks) [No. 33; 33 weeks]

None of this is news, of course. The entire idea of the adult contemporary format is to act as a kind of strainer, filtering out the harsher, weirder elements of pop until what's left is smooth and can go down easy. Chart-watchers, commentators, and other folks whose job it is to be up to the minute can laugh at this list, and at the A.C. charts generally, as being old and out of it. But being anti-cutting edge is precisely its point. (That's why it's a Top 30 and not a Top 100, for starters.) "Bubbly" only took five weeks to make it to A.C., as opposed to 16 weeks for "No One" and 29 for "Teardrops on My Guitar"—maybe beats take longer to settle for A.C. listeners than they do for pop fans. (Ditto twang.)

This fascinates me in part because it's probably the closest of any of Billboard's charts to reflect the way a lot of people listen to music, and by "a lot" I mean "nearly everybody." One of Chris Molanphy's frequent points of discussion in "100 and Single" is how chart data is gathered and measured, and as interesting and frequently relevant that is to discussing the pop charts in general, it disintegrates in the face of the A.C. charts. However it's compiled (I'm guessing iTunes sales mean absolute zero; this is almost certainly 100 percent airplay), the Adult Contemporary list is probably the most accurate chart around, in that everything on it is over a year behind the other Billboard charts, and that it contains only songs your mom knows.

I mean no insult by that. Still, I'll understand if you think I did: music people tend toward the finicky like few other arts or entertainment followers. Partly that's due to the isolation most of us, superfans or not, enjoy most recorded music in. (The radio may mystically connect us all, but I'd wager that most of us listen to it unaccompanied.) Obviously that one-on-one aspect is an important part of its appeal; even on a packed dance floor or a crowded stadium, the idea that a particular song is speaking directly to us individually is what galvanizes an audience. (The more people who feel they're being directly spoken to, the bigger the galvanization, not to mention the bigger the audience.) But if people's relationship with music has grown more peculiar, that's largely because music has grown peculiar too—not because it's weird, but because there's simply too much of it to process easily.

Let me try it this way: For most people, music is akin to sports. Everyone knows the games, the rules, and the big teams; knowing anything beyond that is nitpicking. You can, week to week, pay zero attention to the minor leagues, but no one's going to blink if you claim to love baseball. It's perfectly OK to refer to a player who's spent four years in AA and AAA ball before climbing into the majors as "new." In this realm, the idea is to get to the majors and shine; it isn't to make a life's goal out of pitching middle relief for 12 seasons in Pawtucket.

This reckoning, of course, has nothing to do with how music actually works. In sports, a tiered system like baseball's major and minor leagues presents an accurate reflection of talent and ability, for the most part. In music, those distinctions are arbitrary: the band you can see at a local dive can be as good as the one headlining an arena, and if you care at all you probably want to keep tabs on both camps and many points between. (Especially if you're a genre specialist.) In music, all the leagues—major, minor, even foreign when we tune those in—exist on a level field, and there's a lot more of them, too. In this scenario, the Pawtucket middle reliever's life goal is both nobler and more commonplace—and given the vagaries of the marketplace, just as elusive as jumping to the bigs and snagging Rookie of the Year.

So right—my analogy went too far. Forgive me. Anything was better than actually listening to "Bubbly" and Bublé.

1. Being top dog on Amazon MP3 may not mean all that much. Sure, it's getting a lot of good press for attracting non-iTunes users to its DRM-free fold, with the NPD group saying that its "distant No. 2" status means that it's got about a tenth of iTunes' market share—so the album's sales may have been in the three-digit range, if that.

2. In the interest of keeping the real feelings of the voting public secret, the Idol producers lobbied Amazon to keep a lid on Analog Heart's SoundScan data. Obviously the more interesting theory, and somewhat plausible because this is a tack that the powers that be have taken with all the iTunes releases of the contestants' performances—a bit of secrecy that has resulted in Idol superfan/rickey.org proprietor Rickey figuring out which songs were selling through a lengthy process involving iMix-making. Could their reach extend to a company that they don't have a promotional relationship with?

Earlier: Fox 411 Columnist's Anti-David Cook Diatribe: A Sign That Clive Is Not Pleased?

