The five most ridiculous "no, see, the Internet is actually a bunch of references to sex" lyrics in Akon's new single "MP3 U Me," which attempts to do for the online world what R. Kelly's "The Zoo" did for the animal kingdom:
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The top tier of this week's album chart was pretty grim, thanks to a post-Grammy hangover that resulted in people promptly forgetting that they could easily buy albums by the likes of Jack Johnson (No. 1, off 42%), Alicia Keys (No. 2, off 51%) and Amy Winehouse (No. 3, off 55%). But lurking in its middle reaches was yet another testament to the power of televised music: Boyz II Men's Motown: A Journey Through Hitsville USA shot up from No. 182 to No. 62 on a 157-percent sales gain, one derived in large part from the group's appearance Thursday night on the Fox game show Don't Forget The Lyrics, which featured them performing songs from the new album. Oh, if only music programming wasn't such a ratings disaster, the music industry would be able to fix itself but good!
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I noted during last night's Idol eliminations that the harmonizers of Boyz II Men would be on Don't Forget The Lyrics, the song-remembering game show that sends its viewers rushing to Google during its commercial breaks. While searching for clips from the show, I came across the news that other "celebrities" would be on the show in future weeks, including Poison's Bret Michaels, REO Speedwagon's Kevin Cronin, and former Idol contestant Kimberley Locke. It's like going to a state fair from the comfort of your own couch, and with a much messier process for procuring a fried Oreo! [TVCrunch]
Google's year-end wrapup of search trends—the Google Zeitgeist—came out last night, and in addition to finding out that Hannah Montana fans are much more likely to use search engines than Rolling Stones fans and that people were more interested in learning about emo than about gout, the search engine compiled its list of the 10 most popular lyrics searches this year:
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Dude from New Zealand Idol, you are no Wayne Brady (although the fact that I can't remember your name even though I've been watching your show for the past few weeks is probably an even greater indication of that): "[Friday night's] time-slot premiere of Don't Forget the Lyrics! Friday (6.3 million) nearly doubled its weak lead-in from Next Great American Band (2.6 million)." [USA Today]
From Google Trends at around 10 p.m. ET last night, or right after Don't Forget The Lyrics aired on the East Coast. Not sure about that No. 1 entry, though—is that a Radiohead b-side that somehow snuck into the show? Oh, Fox, you scamps!
Don't Forget The Lyrics and The Singing Bee—both of which, after summer runs that garnered ratings even better than 'Til Death reruns, are returning this fall—have given an unexpected boon to the record industry, apparently because being reminded of a song inspires at least a few people to actually shell out the 99 cents required to put it on their hard drives:
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Fox's spin on The Singing Bee, the Wayne Brady-hosted Don't Forget The Lyrics, gets picked up for the fall schedule thanks to a strong showing in the ratings. All Idolator readers should try out for this show. Seriously. [Ad Age]
Who would have possibly guessed that Fox would have the classier of the season's two "can you remember the words to this famous song?" game shows? Watching Don't Forget the Lyrics last night, I was amazed by how restrained it all was, from affable stump of a host Wayne Brady to its Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?-esque "lifelines" to the fact that the contestant could actually kinda, sorta sing. Compared to the gaudy, eye- and ear-harassing cattle call that is NBC's Singing Bee, it was positively ... subdued. Which means it shouldn't have a prayer against a show that has both Joey Fatone and Europe's "The Final Countdown," but apparently Fox was ratings champ last night (by a scant .8 million viewers). Surely some of that is down to the success of So You Think You Can Dance? (go Lacey), but as long as Fox keeps Dance as Lyrics' lead-in, it looks like we're looking at the summer of the battling tuneless d-bags.
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