Eminem’s big year just keeps getting bigger. The reformed rapper scored the best-selling album on iTunes in 2010 with his intense, Grammy-nominated LP, Recovery, while Train’s ubiquitous hit “Hey, Soul Sister” triumphed as the best-selling single on the digital downloading site. Still, Em’s powerful presence is all over the place — his tracks, “Love The Way You Lie” with Rihanna and “Not Afraid” were also two of the ten best-selling singles of the year, and iTunes’ editors named him Artist Of The Year.

What else was everybody downloading in 2010? Jump below to find out, as well as the remainder of iTunes’ editors personal picks. (No Justin Bieber in sight, so either virtually pat iTunes on the back or start drafting your complaint letters to Steve Jobs.)

Best-Selling iTunes Singles of 2010:
1. Train, “Hey, Soul Sister”
2. Katy Perry, “California Gurls” (feat. Snoop Dogg)
3. Eminem, “Love the Way You Lie” (feat. Rihanna)
4. B.o.B, “Airplanes” (feat. Hayley Williams of Paramore)
5. Taio Cruz, “Dynamite”
6. Usher, “OMG” (feat. will.i.am)
7. Taio Cruz, “Break Your Heart” (feat. Ludacris)
8. Ke$ha, “TiK ToK”
9. Lady Antebellum, “Need You Now”
10. Eminem, “Not Afraid”

Best-Selling iTunes Albums of 2010:
1. Eminem, Recovery
2. Ke$ha, Animal
3. Lady Gaga, The Fame
4. Lady Antebellum, Need You Now
5. Taylor Swift, Speak Now
6. Drake, Thank Me Later
7. Mumford & Sons, Sigh No More
8. The Black Eyed Peas, The E.N.D.
9. Jack Johnson, To the Sea
10. Sade, Soldier of Love

Interestingly, Lady Gaga’s The Fame (which was originally released back in August 2008) was the #3 best-selling album in 2009 as well. (Her more recent album, The Fame Monster, came in at #28.) Plus, The Black Eyed Peas’ The E.N.D. sold even more units this year than last, moving from #10 to #8. They’re going to have to work pretty hard to get their low performing new disc The Beginning to repeat the success of its predecessor in 2011.

EDITOR’S PICKS:

ARTIST OF THE YEAR: Eminem

ALBUM OF THE YEAR: The Black Keys, Brothers

BEST NEW ARTIST: B.o.B

BEST ROCK ALBUM: Deftones, Diamond Eyes

BEST HIP-HOP ALBUM: Drake, Thank Me Later

BEST ELECTRONIC ALBUM: LCD Soundsystem, This Is Happening

BEST ALTERNATIVE ALBUM: Beach House, Teen Dream

BEST POP ALBUM: Ke$ha, Animal

BEST COUNTRY ALBUM: Lady Antebellum, Need You Now

BEST R&B/SOUL ALBUM: Trey Songz, Passion, Pain & Pleasure

BEST SINGER/SONGWRITER ALBUM: Laura Marling, I Speak Because I Can

[EW Music Mix]

Now teens won’t have to solely rely on American Idol theme nights as an introduction to the Beatles catalog. After seven-and-a-half years and 10 billion downloads, the iTunes Store’s long and winding road to sealing a deal with EMI to offer the Liverpool band’s music has come to an end. This morning at 10 a.m. EST, the Fab Four’s 13 remastered studio albums (Please Please Me through Let It Be), “Red” (The Beatles 1962 – 1966) and “Blue” (The Beatles 1967 – 1970) compilations and two Past Masters collections were offered up via the digital retailer. Also available: The Beatles Box Set, which comes with a $149 price tag and contains a concert film of the band’s very first U.S. gig.

“We’re really excited to bring the Beatles’ music to iTunes,” said Sir Paul McCartney in a statement. “It’s fantastic to see the songs we originally released on vinyl receive as much love in the digital world as they did the first time around.”

“I am particularly glad to no longer be asked when the Beatles are coming to iTunes,” added Ringo Starr. “At last, if you want it-you can get it now-The Beatles from Liverpool to now! Peace and Love, Ringo.”

The Beatles had the best-selling album of the previous decade with their 1 compilation of 27 singles, which was released in 2000 and sold roughly 11.5 million copies by the end of 2009.

Perhaps the iTunes generation will now be able to anoint the rock legends the kings of the next decade in music sales, as well?

Seven years after its inception, Apple’s iTunes store sold its ten billionth song on Wednesday. Neither the name of the lucky customer or the tune that marked the milestone sale have been announced yet, but whoever it may be is set to receive a $10,000 gift card from the company.

Earlier this month we posted iTunes Top 25 Most-Downloaded Songs Ever (again, “ever” only stretches back to 2003). But if memory fails you, fear not—you can peep at the top-selling tracks once more after the jump.

iTunes’ 25 Most-Downloaded Songs Of All Time:

1. “I Gotta Feeling,” Black Eyed Peas
2. “Poker Face,” Lady Gaga
3. “Boom Boom Pow,” Black Eyed Peas
4. “I’m Yours,” Jason Mraz
5. “Viva la Vida,” Coldplay
6. “Just Dance,” Lady Gaga & Colby O’Donis
7. “Low,” Flo Rida (featuring T-Pain)
8. “Love Story,” Taylor Swift
9. “Bleeding Love,” Leona Lewis
10. “TiK ToK,” Ke$ha
11. “Disturbia,” Rihanna
12. “So What,” Pink
13. “I Kissed a Girl,” Katy Perry
14. “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” Beyoncé
15. “Hot N Cold,” Katy Perry
16. “Stronger,” Kanye West
17. “Live Your Life,” T.I. (featuring Rihanna)
18. “Hey There Delilah,” Plain White T’s
19. “Right Round,” Flo Rida
20. “Party in the U.S.A.,” Miley Cyrus
21. “Don’t Stop Believin’,” Journey
22. “Bad Romance,” Lady Gaga
23. “Use Somebody,” Kings of Leon
24. “Fireflies,” Owl City
25. “How to Save a Life,” The Fray

Looks like Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” will never be so 2000-and-late. As the iTunes store approaches its 10 billion downloads mark, the digital retailer has revealed its 25 most-downloaded songs since its inception in 2003. And if you thought the Black Eyed Peas were approaching the E.N.D. of the line, you’d best think again—and check your computer. Because we gotta feeling you might have some of the quartet’s jams lurking around in there.

Lady Gaga is the artist with the most songs on the list, with three (“Just Dance,” “Poker Face” and “Bad Romance”), while Ke$ha has the most recent tune to land in the Top 10 (“TiK ToK”). Geez, she’s just setting records left and right this week.

Journey have the only song not released within the last five years on the list, as “Don’t Stop Believin’”—the band’s 1981 anthem that has been used in everything from Glee and The Sopranos to ads for political campaigns—comes in at #21.

Meanwhile, the iTunes Store is offering a $10,000 gift card to whoever downloads the 10 billionth song. And, really, whoever wins should just put the entire thing toward “TiK TiK.” Because Ke$ha clearly isn’t getting enough attention these days.

iTunes’ 25 Most-Downloaded Songs Of All Time:

1. “I Gotta Feeling,” Black Eyed Peas
2. “Poker Face,” Lady Gaga
3. “Boom Boom Pow,” Black Eyed Peas
4. “I’m Yours,” Jason Mraz
5. “Viva la Vida,” Coldplay
6. “Just Dance,” Lady Gaga & Colby O’Donis
7. “Low,” Flo Rida (featuring T-Pain)
8. “Love Story,” Taylor Swift
9. “Bleeding Love,” Leona Lewis
10. “TiK ToK,” Ke$ha
11. “Disturbia,” Rihanna
12. “So What,” Pink
13. “I Kissed a Girl,” Katy Perry
14. “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” Beyoncé
15. “Hot N Cold,” Katy Perry
16. “Stronger,” Kanye West
17. “Live Your Life,” T.I. (featuring Rihanna)
18. “Hey There Delilah,” Plain White T’s
19. “Right Round,” Flo Rida
20. “Party in the U.S.A.,” Miley Cyrus
21. “Don’t Stop Believin’,” Journey
22. “Bad Romance,” Lady Gaga
23. “Use Somebody,” Kings of Leon
24. “Fireflies,” Owl City
25. “How to Save a Life,” the Fray

Exactly what do the Black Eyed Peas, Miley Cyrus, Kings Of Leon and Lady Gaga have in common, besides dominating the airwaves across the country over the past year? They all landed high up on iTunes’ Rewind 2009 list of top-selling songs and albums.

Surprisingly, the Peas, who had two of the top downloaded songs of the year, only ranked at #10 with their album The E.N.D. Guess there really is a threshold when it comes to a full hour of Fergie.

Check out what ended up being the most downloaded music of the year at the digital retailer, and what was singled out by iTunes editors—including the not-so-surprising (Artist Of The Year: Micheal Jackson) and mildly-surprising (Best Soundtrack: (500) Days Of Summer)—after the jump.