"Destination calabria," Alex Gaudino ft. Crystal Waters:

A mashup of a Danish dance track and Crystal Waters' "Destination Unknown." Gaudino is an Italian DJ.
Ringtone worthiness: 7/10.

"Cuando amanece," Estopa:

Estopa is a "rock/rumba" group from outside of Barcelona with an apparent affinity for '70s buddy cop movies.
Ringtone worthiness: 6/10.

"Baila el chiquichiqui," Rodolfo Chikiliquatre:

How fortunate that someone was nice enough to add subtitles to this half-assed-even-for-a-novelty-song novelty song. I haven't been keeping up with the Eurovision entries this year, but this surely must be towards the bottom of the heap.
Ringtone worthiness: 8/10, but only because it sounds like a ringtone in and of itself.

"Cobarde," David Bustamante:

Your standard pretty-man pop song. I detect shades of Ricky Martin.
Ringtone worthiness: 7/10.

"Ella y yo," Grupo Aventura and Don Omar:

The presence of exactly one Latino/Reggaeton artist on this list pretty much reflects the attitude towards Latin American music here in Spain—it spices things up once in a while, but not too much.
Ringtone worthiness: 9/10. That Latin beat is perfect for the inevitable 10-second dance party you would have every time your phone rang.

"Pa' Madrid," El Barrio:

According to the sort of dubious Wikipedia entry on El Barrio, they're a "new flamenco" group, and lead singer José Luis Figuereo is a poet.
Ringtone worthiness: 3/10. Too boring!

"Escúchame mujer," Fondo Flamenco:

Now this is is a boy band: vaguely misogynistic, hangin' out down by the river in Sevilla with your shirt open, singing some harmonies over a gauzy sax. Jonas Brothers take note.
Ringtone worthiness: 9/10.

"Papeles mojados," Chambao:

For when you want your phone to ring and advertise your social consciousness. Chambao is yet another flamenco fusion group out of Andalucia. They seem like they probably burn a lot of incense.
Ringtone worthiness: 5/10.

Sala de Música [Yoigo.com]

George Strait's success continues a remarkable chart run for a guy who seems nice enough and is liked a lot by my wife, somewhat to my puzzlement. The last five Strait albums have hit No. 1, with eighteen of his albums reaching the pinnacle over all. Meanwhile, the totally abysmal R.E.M. disc Around the Sun didn't even go gold, although if Accelerate's projected sales total of around 100,00 copies holds up, getting a plaque eventually seems likely.

In other projection news,Idolator favorite Trina will have a solid showing for an album I had forgotten about, selling a projected 50,000 copies; the Scorsese/Rolling Stones soundtrack Shine A Light at 35,000 for now, with weekend sales likely to boost that total; and somehow 25,000 people thought purchasing a Theory Of A Deadman disc would make their lives better.

In your "this industry is screwed" note of the week, sales are projected to be down 16% from this time last year, and are already off 11% year to date. In somewhat related news, I am thinking of signing up to learn air conditioning repair.

STRAIT UP, NO CHASER [HITS Daily Double]

[Photo via leona-lewis.net]

Yes, that's right: An Internet chart that doesn't have Nine Inch Nails as its automatic No. 1. Are we seeing a sea change, or is this just residual bile from the obvious hiccup that the numbers experienced the week before?

Battle of the Bands [Songkick Labs]

If you're the editors of Parade, a Mariah Carey cover story seems like a slam-dunk. People know who she is, you can use some slightly creepy short-shorts pictures. It's a win/win. Little would you guess that Mariah's presence in the magazine would bring out the nutjobs on your Web site:

(as a disclaimer, all spelling, etc. within in the quote is the author's own)

Part 1 In referrance to the article about Mariah Carey sharing the record for most number one hits on the Billboard Top 100 with Elvis. If Billboard allows this to happen it will take the last bit of respect i and the public has for them. Everyone knows that Carey's former husband (Tommy Mattola) had huge influence with pop radio stations when he was president of Sony music corporation. This resulted in payola (the practice of paying off radio stations to play artists songs) which is supposed to be illegal. Now that she is at Island Def Jam her friend L.A. Reid is doing the same thing. A couple of years ago Sony along with other record labels were caught and fined for payola. This proves that when Carey was with the label she benefited from the actions of her label. Now Island Def Jam must be investigated. The government should go after these people just like they're going after athletes for steroid use. It is cheating, plain and simple and Miss Carey should be exposed for the fraud she and her record labels are perpetrating. Back in the 1990s she was sued in court three times for plagiarism (sampling other people's music without their permission) which she settled out of court for an undisclosed sums. This also proves she is dishonest and she most likely knew about her record labels practice of paying radio stations to play her music.