TOP-SELLING SONGS
1. “Boom Boom Pow,” Black Eyed Peas
2. “Right Round,” Flo Rida
3. “Poker Face,” Lady GaGa
4. “I Gotta Feeling,” Black Eyed Peas
5. “Gives You Hell,” The All-American Rejects
6. “Just Dance,” Lady GaGa & Colby O’Donis
7. “Party in the U.S.A.,” Miley Cyrus
8. “The Climb,” Miley Cyrus
9. “Dead and Gone (feat. Justin Timberlake),” T.I.
10. “Use Somebody,” KIngs of Leon

TOP-SELLING ALBUMS
1. Kings of Leon, Only By the Night
2. Various Artists, Twilight (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
3. Lady GaGa, The Fame
4. Taylor Swift, Fearless
5. Dave Matthews Band, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King
6. Michael Jackson, The Essential Michael Jackson
7. The Fray, The Fray
8. Jay-Z, The Blueprint 3
9. Eminem, Relapse
10. Black Eyed Peas, The E.N.D. (The Energy Never Dies)

EDITOR’S PICKS:

ARTIST OF THE YEAR – Michael Jackson

ALBUM OF THE YEAR – Kings of Leon, Only By the Night

BEST NEW ARTIST – Lady GaGa

BEST ROCK ALBUM – The Dead Weather, Horehound

BEST HIP-HOP ALBUM – Raekwon, Only Built for Cuban Linx, Pt. 2

BEST ELECTRONIC ALBUM – Fever Ray, Fever Ray

BEST ALTERNATIVE ALBUM – The Boxer Rebellion, Union

BEST POP ALBUM – Angel Taylor, Love Travels

BEST COUNTRY ALBUM – Taylor Swift, Fearless (Platinum Edition)

BEST R&B/SOUL ALBUM – Joe, Signature

BEST SINGER/SONGWRITER ALBUM – Grant Lee Phillips, Little Moon

BEST CLASSICAL ALBUM – Stile Antico, Song of Songs

BEST LATIN ALBUM – Zoe, Reptilectric

According to the tech-news site AllThingsD, Apple has a music event scheduled for Sept. 9. ATD says that the event will involve “upgrades to the iPod line and an update to iTunes that may involve some sort of social element.” But since that date just happens to be a big one for Beatles fans—the band’s remastered catalog is coming out, as well as The Beatles: Rock Band—other news outlets are wondering if this will be the day that the Fab Four’s catalog finally comes to iTunes, after years and years of speculation on the part of the music press. And if it doesn’t happen? Well, music-tech reporters will probably be thanking their lucky stars that the dusty story about the band’s digital upgrade can have life breathed into it at least one more time. [AllThingsD]

When the music story of 2009 is written, the year’s debutante queen and king will be Lady GaGa and Drake, who have treated Billboard‘s Hot 100 as their playground lately. Each is a lock for a Best New Artist Grammy nomination next winter, because each is exactly the sort of not-too-innovative, chart-friendly act the Recording Academy routinely rewards.

For both acts, however, the path to the Top 10 has been a bit of a slog. GaGa’s on a roll now, but she spent most of 2008 watching her debut “Just Dance” creep up the Hot 100 before its January 2009 triumph; each of her chart-toppers needed an abnormally long time to scale the list. Her latest, “LoveGame,” has had the easiest rise of all, even as it peaked below the top slot.

Drake is poised to join GaGa as a debutante chart-topper with “Best I Ever Had” (No. 2), if he can get past the Black Eyed Peas. Compared with the Lady, the former Degrassi: The Next Generation cast member has had an easier time, exploding into the Top 10 with “Best” and the Lil Wayne-backed Young Money single “Every Girl.”

But even Drake has had bumps along the way—in particular, a week in which “Best” took a one-week, Estelle-like swoon thanks to a dispute over who was allowed to release his songs on iTunes. He’s more than recovered, but the mix-up and the song’s temporary plummet show how critical digital sales are to the Hot 100.

I don’t normally talk here about technology or digital rights, but in the wake of Amazon’s disastrous recall of two George Orwell e-books last week, it’s worth exploring what happened to Drake’s hit and what it means for chart tabulation and the songs we buy.


Over the last month, chart-watchers have all been so distracted by Michael Jackson’s postmortem sales feats that Drake’s erratic Hot 100 patterns in June went unremarked. I’m particularly surprised it hasn’t received more attention recently, amid all the press attention for the Amazon kerfuffle; there are strong parallels between the pulled Orwell books and Drake’s digital singles.

Here’s what happened: As of early June, “Best I Ever Had” was up to No. 18 on the Hot 100 and rising fast, having moved up more than 40 spaces in a week. Remarkably, Drake accomplished this without having signed to a major label; the song had originated on mixtapes. Lil Wayne’s Cash Money label (under Universal) was providing radio promotion for both the Young Money single and Drake’s own, but the latter was effectively self-released by Drake’s managers, Cortez Bryant and the Hip Hop Since 1978 team. Even with major-label backing, “Best” was technically an independent single.

Unfortunately, that oddball, label-less arrangement left Drake vulnerable to some digital shenanigans. In late May, “Best,” along with an unauthorized mixtape, had been released digitally by Canadian Money Entertainment, a small company that had released prior Drake mixtapes in his native Canada. The song was on iTunes for just over a week, selling tens of thousands of copies, before Drake and management had it pulled.

On the Hot 100, this led to some truly strange movements. During the week of June 20, “Best I Ever Had” dropped 18 slots to No. 35—even while scoring Billboard’s award for the biggest radio gain for the week. The song was a certified radio smash, but without iTunes sales, its chart position wilted. This situation persisted into late June, with “Best” drifting a bit higher thanks to continued radio growth. (On the R&B/Hip-Hop list, where digital sales are not a factor, the song coasted to No. 1 in late June, where it remains five weeks later.)

Drake’s music was restored to iTunes by his authorized team at the end of June, and the results were instantaneous. By the Fourth of July both Drake-affiliated songs exploded to new Hot 100 peaks: No. 3 for Drake’s solo joint “Best,” and No. 10 for Young Money’s “Girl.” Since its official release, “Best” has sold more than 300,000 copies. This week, as it reaches its new Hot 100 peak of No. 2, its weekly sales are the biggest yet, at more than 140,000. (Earlier this month, after a heated bidding war, Drake surprised no one by ultimately signing to Universal, in a very lucrative and unorthodox deal.)

Why is any of this interesting? Prior to last week, it wasn’t, terribly; we’ve seen odd chart movements, both up and down, caused by iTunes availability many times over the last couple of years, and this just served as the umpteenth reminder that Apple’s store has an outsized influence over Billboard‘s singles charts.

But then, last week, dozens of Kindle owners awoke to find copies of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm wiped from their e-books remotely by Big Brother Amazon (with full refunds), and the Drake story took on new meaning for me. Like Drake, the estate of Orwell demanded the digital removal of the material because of a dispute over who was authorized to release it.

In the stories I’ve read on the Amazon kerfuffle, no one has made the connection between the British literary legend and the up-and-coming Canuck rapper. (Guess this is just how my mind works!) But there has been much media discussion—best captured by this Farhad Manjoo story in Slate—over what “ownership” of digital content means for the end user in the age of online gadgets, like the Kindle and the iPhone. The parallels to digital music are clear: If we’re all walking around with WiFi- and 3G-enabled iPods and iPhones, what’s to stop Apple from deleting songs whose release rights have changed? Plus, for music, there’s a far greater likelihood of such shenanigans; given the staggering number of songs and albums now available on iTunes, the rights debates over material there must be many times greater than the ones going on at Amazon’s fledgling e-book store.

Call me naïve, but I’m not losing sleep over any of my iTunes purchases getting pulled from my iPhone anytime soon. It isn’t just that Apple has proven much smarter about public relations relative to Amazon, whose founder is now publicly flagellating himself over the whole Orwell affair. And it also isn’t because I can burn my iTunes purchases to CD or back them up to hard drives Apple’s online police can’t access.

The fact is, no one who purchased the Canadian Money edition of “Best I Ever Had” back in late May-early June has had it revoked by Apple, even after the song had been pulled from its online shelves. Apple didn’t need to observe Amazon’s mistake to avoid making similar ones; they knew that the iTunes Store’s idea of media ownership—you “own” the song you buy, even if the technology exists to render that an illusion—was important to its users. (Hell, I’m still playing an unauthorized version of Tetris on my iPhone more than a year after the game’s rights-holders had it pulled from the App Store.) The iTunes Store has built itself into America’s largest digital-content retailer by differentiating itself from music-streaming and other online music stores with tenuous ownership by fostering a sense of ownership, even if Apple reserves the right to take it away from you. Until a court makes them, I doubt there’s any upside for them in remotely deleting your content.

Besides, in music at least, such a move would be a chart headache. Would SoundScan retroactively “uncertify” the sales of a pulled single? As it is, Apple and SoundScan engage in a complicated dance when a digital single leads to an album purchase later: when you use iTunes’ Complete My Album feature to get a lower price on an album you’d previously bought parts of, SoundScan has to mark your prior singles purchases as “returns” and then credit the act with an album sale. This is to the acts’ benefit; they get chart credit for a hit single early, then another bump of album-chart credit later. But a pulled single like Drake’s has no chart upside; no act is going to want their chart position eroded by demanding that an unauthorized single get removed from fans’ gadgets.

Apple has taken its share of much-deserved lumps for its gargantuan influence over the music business and its friendly-on-the-outside, control-freaky-behind-the-scenes dealings with users of its technology. But as the short-lived, headline-free Drake incident shows, and the blogoshphere-dominating Amazon/Orwell controversy proves, there’s a mostly harmless way to handle digital rights, and there’s a stupid way.


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


• As Maura has been reporting recently, Mariah Carey’s handlers appear to be sweating the relatively weak reaction to “Obsessed,” the leadoff single to her next album. After debuting last week at No. 11, the song drops back to No. 20 on the new Hot 100. There’s plenty of time for Carey to rebound before Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel drops (whenever that is); those with long memories will recall that the first single from the 2005-dominating The Emancipation of Mimi wasn’t the übersmash “We Belong Together” but rather the mid-charting, hip-hop flavored jam “It’s Like That.”

Still, it’s worth mentioning that “Obsessed” was looking doomed not this week but last week, when it debuted at that lofty Hot 100 position. I’ve started to refer to it as the High-Debut Paradox: in the four-plus years since iTunes has become a Hot 100 factor, week-one appearances in the chart’s upper reaches are often a sign not of strength but weakness. From Beyoncé’s short-lived “Ring the Alarm” in 2006 to the Jonas Brothers’ many high-debuting, quick-fizzling singles in 2008 and 2009, a huge debut almost always means one thing: the rabid fanbase is jumping online to buy, but there’s little significant airplay or support from more casual fans. About the only recent exception I can think of is Pink’s chart-topping “So What” from last fall, which debuted in the Top 10 and then shocked me by moving even higher; but that’s just the exception that proves my rule.