I guess there's an interesting point somewhere in there, although assuming that Mariah "likely knew" about anything seems like a false premise.

Part two is where the agenda comes in:

Part 2 If Billboard plans to go through with this farce they should do one of two things. 1. They should recognize the Elvis number ones on the Billboard Single Sales Chart (for the simple fact that you can't fake sales) "A LITTLE LESS CONVERSATION" 2002 , "RUBBERNECKING" 2003, "THAT'S ALRIGHT MAMA" 2004 and "HEARTBREAK HOTEL" 2006. or 2. They should put a disclaimer at the top of their weekly chart listings explaining that the resulting chart placings are a result of dishonest practices between the artists record labels and the radio stations that play their music. Tommy Mattola must be questioned as well as other Sony executives that were there during Carey's tenure. Elvis would've never gotten away with it if his label would've participated in payola. He was investigated along with **** Clark back in the late 1950s payola scandal which rocked the music world ,but he and Clark were found not guilty. If someone were to top Elvis (like the beatles did) without cheating we would have no problem accepting it ,but payola is music's version of the steroid scandal going on in baseball now. We must show our young and old people that taking short cuts to the top is wrong because it is lying and cheating.

He's actually upset that Mariah Carey is currently tied with Elvis for second place on the list of artists with the most No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100. The Beatles are still solidly at the top with 20, but Mariah and Elvis have 17 a piece. Hence, just like the Mitchell Report rocked baseball, the 19 comments left by "Don" will be similarly thought-provoking for anyone who stumbles upon the comments section of a Mariah Carey article from Parade. At very least, we might know what Eliot Spitzer has been up to... cracking down on radio payola even while temporarily unemployed.

Comments: Interview With Mariah Carey [Parade]

According the HITS Daily Double's occasionally accurate chart projections based on first day sales, Rick Ross will take the top spot with around 180,000 units sold, with NOW 27 close behind at 170,000. Snoop Dogg disappoints perhaps no else else but me with a projected third place finish. ack Johson and Alan Jackson will likely fight it out for fourth and fifth, with some combination of Fat Joe, the Thriller reissue, and Idolator fave Sara Bareilles in sixth through eighth with around 40,000 sold. However, if Now That's What I Call The 80's and its "You've never heard THESE songs in THIS order" tracklisting knocks the Erykah Badu disc out of the top ten, you'll see a tiny tear roll down my cheek on chart day.

Rumor Mill [HITS Daily Double]

Which leaves Thriller at No. 2 on Billboard's Comprehensive Chart—the listing of top-selling albums that combines current albums and catalog albums, and that was last covered in this space during the whole Eagles/Britney kerfuffle—leading some to wonder whether or not that chart, instead of the arcane-rule-filled Billboard 200, should become the "official" chart that gets cited by the media in these cases. Given that the catalog/"new" divide is one of the few things separating the two charts—and the resurgence of catalog albums is becoming more and more of a story these days, as evidenced by the post-Super Bowl Tom Petty rush—I'm starting to wonder if that shouldn't become the case.

And besides, as Chris Molanphy noted to me yesterday, shouldn't Sony be happy that the old and new sales of Jackson's most famous album are being smooshed together? At the very least, it gives Thriller to retake the highest-selling album of all time mantle back from the Eagles' greatest-hits collection, an outcome that any right-thinking person should want.

Michael Jackson's Label Has A Chart Attack Over 'Thriller 25' [NYDN]
'Thriller' Blocked From The Pop Chart [The Set List]

Where it'll probably do well, since while the single can't be heard by most humans (although I did get a headache once the YouTube kicked in) its sales do raise funds for the SPCA, and if there's one thing that's true about Americans, it's that we love our cute little puppies. In New Zealand "Silent" even got radio airplay, driving dogs mad and causing one to actually physically attack the nearby radio it was playing from. Somehow I don't see it getting quite the radio pickup on research-dominated American radio, since a song that resembles nothing more than dead air to a human listener would result in lots of dial-futzing, but perhaps the novelty-song market will actually surprise me.