A truly strong single, like recent hits by Kelly Clarkson and Flo Rida, starts low on the charts because radio jumps on it early; then, a couple of weeks later, when that first blast of iTunes sales hits, the song makes a massive leap. Sales and airplay are rarely perfectly in sync, but in the latter scenario they are closer to working together than they are in the Carey scenario, where hardcore fans are satisfied long before radio develops an interest. To be fair, “Obsessed” is not a total radio flop; it ranks 40th on the all-airplay list, not shabby for a track in its third week on the air (on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart, the song is in its fifth week, and it’s up to a very solid No. 23). Still, this not-shabby performance is not acceptable for an act of Carey’s stature; if there’s no major course correction next week, expect a replacement single to drop with a quickness.


• A somewhat more promising debut comes this week from Shakira, whose “She Wolf” materializes at No. 34. That not-too-hot, not-too-cold start augurs well for the disco-revival jam, which debuts on the all-airplay list at a strong No. 56 while selling 38,000 downloads in its first week online. Sales at iTunes have already cooled, but as long as airplay holds up decently, expect the track to knock around the middle reaches of the Hot 100 for a bit before getting a boost from the release of its predictably “sexy” music video next week.


• My commenters have been noting its progress for weeks, but the other day when I heard Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody” in regular midday rotation on Z100 New York—an urban über-pop station that plays guitar rock pretty much only at gunpoint—I finally accepted that the song’s pop crossover was real. I would’ve guessed that the perky song with “Sex” in the title would be the one to deliver the Kings to Top 40 radio, but this trad-rock semi-ballad is doing the trick.

This is the second appearance by “Use Somebody” in the pop Top 20 (it topped the Alternative chart back in April). But arguably, this week’s leap from No. 21 to No. 11 is more substantive than its first appearance in June (No. 19, on the chart dated June 20). Back then, the song was reacting to a momentary burst of iTunes sales following the band’s performance on the MTV Movie Awards. This time, it’s rising thanks to good old-fashioned sales and airplay. It’s up about 22,000 downloads this week on the Digital Songs chart (see below), and up a huge 15 places on the all-radio Hot 100 Airplay list; it’s now the 17th most-played song in the country, an impressive showing for a song getting zero R&B/hip-hop radio play and that already peaked at rock radio. With that kind of momentum both at radio and on iTunes—as of this writing, the song’s actually ranked second there—expect the Kings to score their first actual pop Top 10 hit next week.


• Another item Maura’s been reporting: the online comeback by Chris Brown’s 2008 smash “Forever” thanks to its use in a smash YouTube video by newlyweds Jill and Kevin. To pour a bit of cold water over Brown’s redemption (while others are throwing rice and wiping their eyes), “Forever” will not be reappearing on the Hot 100 next week, no matter what the song does on iTunes or Amazon this week. Like Michael’s Jackson’s recent parade of memorial comeback hits, “Forever” is an already-retired Billboard hit that had a full chart run and will not be permitted to reenter.

Still: as with his hero Michael, Brown will be allowed to chart next week on the Digital Songs list, and I’m taking bets now on how many buck-a-songs the recently disgraced pop star will move. Keep in mind that the Jill-and-Kevin video broke in the middle of a tracking week, with most of the serious iTunes action starting sometime yesterday. So I’m going to guess around 20,000 to 40,000, depending on how viral the video gets before Sunday night. That might be enough to put Brown’s year-old hit somewhere in the Digital Songs top 40, but the Top 10 is probably out of the question unless “Forever” has a really, really good weekend. That said, if you see your digitally conversant mother or aunt watching the video and clicking over to iTunes in the next 48 hours, bump my prediction a few thousand higher.

Top 10s
(Billboard issue date August 1, 2009; based on data collected July 13-19)
Last week’s position and total weeks charted in parentheses (Digital Songs chart includes total downloads/percentage change in parentheses):

Hot 100
1. The Black Eyed Peas, “I Gotta Feeling” (LW No. 1, 6 weeks)
2. Drake, “Best I Ever Had” (LW No. 3, 11 weeks)
3. Taylor Swift, “You Belong with Me” (LW No. 6, 13 weeks)
4. Keri Hilson feat. Kanye West and Ne-Yo, “Knock You Down” (LW No. 4, 17 weeks)
5. Sean Kingston, “Fire Burning” (LW No. 5, 11 weeks)
6. The Black Eyed Peas, “Boom Boom Pow” (LW No. 3, 19 weeks)
7. Lady GaGa, “LoveGame” (LW No. 7, 14 weeks)
8. Pitbull, “I Know You Want Me” (LW No. 8, 21 weeks)
9. Jeremih, “Birthday Sex” (LW No. 7, 15 weeks)
10. Katy Perry, “Waking Up in Vegas” (LW No. 12, 12 weeks)

Hot Digital Songs
1. The Black Eyed Peas, “I Gotta Feeling” (LW No. 1, 219,000 downloads)
2. Drake, “Best I Ever Had” (LW No. 4, 141,000 downloads)
3. Sean Kingston, “Fire Burning” (LW No. 7, 116,000 downloads)
4. Taylor Swift, “You Belong with Me” (LW No. 12, 110,000 downloads)
5. The Black Eyed Peas, “Boom Boom Pow” (LW No. 5, 107,000 downloads)
6. Hannah Montana, “He Could Be the One” (LW No. 2, 93,000 downloads)
7. Cobra Starship feat. Leighton Meester, “Good Girls Go Bad” (LW No. 26, 92,000 downloads)
8. Demi Lovato, “Here We Go Again” (LW No. 49, 88,000 downloads)
9. Lady GaGa, “LoveGame” (LW No. 15, 85,000 downloads)
10. Kings of Leon, “Use Somebody” (LW No. 28, 83,000 downloads)

Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
1. Drake, “Best I Ever Had” (LW No. 1, 14 weeks)
2. Maxwell, “Pretty Wings” (LW No. 5, 12 weeks)
3. Young Money, “Every Girl” (LW No. 2, 15 weeks)
4. Beyoncé, “Ego” (LW No. 3, 10 weeks)
5. Mario feat. Gucci Mane & Sean Garrett, “Break Up” (LW No. 6, 9 weeks)
6. Ginuwine, “Last Chance” (LW No. 7, 21 weeks)
7. Keri Hilson feat. Kanye West and Ne-Yo, “Knock You Down” (LW No. 4, 18 weeks)
8. Twista, “Wetter (Calling You Daddy)” (LW No. 9, 16 weeks)
9. Trey Songz, “I Need a Girl” (LW No. 8, 19 weeks)
10. Keyshia Cole with Monica, “Trust” (LW No. 11, 13 weeks)

Hot Country Songs
1. Billy Currington, “People Are Crazy” (LW No. 2, 20 weeks)
2. Darius Rucker, “Alright” (LW No. 5, 15 weeks)
3. Lady Antebellum, “I Run to You” (LW No. 2, 27 weeks)
4. Taylor Swift, “You Belong with Me” (LW No. 6, 14 weeks)
5. Zac Brown Band, “Whatever It Is” (LW No. 3, 28 weeks)
6. Dierks Bentley, “Sideways” (LW No. 4, 21 weeks)
7. Rascal Flatts, “Summer Nights” (LW No. 7, 14 weeks)
8. Randy Houser, “Boots On” (LW No. 9, 22 weeks)
9. George Strait, “Living for the Night” (LW No. 10, 8 weeks)
10. Jason Aldean, “Big Green Tractor” (LW No. 13, 10 weeks)

Hot Alternative Tracks
1. Linkin Park, “New Divide” (LW No. 1, 9 weeks)
2. Silversun Pickups, “Panic Switch” (LW No. 2, 19 weeks)
3. Cage the Elephant, “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” (LW No. 3, 18 weeks)
4. Green Day, “21 Guns” (LW No. 4, 9 weeks)
5. Shinedown, “Sound of Madness” (LW No. 7, 15 weeks)
6. Kings of Leon, “Use Somebody” (LW No. 5, 27 weeks)
7. Anberlin, “Feel Good Drag” (LW No. 6, 42 weeks)
8. Manchester Orchestra, “I’ve Got Friends” (LW No. 8, 17 weeks)
9. Kings of Leon, “Notion” (LW No. 10, 8 weeks)
10. Franz Ferdinand, “No You Girls” (LW No. 9, 20 weeks)

It’s not all that surprising that the wake of Michael Jackson’s death has resulted in the pop titan possessing more than a third of the slots on the current iTunes Top 100. But the top-selling song on that chart is an unexpected one: It’s “Man In The Mirror,” the inspirational track from his 1987 album Bad that spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 the following spring.

“Man In The Mirror” was by no means a minor hit for Jackson, and a good portion of its current chart success relative to monster tracks in his catalogue like “Beat It” and “Thriller” can probably be ascribed to the simple fact that a lot of people likely own those songs already–or are buying the album, which occupies Nos. 2 and 5 on the iTunes Store’s album chart. But part of me can’t help but wonder if the success of the pleading, self-motivating “Mirror” is also a sign that people are growing weary of the age of degraded celebrity, of which Jackson served as a sort of founding father and to which he will probably continue to be essential long after his death. Perez Hilton–whose pink-clad rump has been the ass of the nu-gilded age and its tailspin into being confused over whether it loves, despises, or wants to be part of the “famous” crowd–has spent much of this week melting down; the just-as-vile TMZ, meanwhile, is using its scooping of everyone else on the news that Jackson had passed on yesterday as a springboard into being taken seriously as a news source:

If the lack of widespread credit bothered Harvey Levin, the managing editor of TMZ, he wasn’t admitting it.


“That’s typical,” Levin said during a phone interview when asked about rivals’ hesitation to credit the site. “No matter what they say, people know we broke the story. That’s how competitors handle it. There’s no issue about our credibility.


“Today I made 100 phone calls, and everyone else made 100 calls,” Levin said of his staff. “Everyone blanketed the city. . . . We were getting calls from everyone under the sun, established news operations, asking, ‘Are you sure?’ That’s such an odd question. We would not have published it if it were not true.”

I know that on a personal level, my antipathy toward crediting TMZ as the lone source was the possibility that doing so would legitimize its other, grosser antics. Which they will probably continue to engage in, and which will probably continue to cause a lot of stomach-churning, hand-wringing, and insane traffic spikes. But for how much longer?


The full roster of Michael Jackson tracks on the iTunes chart as of this writing:



iTunes [Apple]
Michael Jackson – Man In The Mirror [Dailymotion]

Over at the iTunes Store, the person responsible for writing Kris Allen’s winners-circle copy is either still mentally recovering from being reminded of “Big Girls Don’t Cry (Personal)” during last night’s American Idol or slyly noting that the sales data for this year’s studio versions of Idol performances has finally been released, and that at the moment Adam Lambert has nine and a half songs in the store’s top 100 to Kris’ seven. (There’s also an errant “win” on Adam’s page, aw.) [iTunes; HT TwigLA @ MJ's Big Blog]

It’s now been just over a month since Apple flipped the switch at the iTunes Music Store and gave the major labels what they wanted: higher-priced hit singles.

Since April 7, downloads at the world’s largest music retailer have varied in price–from 69 cents for hundreds of low-profile catalog tracks to $1.29 for best-sellers, both new and vintage. For most observers, the question has been what effect these changes would have on what remains of the music industry, and, to a lesser extent, on Apple’s bottom line.

But I’m equally interested in how it might affect Billboard‘s Hot 100.

You can’t figure this out by looking at the top of the chart. One song, the Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow,” has been No. 1 that entire time. And for reasons that remain, aesthetically, a mystery to me, it seems that people will buy it at almost any price (it was 99 cents its first week on sale, $1.29 thereafter). Nothing has threatened the Peas’ dominance, priced at 99 cents or otherwise.

Instead, to really get a sense of it, you have to look at a hit that’s in the middle of the pack: big enough to matter, but modest enough to provide a useful test case. Let’s give it a shot, by comparing two tracks by new acts that were, respectively, the fastest-rising sales hits of March and May–just before and just after the switch. And while these songs emerge from different sides of the pop spectrum (quite literally), they’re both youth-oriented, seemingly viral in their chart rise, and kinda dumb.


Each week on the Hot 100, Billboard rewards one or two songs with its “Greatest Gainer” designation. One song is highlighted for the biggest increase in digital sales, the other for the largest gain in radio airplay. During some slow weeks where no song gains much, one of the prizes might not be rewarded; very occasionally, a single, fast-rising song wins both prizes.

On this week’s Hot 100, we have a double-winner: newcomer Jeremih’s R&B boudoir jam “Birthday Sex.” (Which is about…well, why don’t you guess?) Billboard notes that it’s rare for a song below the Top 10 to pull this double prize off. The song leaps 10 notches to No. 13 and sees the biggest gain in both radio spins (up 12 million “audience impressions,” in Broadcast Data parlance) and digital sales (up about 11,000 downloads). It’s the second week in a row “Birthday Sex” has won the airplay designation and, more pertinent for our discussion here, its first winning the sales prize.

At five weeks old, “Birthday Sex” has spent its entire chart career in the post-99-cents era. Even more interestingly, Island Def Jam/Universal launched the song at 99 cents and kept it there, not at the new $1.29 level more prevalent for hits. (About two-thirds of iTunes’ current 100 best-selling songs are at the higher level.)

Let’s compare that with another flash-in-the-pan hit from the tail end of the previous iTunes era: Asher Roth’s “I Love College,” which was a fast riser in March and for one week also won the Greatest Gainer / Digital Sales prize. “College”–released by another Universal family label, Motown–never made it into the Top 10 (thank heavens). It peaked at No. 12, one space above where “Birthday Sex” is this week. When “College” won Greatest Gainer, it was four weeks old, just one week younger than “Birthday” is this week.

This is as close to a controlled experiment as you get in chart analysis: two debut singles, priced the same, each equally old when it peaked, released by the same label group, both released ahead of their respective albums (so there’s no album-vs.-single sales competition to muddy the waters), and both peaking in the Hot 100′s mid-teens. (Jeremih’s hit may go higher next week, but that’s immaterial for our purposes.) The fact that the two songs are also lyrically a bit lewd and appeal to a certain subset of snickering teenagers probably doesn’t hurt either.

The main difference is that, for Jeremih, a 99-cent price should be a big chart advantage against a field of mostly more expensive singles. When Roth peaked, everything was at that price. Is the lower price helping Jeremih?

The short answer is, not much. That might be good news for proponents of the higher price point–it suggests a lower price doesn’t provide an outsized chart advantage. Than again, it might be bad news for the labels, if it means the whole field of hit songs has been weakened by the price change.

The most obvious factor to check is chart position. In this, its Greatest Gainer week, the No. 13–ranked “Birthday” is higher on the chart than “College” was the week it earned Greatest Gainer (No. 17). Still, four notches isn’t much, and it can be mostly explained away by airplay; Roth’s hit never seriously caught on at radio, whereas Jeremih’s is already a Top 10 hit at R&B/Hip-Hop radio. If anything, with all that airplay, a strong-selling hit like “Birthday Sex” should probably rank higher by now.

To really judge these two songs’ performance, you have to go beneath chart positions and look at the raw data. The week Roth’s “College” reached its ultimate peak of No. 12, it sold nearly 110,000 downloads. This week, when Jeremih reaches a nearly identical No. 13, “Birthday” only shifts 57,000. When it won Greatest Gainer, “College” had shifted a lifetime total of 453,000 downloads; as of this week, GG-winner “Birthday” has moved only 150,000 cumulatively.

Those are pretty staggering differences. If “Birthday” were priced at the new $1.29 level, you’d immediately leap to the conclusion that the higher price damaged its sales potential. But remember, it’s at 99 cents. Why would a hit of roughly equal magnitude to its earlier labelmate sell so much less at the same price point? And why would it so easily win the Gainer prize even while selling so moderately?

I’ll throw in one more data point to try to answer that last question: total digital sales of everything. I only have figures for the top 200 bestsellers for each week, but in mid-March when Roth earned the Gainer prize, the 200 top digital sellers moved a total of 5.26 million copies; this week, they move a total of 4.57 million. That’s a 13% difference. (And if anything, sales should have been better during the most recent tracking week, which included Mother’s Day; gift-giving holidays tend to boost overall music sales.)

Simply put, digital sales are just weaker now overall than they were two months ago, so “Birthday Sex” is swimming in a smaller pond.

Yes, a 99-cent price point is helping Jeremih against his $1.29 peers. But the sales totals both for his hit and the hits surrounding him suggest consumers are adjusting to the new reality and visiting iTunes (and its competitors, like Amazon, which also raised song prices) less frequently.

Obviously, Roth vs. Jeremih is still not a perfect A-to-B comparison. Beyond their youth appeal, the audiences for the two songs are pretty different; “Birthday” clearly appeals to the grown-n-sexy crowd in a way Asher Roth wouldn’t. The chart competition in March, when Roth was on the rise, could have been more heated than it is now (it kind of feels that way, as we head into a summer season devoid of serious booming-Jeep jams). Finally, since March, more people have lost their jobs as the recession has deepened. All sorts of vagaries go into why a song becomes a hit and peaks where and when it does, and why people decide they have the disposable income to buy that hit.

Nonetheless, I don’t think these vagaries can entirely explain away how a hit from two months ago sold two to three times as much as a similar-sized hit right now.

I’ve been saying here for a while now that it’ll take months for us to really judge the full effects of variable iTunes pricing. But early signs like this ominously suggest that a chunk of consumers are breaking the for-pay habit when it comes to acquiring hit singles. And I’m still betting that a label is eventually going to get desperate enough to score a hit with a priority act and try to lap the field by pricing their single at 69 cents. If overall sales get low enough, just watch.


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

• Drat! I was almost right when I predicted, two weeks ago, that an American Idol appearance would lift Jamie Foxx to the Hot 100′s penthouse with “Blame It” (the closest thing to a summer-Jeep anthem we have, even though its release dates back to December). But last week, Foxx peaked at No. 2, as a sales boost brought him to 105,000 downloads; this week, he’s back down to No. 3, while the damned Peas maintain their lock at No. 1 with “Boom Boom Pow.” “Blame It” remains the nation’s most-played radio hit–but what good does that do us now? “Boom,” on top of the Hot 100 for their sixth week, will likely remain there for a seventh.

Will no one rid me of these meddlesome Peas? Right now, about the best hope for somebody evicting “Boom” is the song it evicted a month and a half ago, Lady GaGa’s “Poker Face,” which drifts back up to No. 2 and just keeps spinning and selling (No. 2 at radio and in digital sales). Alas.


• Speaking of Idol boosts, Chris Daughtry’s prodigal-son return to the show last week worked wonders for his self-titled band’s new single. “No Surprise” debuts at No. 15, thanks to first-week download sales of 104,000.

That’s not only his best Hot 100 debut. It’s also–follow me here–the second-best debut by a former Idol finalist after his/her debut album. That might sound like a hair-splitting data point. But as we’ve discussed here before, debut singles and albums from the Idols are always outliers, thanks to the promotional boost competing on the show provides; a much better indicator of the act’s career is seeing how they do when they come back a year or two later. The top-ranked returning Idol is, natch, Kelly Clarkson, who debuted all the way up at No. 8 in 2007 with “Never Again,” the leadoff single from her ill-fated third album My December.