Global hit hopes for pooch music [BBC]

The charts released last Jan. 17 had the Dreamgirls soundtrack in the top spot, and it reached No. 1 by selling only 60,000 copies. So at the top, the numbers seem more healthy—but if you look further down the top 10, the numbers get more comparatively grim; the No. 10 album from that week, Nickelback's All The Right Reasons, sold 35,000 copies, more than any of the albums that aren't in the top three.

Rumor Mill [Hits Daily Double]

^* FYI: Juno was not universally adored, especially in the section of the universe currently occupied by this writer. Jennifer Garner was quite good, as were pretty much all the adults in the film. But Ellen Page's character annoyed the crap out of me, although I do wonder if I'd have been as irked if the movie's opening scene—and anything involving cutesy references to that hamburger phone she had—had been cut out entirely. (Sorry, Rainn Wilson.)

While [Josh] Groban's "Noel" has crossed 3.5 million in sales to become the top-selling disc of the year, overall music sales during the Christmas shopping season were down an astounding 21% from last year. From the week of Thanksgiving up through the day before Christmas Eve, 83.9 million albums were sold, a decrease of 21.38 million from 2006's 105.28 million.

The week leading up to Christmas saw sales rise a whopping 42% over the previous week. But when the week's sales of 25.57 million are compared to the same week from '06, they represent an 18% drop.

Ouch. But! It won't be until next week that many of those wee plastic cards—you know, the ones that can be redeemed for digital files that many people have decided to buy as gifts instead of CDs—will be factored into things. So maybe the Internet will save the day. After all, I spent all of Christmas morning trying to buy a copy of Altars Of Madness off of iTunes, and it said there were too many people trying to download stuff! I was actually forced to go to a record store. (The store didn't have it either. This industry is screwed.)

"Noel" is Music's Saving Grace [Variety]

^* Your guess is as good as mine, re. the picture.

THE GOOD: Despite being shut out of rock radio formats that aren't saddled with the word "classic," the aging rock fan still has a place in the big-ticket music industry because he can still spend money. Namely, on tours by classic-rock staples like Genesis, Roger Waters, and Van Halen. OK, this isn't "the good" as much as it is "the obvious," but hey, something has to keep the music business hoping that its next gasp for air is slightly worth it, right?
THE BAD: Miley "Hannah Montana" Cyrus—one of only two musicians on the list under the age of 25^*—comes in at No. 15, which seems low until you remember that it was the low price of tickets on the legal market (they averaged $54 a seat) that led to the sellouts, the "secondary market" freakouts, and the 400-pound Miley Cyrus statues.
THE WHAAA? Not that I like Genesis all that much, but it has to smart that their big reunion tour (which made $47.6 million) was outgrossed by the umpteenth leg of Rod Freaking Stewart's "Trampling On Any Legacy I Still Have Left" jaunt ($49 million).

^* The other: Wolfgang Van Halen. You forgot about him, didn't you?

1. The Police ($131.9 million)
2. Kenny Chesney ($71.1 million)
3. Justin Timberlake ($70.6 million)
4. Celine Dion ($65.3 million)
5. Van Halen ($56.7 million)
6. Tim McGraw and Faith Hill ($52.3 million)
7. Rod Stewart ($49 million)
8. Genesis ($47.6 million)
9. Josh Groban ($43 million)
10. Rascal Flatts ($41.5 million)
11. Dave Matthews Band ($41.1 million)
12. Billy Joel ($39.1 million)
13. Roger Waters ($38.3 million)
14. Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band ($38.2 million)
15. Hannah Montana / Miley Cyrus ($36 million)
16. Elton John ($35.7 million)
17. Jimmy Buffett ($35.6 million)
18. Barry Manilow ($34.8 million)
19. Toby Keith ($34.3 million)
20. Maná ($33.9 million)

U.S. concert business slumps despite reunion tours [Reuters]
The Police Lock Top 2007 Tours Spot [Pollstar]
[Photo: Getty]

Last week, he sold 581,000 copies, a gain of 8% over the previous week's haul of 539,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan. And early indicators point to a fourth chart-topping week with an even bigger take when SoundScan data are announced Wednesday for the week ending Sunday.