Daughtry’s second-place ranking on this rareified list of returning Idols might be short-lived. Next week, we’ll probably see a fat debut by Season 6 winner Jordin Sparks, who performed her Ryan Tedder-penned new single “Battlefield” on the show this week and is already highly ranked at iTunes.


• You can’t tell by looking at the Modern Rock Top 10 below, but it’s a pretty good week for woman-fronted acts on that chart. One of the biggest airplay gains goes to the No. 18–ranked “Zero” from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. It’s their third-ever single on this chart and third Top 20 hit; each of their albums has produced exactly one Modern Rock hit, including 2004′s “Maps” (No. 9) and 2006′s “Gold Lion” (No. 14).

Meanwhile, all the way at the bottom of the list, the week’s only debut is by the Emily Haines–fronted Canadian new-wave revivalists Metric, who make their first-ever chart appearance at No. 40 with “Help, I’m Alive.”


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. The Black Eyed Peas, “Boom Boom Pow” (LW No. 1, 9 weeks)
2. Lady GaGa, “Poker Face” (LW No. 3, 21 weeks)
3. Jamie Foxx feat. T-Pain, “Blame It” (LW No. 4, 17 weeks)
4. Kid Cudi, “Day ‘N’ Nite” (LW No. 4, 17 weeks)
5. Beyoncé, “Halo” (LW No. 8, 16 weeks)
6. Flo Rida feat. Wynter, “Sugar” (LW No. 5, 8 weeks)
7. Soulja Boy feat. Sammie, “Kiss Me Thru the Phone” (LW No. 5, 20 weeks)
8. 3OH!3, “Don’t Trust Me” (LW No. 9, 22 weeks)
9. Flo Rida, “Right Round” (LW No. 6, 15 weeks)
10. Miley Cyrus, “The Climb” (LW No. 11, 10 weeks)

Hot Digital Songs
1. The Black Eyed Peas, “Boom Boom Pow” (LW No. 1, 206,000 downloads)
2. Lady GaGa, “Poker Face” (LW No. 2, 113,000 downloads)
3. 3OH!3, “Don’t Trust Me” (LW No. 5, 113,000 downloads)
4. Jamie Foxx feat. T-Pain, “Blame It” (LW No. 4, XXX,000 downloads)
5. Kid Cudi, “Day ‘N’ Nite” (LW No. 6, 106,000 downloads)
6. Flo Rida feat. Wynter, “Sugar ” (LW No. 3, 104,000 downloads)
7. Daughtry, “No Surprises” (CHART DEBUT, 104,000 downloads)
8. Beyoncé, “Halo” (LW No. 8, 88,000 downloads)
9. Eminem feat. Dr. Dre, “Old Time’s Sake” (CHART DEBUT, 88,000 downloads)
10. Miley Cyrus, “The Climb” (LW No. 7, 88,000 downloads)

Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
1. Jamie Foxx feat. T-Pain, “Blame It” (LW No. 1, 22 weeks)
2. Jeremih, “Birthday Sex” (LW No. 7, 10 weeks)
3. Soulja Boy, “Turn My Swag On,” (LW No. 3, 17 weeks)
4. Pleasure P, “Boyfriend #2″ (LW No. 2, 15 weeks)
5. Kid Cudi, “Day ‘N’ Nite” (LW No. 9, 12 weeks)
6. Jennifer Hudson, “If This Isn’t Love” (LW No. 5, 26 weeks)
7. Keri Hilson feat. Kanye West and Ne-Yo, “Knock Me Down” (LW No. 11, 8 weeks)
8. The-Dream, “Rockin’ That Thang” (LW No. 4, 23 weeks)
9. Ciara feat. Young Jeezy, “Never Ever” (LW No. 10, 16 weeks)
10. Keri Hilson feat. Lil Wayne, “Turnin’ Me On” (LW No. 6, 25 weeks)

Hot Country Songs
1. Sugarland, “It Happens” (LW No. 3, 13 weeks)
2. Carrie Underwood feat. Randy Travis, “I Told You So” (LW No. 2, 17 weeks)
3. Jason Aldean, “She’s Country” (LW No. 1, 25 weeks)
4. Brad Paisley, “Then” (LW No. 6, 8 weeks)
5. Keith Urban, “Kiss a Girl” (LW No. 7, 9 weeks)
6. Kenny Chesney, “Out Last Night” (LW No. 9, 7 weeks)
7. Montgomery Gentry, “One in Every Crowd” (LW No. 8, 16 weeks)
8. Rascal Flatts, “Here Comes Goodbye” (LW No. 5, 16 weeks)
9. Rodney Atkins, “It’s America” (LW No. 4, 26 weeks)
10. Dierks Bentley, “Sideways” (LW No. 10, 11 weeks)

Hot Modern Rock Tracks
1. Green Day, “Know Your Enemy” (LW No. 1, 4 weeks)
2. Kings of Leon, “Use Somebody” (LW No. 2, 17 weeks)
3. 311, “Hey You” (LW No. 3, 5 weeks)
4. Rise Against, “Audience of One” (LW No. 5, 19 weeks)
5. Silversun Pickups, “Panic Switch” (LW No. 7, 9 weeks)
6. Anberlin, “Feel Good Drag” (LW No. 4, 32 weeks)
7. Seether, “Careless Whisper” (LW No. 6, 11 weeks)
8. Cage the Elephant, “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” (LW No. 10, 8 weeks)
9. Incubus, “Black Heart Inertia” (LW No. 9, 6 weeks)
10. Papa Roach, “Lifeline” (LW No. 8, 17 weeks)

The latest update to Nine Inch Nails’ iPhone application has been rejected by the content czars at Apple. Why? Because it contained “obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials”–namely, “The Downward Spiral,” which is one of the songs on a podcast that could be streamed to the application. As you might expect, Nine Inch Nails main man Trent Reznor has some thoughts!

Now, “The Downward Spiral” the album is not available anywhere in the iPhone app. The song “The Downward Spiral” I believe is in a podcast that can be streamed to the app.
Thanks Apple for the clear description of the problem – as in, what do you want us to change to get past your stupid fucking standards?
And while we’re at it, I’ll voice the same issue I had with Wal-Mart years ago, which is a matter of consistency and hypocrisy. Wal-Mart went on a rampage years ago insisting all music they carry be censored of all profanity and “clean” versions be made for them to carry. Bands (including Nirvana) tripped over themselves editing out words, changing album art, etc to meet Wal-Mart’s standards of decency – because Wal-Mart sells a lot of records. NIN refused, and you’ll notice a pretty empty NIN section at any Wal-Mart. My reasoning was this: I can understand if you want the moral posturing of not having any “indecent” material for sale – but you could literally turn around 180 degrees from where the NIN record would be and purchase the film “Scarface” completely uncensored, or buy a copy of Grand Theft Auto where you can be rewarded for beating up prostitutes. How does that make sense?
You can buy The Downward Fucking Spiral on iTunes, but you can’t allow an iPhone app that may have a song with a bad word somewhere in it. Geez, what if someone in the forum in our app says FUCK or CUNT? I suppose that also falls into indecent material. Hey Apple, I just got some SPAM about fucking hot asian teens THROUGH YOUR MAIL PROGRAM. I just saw two guys having explicit anal sex right there in Safari! On my iPhone!
Come on Apple, think your policies through and for fuck’s sake get your app approval scenario together.

Trent posted this on the nin.com message board, so of course fans lined up behind him to say witty things like “FAIL” and call Apple “Sour Apple.” (He later pointed out that he still liked Apple and the iPhone, but wasn’t so crazy about the weird standards and practices policies that make The Downward Spiral available on the music store, but not to iPhone users.) Of course, the NIN app isn’t the only one that has had to alter its content to adhere to Apple’s standards–indeed, my phone boasts Candy Wars, which is the iPhone-scrubbed version of the popular phone game DopeWars. Still, I do have to wonder if this means that, say, the Top 100 iTunes Songs app only streams the clean versions of tracks, although I fear having to listen to that 3OH!3 song in order to find out.


NIN iPhone App Rejection [nin.com]

Here’s an elevator pitch for cash/idea-strapped music video channels, courtesy of the blogosphere: “You know what would be amazing? If say, MTV or VH1, or Fuse partnered with iTunes to make ‘albums’ of their Top 10/20/50 countdowns. The weekly ones and the ones that are themed (like, Most Influential Songs of the 90’s or whatever). Then you could buy the countdowns (videos, or audio) like you would albums.” I also like the idea of doing this in reverse, with one of those channels giving up a chunk of time to a show that counts down iTunes’ top albums, or even music videos. Hey, it’s at least a little more legit than VH1′s street-team-abused Top 20 show, right? (Yes, that’s still on! I know!) [mover&shaker]

Let’s imagine that in 1992, just after Nevermind peaked, Dave Grohl took a break from Nirvana to form Foo Fighters. I mean, why not? Grohl was a gun for hire, at least the sixth drummer to sit in with the band before they finally broke big. And let’s say he scored some of those juicy Foos radio hits right away: “This Is a Call,” “Big Me,” maybe “Monkey Wrench” too.

And then imagine he came back in ’93 to Nirvana in time for In Utero, making them even bigger than they already were—not just reliable album-sellers but the kind of band able to score regular Top 40 radio hits. Grohl would be transformed, from Kurt Cobain’s potent-but-silent sidekick, to coequal band focal point.

It’s a little hard to imagine for all sorts of reasons, not least the fact that Grohl was too respectful of Cobain to form his own project until both Kurt and the band were dead and gone. But the scheduling is also fanciful—who has that kind of time, to get a successful solo career going while keeping up with a best-selling group?

The fact is, it’s exceedingly rare for a successful side project to not only coexist with the original group but bring that stalwart act to new pop-chart heights. In fact, in chart history, it’s only happened three times (really, more like two and a half).

The third of these three acts is this week sitting atop Billboard‘s Hot 100, in the form of the Black Eyed Peas*. “Boom Boom Pow” is, oddly, the act’s first No. 1—but it’s gun-for-hire Fergie’s fourth.


While I was off last week, the Black Eyed Peas set a digital-sales record for most downloads in a single week by a group: they sold 465,000 copies of “Boom Boom Pow,” nearly doubling the previous record, 253,000, set by Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” last June. (Again, this is for groups; after Flo Rida’s still-inexplicable record in February selling 636,000 copies of “Right Round,” all sales marks pale in comparison.)

The Peas’ fat first-week sales total hurtled “Boom” from No. 39 to No. 1, as predicted; and while the song’s sales are down by more than a quarter this week, their second-frame total of 335,000 still gives them a massive advantage over any other challenger for the penthouse. Not even Eminem, currently racking up big sales at iTunes for his just-dropped single “We Made You,” stands much of a chance of evicting the Peas next week or anytime soon.

“Boom Boom Pow” is the first Peas release since Fergie stepped away for the multiplatinum solo project The Dutchess, which spawned five Top Five hits, including three No. 1s: “London Bridge,” “Glamorous” and “Big Girls Don’t Cry.” When “Boom” ascended to No. 1 last week, the Peas became the first group to score their first chart-topper after a solo member had already done so since 2000—and, again, only the third in the entire Rock Era.

Of the other two acts, one of them barely counts: Matchbox 20, who spent a single week at No. 1 with the unmemorable “Bent” in 2000, one year after frontman Rob Thomas received featured-artist credit on Santana’s über-smash “Smooth.” Sure, Thomas deserved the Santana credit—he cowrote the song and sang it. But it’s dubious to claim his solo career began in earnest in 1999; it took him another half-decade to record a solo album. Plus, the only reason Matchbox 20 hadn’t scored a chart-topper earlier was the Billboard chart rule in effect prior to 1998 that required a song to be released as a single to appear on the Hot 100. When the band had its biggest radio hits in 1997–98, album-only tracks like “Push” or “3 A.M.” likely would have been chart-toppers had the rule not been in effect. Bottom line, Matchbox 20’s inclusion on this short list of solo-career-stoking chart-toppers feels like an accident.

The other act, however, is basically indisputable: Genesis, who finally went to No. 1 in 1986 with “Invisible Touch,” after Phil Collins had already scored his first four No. 1 hits in 1984–85 (“Against All Odds,” “One More Night,” “Sussudio” and “Separate Lives”). Collins had arguably the most successful dual-track career in pop history, as his megaplatinum solo career coexisted with that of Genesis for about a dozen years.

It’s not unusual for a singer to break away from his band for a brief solo project and return. John Lennon did so in 1969 before the Beatles dropped Abbey Road, for example, and in the ’70s both Michael Jackson and Donny Osmond scored chart-toppers before returning to their respective bands of brothers. It’s also not all that rare for a coexisting side project to improve the home team’s fortunes—a recent example would be Jack White, who, after his first Raconteurs album, came back to the White Stripes and produced Icky Thump (No. 2, 2007), the duo’s highest-charting (if not highest-selling) album.

But Collins-Genesis feels like the signal historical example, because there’s such an obvious correlation between Collins’s ever-increasing chart profile in the ’80s and the band’s subsequent success. Collins wrote the group’s first Top 20 single (“Misunderstanding,” No. 14, 1980), then sang their first Top 10 (“That’s All,” No. 6, 1983) after scoring one of his own (“You Can’t Hurry Love,” No. 10, 1982). By ’86, when he came back to Genesis to record its sole chart-topper, the group was fully primed by his general ubiquity to shoot to the top—not unlike the Fergie-Peas situation.

One other thing Phil Collins and Stacy Ferguson have in common is their arriviste status. Both Genesis and the Black Eyed Peas were two albums into their respective existences when Collins and Fergie showed up. And Collins took longer to have an obvious impact. Fergie was vocalizing upon arrival in 2003; but Collins joined Genesis in 1970 mainly as a drummer—he sang no more than a few backing vocals until Peter Gabriel departed the group in 1975, giving Collins the frontman spot by default.

(In one other bit of weird chart convergence, in the summer of ’86, it was Gabriel who booted Genesis from the No. 1 spot when “Sledgehammer” replaced “Invisible Touch.” Call it the last ass-kick.)

Now, at this point I should probably acknowledge what some of you are probably thinking: Isn’t it a little incongruous, maybe even insulting, to compare Phil Collins to Fergie? (Of course, to you Collins-haters out there, he and the Ferg are probably just two forms of schlock-making evil.) I admit, in most ways, they’re apples and oranges. I don’t want to be condescending to Fergie; she does (supposedly) cowrite much of her material, and she paid her dues in the near-hit ’90s pop act Wild Orchid. But at the risk of sounding like an unbridled rockist, it’s hard to regard her solo career as anything organic. Collins famously recorded most of his 1981 debut Face Value alone, at home, and dithered about releasing it until legendary Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun encouraged him to do so. By contrast, Fergie’s 2006 debut The Dutchess was produced by a multidisciplinary team at Interscope Records with premeditation that’d make the D-Day planners gasp.

No, the reason I’m digging through all this Collins-Fergie trivia is trying to identify the peculiar set of circumstances that allows a late-arriving group member with solo potential to help, not hurt, the band he/she joins.

The arriviste thing, I think, matters—when a singer’s identity is hardwired from the start by the group’s identity, being able to float in and out of a solo career becomes impossible. Call it the Nicole Scherzinger principle: Interscope couldn’t do with her what it did with Fergie, because the Pussycat Dolls were the brand, not her. Or, going back 40 years: Diana Ross couldn’t conceivably have returned to the Supremes after 1970 (not that she needed to), because her persona had completely eclipsed the group. But Collins, the drummer-turned-accidental-singer, or Fergie, the starlet-turned-accidental-frontwoman, had malleable enough personas to permit them to form solo identities and then bring that brand value back to the group.

What all this means for Gwen Stefani—who’s back with No Doubt this year for a tour but hasn’t tried to record with them since her solo explosion—I can only guess.


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

• Speaking of D-Day-like release strategies: Disney’s unstoppable Operation Miley Cyrus is marching onwards. In the wake of the release of Hannah Montana: The Movie, six songs from the box-office topper post iTunes increases and rise on the Hot 100. That crop is led by the No. 8–ranked “The Climb,” the soundtrack’s lead single, which sells 190,000 downloads; that’s 37% more than the prior week and 14% higher than the track pulled when it debuted in March. Even if the movie cools this week, Cyrus’s performance of it on Wendesday’s American Idol results show might give it another boost next week. (It’s also continuing to… er, climb, very slowly, on the Country list, where it’s at No 41.)

Cyrus has scored multiple Hot 100 placements before, when she’s released a TV soundtrack or new pop album, but this time she’s sharing the wealth. In addition to her own Top 10 hit, the bounty includes songs from Cyrus pal Taylor Swift, one more from Cyrus herself and two more from alter ego Hannah Montana, and a duet with daddy Billy Ray. All told, the six charting soundtrack songs move 445,000 digital copies this week.


• This is the first chart week that includes digital sales data recorded after the April 7 launch of the $1.29 iTunes price point, and the results so far are encouraging for the industry. The top-selling 200 tracks—of which roughly half were at the new price and half at the old 99 cents—shifted a total of 5.81 million copies during the tracking week, as opposed to 5.74 million during the week prior. The labels probably shouldn’t start popping champagne yet, since Easter fell during the most recent tracking week, and holidays generally boost sales at music retailers (even digital ones). I would argue that word of the new price is just getting around to music buyers, whose behaviors might take some weeks to shift; it’ll take at least a month or two to get a read on how the higher price is affecting purchase patterns. But for now, the industry that fought Steve Jobs for half a decade for variable pricing can declare a small early victory.


• What is it with mook-rock bands and George Michael covers? Exactly a decade after Limp Bizkit’s remake of “Faith” introduced the world’s most hated band to the Modern Rock chart (No. 28, 1999), Seether’s equally head-scratching cover of the Wham!-era “Careless Whisper” makes the list’s Top 10. After a rise into the winner’s circle last week, this week the single’s up two notches to No. 6.

Billboard’s own Chart Beat column noted last week that “Careless” is “the first cover to reach the [Top 10] since 311′s reinvention of the Cure’s 1989 classic ‘Love Song’ rose to No. 1 in April 2004.” That’s interesting, but what if the Seether track goes all the way to the top? It would become only the fourth remake to top the list in its 20-year history. The other three No. 1 Modern covers were Sinéad O’Connor’s definitive redo of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2U” in 1990; Alien Ant Farm’s smirky Jacko remake “Smooth Criminal” in 2001; and the aforementioned 311 desecration of Robert Smith’s boudoir jam.


• lastweek anewsongby Musiq Soulchild enteredthe r&bchart top10. “sobeautiful” ishiseighth songtoreach thewinnerscircle, andhisseventh chartinghitoverall tohavealowercaseletteredtitle withallthewordsrunningtogether likethis. thisaffectation beganwith thenameof hisdebutalbum, Aijuswanaseing (2000), buthedidnt titlehis songsthatway backthen—thatalbum spawnedhitslike “Just Friends (Sunny)” and “Girl Next Door.” itwasntuntil hissophomoredisc, Juslisen (2002), thatallhissongs wentthatroute, includinghitslike “halfcrazy” (No. 2) and “dontchange” (No. 3). despiteremarkableconsistency onther&bchart since2000, Musiq hasneverhada No. 1, anditdoesntappearthat “sobeautiful” willchangethat; itsdown onespaceto No. 10 thisweek. soheresa suggestionfor Musiq: maybeitstime todropthis lowercaseandnospacesshtick andseeifsending radioprogrammers ahit theycanpronounce doesthetrick. worthatryright?