"It would be the first time a No. 1 album has increased four weeks in a row," says Billboard's Geoff Mayfield. "It's been a slow year, but that doesn't take anything away from the fact that he has amassed huge numbers."

Now at 2.1 million copies, Noel could easily reach 3 million, making it the only title issued in 2007 to hit that mark. He's in striking distance of surpassing High School Musical 2, which leads the sales pack this year with 2.5 million copies, followed by Daughtry, the 2006 debut by American Idol finalist Chris Daughtry, with 2.3 million.

Groban has a shot at "being the top dog," says Mayfield, noting boosts that the pop-classical singer got from an Oprah appearance and other TV slots.

"He's always benefited from TV exposure. He's not the kind of artist to get a lot of radio play. The record is a good marriage of talent and repertoire that appeals to older consumers."

A touching story, no? And one that should maybe provide a little bit of hope about, you know, reaching other consumers in these troubled times for albums. Or at least the news that the power of "Oprah's Book Club" can translate to the music industry, despite the fact that the actual places where people can, you know, actually purchase new music are being whittled away by the day.

Josh Groban's first-place 'Noel' is on record pace [USA Today]

1. Daughtry (RCA/RMG) (release date: 11/21/06)
2. Konvicted, Akon (Konvict/Upfront/SRC/Universal Motown/UMRG) (release date: 11/14/06)
3. The Dutchess, Fergie (will.i.am/A&M/Interscope/IGA) (release date: 9/19/06)
4. Hannah Montana soudntrack (Walt Disney) (release date: 10/24/06)
5. Some Hearts, Carrie Underwood (Arista/Arista Nashville/RMG) (release date: 11/15/05)
6. All The Right Reasons, Nickelback (Roadrunner) (release date: 10/5/05)
7. FutureSex/LoveSounds, Justin Timberlake (Jive/Zomba) (release date: 9/12/06)
8. High School Musical 2 soundtrack (Walt Disney) (release date: 8/14/07)
9. Now 23 (Sony BMG Strategic Marketing Group/EMI/Universal/Zomba/Sony Music) (release date: 11/7/06)
10. Minutes To Midnight, Linkin Park (Machine Shop/Warner Bros.) (release date: 5/15/07)

Yipes, right? And the top 20 isn't much better, with a 7:3 ratio of 2006 releases to 2007 releases. As the chart progresses, more 2007 releases filter in, as do a few surprises (T.I. vs. T.I.P. besting Curtis, the Eagles getting all the way to No. 38 despite coming out so late in the year). But perhaps my favorite one-two punch comes right before the chart's end:

189. Back To Bedlam, James Blunt (Custard/Atlantic/AG)

190. Neon Bible, Arcade Fire (Merge)

If anyone calls 2007 "the year of indie," please point them to the above stat.

Year-end albums [Billboard.biz]

Probably not, but Ernie K. Doe's pressure-cooking tune "Here Come The Girls" is featured in the above ad for the British drugstore chain Boots, and according to Billboard that ad is helping the song make inroads on the UK charts:

There was also an improbable chart comeback on the low rungs of the top 75, as the late New Orleans singer Ernie K-Doe debuted at No. 71 with "Here Come the Girls" (Soul Jazz), a 1970 track now being featured by another retail giant, Boots, in their Christmas TV campaign. K-Doe's only other British chart appearance came 46 years ago, when "Mother-In-Law" reached No. 29 in 1961.

The song's currently available via the excellent British archive label Soul Jazz, who is making the single available as a digital download from its official site (it's also on the terrific compilation New Orleans Funk: The Original Sound Of Funk 1960-1975). At the very least, the continued exposure from the Boots ad should bring Soul Jazz—and the estate of K-Doe, who died in 2001—some nice coin, and perhaps turn a few non-crate-diggers on to the label's extensive catalog of funk and soul rarities. This clip has the song in full, with a slightly recut version of the ad:

Leona Lewis Still Strong On UK Charts [Billboard]
Here come the girls. Boots Christmas ad 07. [YouTube]

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Alicia Keys Tries To Lock Out Amy Winehouse, Spice Girls, Killers, Hives And More, In New Releases [MTV]