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. The Black Eyed Peas, “Boom Boom Pow” (LW No. 1, 5 weeks)
2. Lady GaGa, “Poker Face” (LW No. 2, 17 weeks)
3. Flo Rida, “Right Round” (LW No. 3, 11 weeks)
4. Soulja Boy feat. Sammie, “Kiss Me Thru the Phone” (LW No. 4, 16 weeks)
5. Jamie Foxx feat. T-Pain, “Blame It” (LW No. 5, 13 weeks)
6. T.I. feat. Justin Timberlake, “Dead and Gone” (LW No. 6, 19 weeks)
7. Kid Cudi, “Day ‘N’ Nite” (LW No. 7, 13 weeks)
8. Miley Cyrus, “The Climb” (LW No. 10, 6 weeks)
9. The Fray, “You Found Me” (LW No. 9, 21 weeks)
10. All-American Rejects, “Gives You Hell” (LW No. 8, 22 weeks)

Hot Digital Songs
1. The Black Eyed Peas, “Boom Boom Pow” (LW No. 1, 335,000 downloads)
2. Lady GaGa, “Poker Face” (LW No. 2, 204,000 downloads)
3. Miley Cyrus, “The Climb” (LW No. 5, 190,000 downloads)
4. Flo Rida, “Right Round” (LW No. 3, 180,000 downloads)
5. Kid Cudi, “Day ‘N’ Nite” (LW No. 6, 141,000 downloads)
6. Soulja Boy feat. Sammie, “Kiss Me Thru the Phone” (LW No. 4, 128,000 downloads)
7. Jamie Foxx feat. T-Pain, “Blame It” (LW No. 7, 122,000 downloads)
8. The Fray, “You Found Me” (LW No. 12, 111,000 downloads)
9. T.I. feat. Justin Timberlake, “Dead and Gone” (LW No. 10, 106,000 downloads)
10. All-American Rejects, “Gives You Hell” (LW No. 8, 104,000 downloads)

Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
1. Jamie Foxx feat. T-Pain, “Blame It” (LW No. 1, 18 weeks)
2. T.I. feat. Justin Timberlake, “Dead and Gone” (LW No. 3, 14 weeks)
3. Keri Hilson feat. Lil Wayne, “Turnin’ Me On” (LW No. 2, 21 weeks)
4. Soulja Boy feat. Sammie, “Kiss Me Thru the Phone” (LW No. 5, 16 weeks)
5. The-Dream, “Rockin’ That Thang” (LW No. 4, 19 weeks)
6. Ne-Yo, “Mad” (LW No. 6, 26 weeks)
7. Rick Ross feat. John Legend, “Magnificent” (LW No. 8, 11 weeks)
8. Soulja Boy, “Turn My Swag On,” (LW No. 15, 13 weeks)
9. Pleasure P, “Boyfriend #2″ (LW No. 13, 11 weeks)
10. Musiq Soulchild, “sobeautiful” (LW No. 9, 19 weeks)

Hot Country Songs
1. Rascal Flatts, “Here Comes Goodbye” (LW No. 6, 12 weeks)
2. Jake Owen, “Don’t Think I Can’t Love You” (LW No. 2, 35 weeks)
3. Jason Aldean, “She’s Country” (LW No. 5, 21 weeks)
4. Rodney Atkins, “It’s America” (LW No. 4, 22 weeks)
5. Carrie Underwood feat. Randy Travis, “I Told You So” (LW No. 9, 13 weeks)
6. Tim McGraw, “Nothin’ to Die For” (LW No. 8, 17 weeks)
7. Darius Rucker, “It Won’t Be Like This for Long” (LW No. 3, 26 weeks)
8. Sugarland, “It Happens” (LW No. 10, 9 weeks)
9. George Strait, “River of Love” (LW No. 1, 23 weeks)
10. Taylor Swift, “White Horse” (LW No. 7, 20 weeks)

Hot Modern Rock Tracks
1. Kings of Leon, “Use Somebody” (LW No. 2, 13 weeks)
2. Anberlin, “Feel Good Drag” (LW No. 2, 28 weeks)
3. Papa Roach, “Lifeline” (LW No. 4, 13 weeks)
4. Rise Against, “Audience of One” (LW No. 5, 15 weeks)
5. Pearl Jam, “Brother” (LW No. 3, 8 weeks)
6. Seether, “Careless Whisper” (LW No. 8, 7 weeks)
7. Blue October, “Dirt Room” (LW No. 7, 15 weeks)
8. The Airborne Toxic Event, “Sometime Around Midnight” (LW No. 6, 36 weeks)
9. Silversun Pickups, “Panic Switch” (LW No. 14, 5 weeks)
10. MGMT, “Kids” (LW No. 9, 22 weeks)


* I hereby apologize for mentioning Nirvana and the Black Eyed Peas in the same post.

It’s hard not to like Record Store Day, the homage to the indie record store taking place this Saturday. Lots of limited-edition merchandise will be on sale; bands will play in-store sessions; and the Record Store Day brand will take over the retail space at Coachella that was formerly held by Virgin Megastore. Someone saying “New Order 7-inch” is about all it takes to get me to throw my support behind any sort of function or event, but Luke Lewis at the NME takes a look on the other side of the fence.

Why on earth would someone be against nerd-coveted vinyl and parties? Why would the bad man say such awful things? Partially because he doesn’t know if record stores are worth saving.

But is this such an epic tragedy? I wonder if there’s an element of false nostalgia here. The particular kind of store people have in mind when this subject comes up – ie, a half-remembered realm where a clued-up expert would have the time to guide you through the new releases, make personal recommendations, and send you on your way – surely disappeared decades ago, if it ever existed.

Besides, many of these nostalgists are precisely the kind of music obsessives who would have spluttered with rage if any record store assistant had presumed to tell them what to listen to. Who relies on retailers to tell them what to listen to? Or music critics, for that matter. These days, we make our own discoveries.

I should know. I worked in an independent record shop in Amersham for four years. There was no time to make pally recommendations – we were too busy processing the big sellers in a frantic bid to turn a profit. Which ultimately failed. The store closed in 2003. It was replaced by a Robert Dyas.

The cold truth is that the fate of record stores is bound up with wider shifts in our economic behaviour. No-one could save Woolworths, because the niche it had catered for no longer existed. Similarly, commentators are up in arms about the plight of regional newspapers. But when was the last time you read one? Sometimes, the depressing conclusion is the only accurate one.

While I certainly understand the concept of getting people in the stores so that they might fall in love with the experience again, I get the feeling that Lewis might be right. I still buy a decent amount of music, and I might stop by to see what free stuff I can get my hands on Saturday, but if there’s something I decide that I want on Sunday, I’ll probably still end up buying it online. Certainly there are cities with great record stores still, but some places are stuck with indies staffed the employees who were left when the sort of experts that we might ideally remember helping us find a new band split for richer-than-minimum-wage pastures.

My first job in a record store was at an amazing place that was staffed with people who had the sort of encyclopedia-type knowledge that selling jazz, blues, and world music effectively calls for. Last year, that store shut down. I saw one of my former co-workers on Monday night, and he’s a lot happier actually making some money at a local musical instrument store. It’s consumers’ loss that he’s not around to help direct people towards Mingus’ Black Saint and the Sinner Lady these days, but asking him to do so for the sort of paycheck he was receiving is absurd, and I think if you asked him now, he would say he should have left indie music retail ages ago.

On the other hand, if you look at the sort of people who work in editorial at eMusic, Amazon, and iTunes, the collected expertise is astounding, and not knowing the specifics of the salary structures at those sites, I feel fairly certain that those experts are at least not feeling cheated by how they’re being compensated. The expertise that used to be bought out by access to an employee discount has moved on to blogs, where the proprietors can do what they love on the side, with the possibility of making a little extra cash. Sure, it’s nice that labels and stores are getting together on Saturday. But how long can it last?

‘Record Store Day’ Masks A Depressing Truth – We’ve Fallen Out Of Love With Buying Music [NME]

In a move that lots of people talked about—because this is the Internet and people have nothing better to do than discuss than the business practices of companies they have nothing to do with—iTunes last week instituted a variable pricing scheme whereby songs could go for more (or, presumably, less) than the $0.99 base rate they had been set at since the service’s inception. Shortly after the inception, some songs saw their price rise by thirty cents, to $1.29, prompting recent Billboard hire Glenn “Coolfer” Peoples to write an article about what effect the change had on the songs’ rankings in the iTunes charts. His conclusion: the hike resulted in a loss of sales, as the songs lost an average of 5.3 places on the charts two days after their price rose. While the general reaction seemed to be that this showed the higher prices to be a bad idea, the conclusion isn’t quite so straightforward.

The article prompted one wag to ask, “Does this prove that pop songs really are all the same?” Well, no. The money someone pays on iTunes for a song doesn’t represent the song’s worth; it represents the worth of the experience of listening to the song in the particular conditions iTunes offers, which is a very different thing. What would one person pay to have “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” say, exist, rather than not exist? That is the song’s worth.

An iTunes customer knows that the song is already there, and that conceivably they could just watch the video on MTV.com or YouTube, or borrow a friend’s CD, or whatever. That 99 cents is how much you think it’s worth to be able to have and keep the song on your computer and to transfer it to your iPod, both in terms of being able to listen to it in those forms and the ancillary benefit of the social status you might accrue from people seeing it in your iTunes library or on your iPod. More than anything about the fundamental nature of pop songs, this demonstrates how successful iTunes was in turning music into a fungible commodity. Music’s primary consumers (us?) know very well that there’s a big difference between one song and another, whether your metric be artistic quality, replay value, rarity, or coolness. But iTunes mainly wipes out those distinctions, at least for the music in its catalog. No longer does packaging matter, so you don’t buy something because it looks good on your shelf or is pleasing to touch. No longer does the effort required to acquire something matter, so you don’t buy something because you feel good about finding it. Though the charts still matter, marking a continued distinction between those who buy from the front of the store at Sam Goody and those who dig through the employee recommendations at Other Music, it’s hard to pretend they matter as much. While the secondary market still exists for true collectors, any other distinctions have been collapsed.

But mostly, these numbers just show a basic demand curve: the price went up a little, and demand went down a little. Nothing mysterious about that. It does, however, show how well-thought-out the original iTunes scheme was. In terms of cultivating a large audience, 99 cents was the more-or-less perfect price for an individual song. It seemed cheap if you really wanted the song, and a reasonable indulgence if you were just curious. For that three to five minute experience, a penny short of a dollar was perfect. And, as much as we may valorize small companies, it was only someone of Apple’s size that could come in. Tragedy of the commons, y’all: it’s in everyone’s interest to have a low price point, but any individual company wants it higher. So someone with Apple’s clout can come in and twist arms and send out very simple and unchangeable agreements and have that work. Meanwhile, Qtrax is saddled with so many limitations that it’s not workable.

The real point here, though, comes later in the piece:

The average final rank of the songs that dropped on the chart is about #45 and the average chart drop was about three positions. On the most recent Soundscan top track downloads chart, the difference between the #42 and the #45 chart position equals weekly sales of about 2,080 units, or about 300 units per day. A #42 track sells almost 9,800 downloads in two days. A #45 track sells just under 9,200 downloads in two days. The retail value of the #42 position over two days at $0.99 per track is about $9,700. The retail value of the lower #45 position over two days at the higher $1.29 price is about $11, 861. The increase of $0.30 per track offsets the drop in units sold by nearly $2,200 over two days.

The difference in rankings is magnified at higher positions on the chart. A song that drops from #7 to #10, for example, could lose about 4,500 units over two days but gain an incremental $3,600.

In other words, though the higher price may be bad for absolute sales numbers and chart position and mass appeal, it is better for profits. The Internet may not believe in profits anymore, but someone has to.

iTunes Price Changes Hurt Some Rankings [Billboard.biz]

When the iTunes Store introduced variable pricing earlier this week, 60% of the songs in the store’s top 10 had their prices hiked by 30 cents; as of this writing, eight of those 10 tracks are now priced at $1.29, with Kid Cudi’s “Day N’ Nite” and Jamie Foxx’s “Blame It” seeing price increases over the past two days. (Thanks, America, for keeping the top 10 pretty much static so a fair comparison between then and now can be made!)

The $0.99-$1.29 split in iTunes’ Top 100 songs list is now a 50-50ish split; perhaps unsurprisingly, none of the top sellers have seen their prices slashed to 69 cents just yet. To show people that there are bargains to be had, however, iTunes has also launched a couple of genre-specific “Great Songs At Great Prices” playlists hawking songs that saw their prices go down, like Hole’s “Miss World” and George Michael’s “Monkey.”

Meanwhile, Amazon MP3 continues to tinker with its pricing structure; the bulk of its top-selling songs are still at 99 cents, although “Day N’ Nite” is only 89 cents there. Curiously, most of the top-selling songs who have had their prices raised are by artists who record for Sony Music subsidiaries—Britney Spears, Ciara, Kelly Clarkson, Beyonce. Makes you wonder just how long the labels are going to want to experiment, or if some labels are still a bit invested in helping Amazon slice away some of Apple’s market share.

Earlier: iTunes’ Variable Pricing Launch: By The Numbers
Earlier: Amazon’s MP3 Pricing Plan: Looks Like They Went The “Pick Songs Out Of A Hat” Route

Sir Mix-A-Lot‘s ode to ladies’ larger-than-life posteriors “Baby Got Back” is now being used to sell kiddie meals for Burger King, with the help of SpongeBob SquarePants and the masked Burger King who’s been a staple of the fast-food emporium’s commercials since the subservient chicken era. How did a song that was seen as kind of racy when it was first released make the evolution to kid-testedness and motherly approval? Come with me as I take you on a Flash video-aided ride through “Baby Got Back”‘s hold on the world’s consciousness.

Let’s start things off with the original.

Shortly after that comes the parody, both of the form and the subject. Witness Jamie Foxx (as Trail-Mix-A-Lot) performing “Baby Got Snacks” on In Living Color back in the ’90s:

Eventually, enough time will have passed for “self-aware parody” to be OK. This is crucially different from its 10-years-earlier antecedent because what’s being made fun of more than the absurdity of the music itself is the way that people get really dumb when given the opportunity to perform it in front of others. Witness this 2003 ad for the iTunes Music Store.

From there, the Internet-famous Jonathan Coulton gave it the “still funny to some people” acoustic-guitar spin:

Which perhaps inevitably led to the Bible thumper “Baby Got Book.” Note the use of “oh my goodness” instead of “oh my God” in the intro! Righteous!

In retrospect, how could that not open the floodgates for the song to be OK for selling products to kids? Here’s an ad for backpacks (get it??) and other back-to-school gear at Target:

And, finally, the Burger King spot:

Sir mix a lot-baby got back [Dailymotion]
Jamie Foxx (as Trail-Mix-A-Lot) – “Baby Got Snacks” [YouTube]
Baby Got Book [YouTube]
Backpack Got Back [YouTube]
SpongeBob Got Back [YouTube]
Happy 5th Birthday, Subservient Chicken [Barbarian Group; HT sciencevsromance]
[HT shorterexcerpts]

Apple’s iTunes Store launched its variable pricing for music today, where certain songs will have their prices pumped up by 30 cents to $1.29. (Other songs will have their prices slashed to 69 cents.) A glance at the store’s top 100 songs shows that about one-third of the best-selling tracks have had their prices inflated—a number that includes the store’s top two songs as of this writing, the Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow” and Lady GaGa’s “Poker Face.” I’ll be checking back during the day to see if the inflated prices of those two songs results in their floating down the chart (or if the still-99-cent levy one has to pay for “The Climb” helps it out at all), but for now, here are a few other factoids I noticed about Day One of Apple’s experiment with economic theory:

Percentage of the Top 10 that had its price inflated: 60% (Black Eyed Peas, “Boom Boom Pow”; Lady GaGa, “Poker Face”; Flo Rida, “Right Round”; Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em, “Kiss Me Thru The Phone”; All-American Rejects, “Gives You Hell”; Ciara feat. Justin Timberlake, “Love Sex Magic”)
Highest-ranking song that remained at 99 cents: Miley Cyrus, “The Climb” (No. 4 on the chart as of this writing)
Lowest-ranking song that had its price pushed up: The-Dream, “Rockin’ That Thang” (No. 91)
Percentage of the Bottom 10 that had its price inflated: 10% (The-Dream only)
Genre most likely to see a price increase: “Hip-Hop/Rap” (10 out of 20)
Genre least likely to see a price increase: “Soundtracks” (none), then “Alternative” (one out of eight)
Did any song in the top 100 get its price slashed? Ha. Ha. Hahahahahaha.
Number of $1.29 songs that are also available to be used as iPhone ringtones: Zero. A glitch in the system, or are the record companies still figuring out a way to charge a premium on top of a premium?

Top Songs [iTunes; launches iTunes application]

We’ll find out on April 7, when Apple’s digital-music store iTunes starts selling select tracks—read: tracks that have already proven to be worthy of peoples’ money, like the unkillable Flo Rida/Dr. Luke collaboration “Right Round”—for a buck twenty-nine. Sure, other songs that reside on the deep end of the Long Tail will have their prices slashed, but most of the attention on iTunes’ introduction of variable pricing is focusing on the songs that will get more expensive, because those are the ones that are currently popular with iTunes users. Whether or not this “premium pricing” will affect the longer-term chart prospects of the likes of “Poker Face” and “Kiss Me Thru The Phone” is still up in the air, but my guess is that it’ll probably result in a lot of rending of overpriced garments in major labels’ boardrooms starting, oh, April 8 or so.

One former EMI executive is already calling the variable-pricing move a “PR nightmare” and comparing this 30-cent-a-song increase to the AIG bonuses thanks to its recessionary timing. Which is somewhat extreme, I’d say, but then again I’m sure there are people out there who have compared the whole concept of paying for recorded music at all to things like the Holocaust and slavery so maybe he’s actually showing some restraint.

And why do I have a feeling that this pricing isn’t going to affect the fate of “I Love College” one bit?

Hottest tracks to cost $1.29 at iTunes starting April 7 [LAT]

The video for Depeche Mode‘s new single, “Wrong,” only takes three minutes to be more nerve-wracking than most of the horror movies or Hollywood thrillers I see every year. The Justin Daughters-directed clip begins with a car careening backwards, running into things, its driver slumped over in the front seat. The driver comes to, and you see that he’s bound by duct tape, his face covered in a mask. It’s like the Bizarro World version of that first scene in North By Northwest where Roger Thornhill drunkenly careens down a twisty mountain road—only the difference here is that the lack of the “driver’s” control is palpable, and not played for laughs. You knew Cary Grant’s gonna make it out in the end. But this poor schlub?

I love the fact that these days Depeche Mode is perfectly happy being Depeche Mode. The band’s career had some missteps (Songs of Faith and Devotion Live), but there aren’t many out-and-out stinkers, even with Dave Gahan’s “troubles.” The band plays it pretty straight because their sound at this point is so defined and… comforting? “Comforting”‘s probably not the right word for a band whose stock in trade is the kind of menacing, shuffled synth pop evident in this song.

“Wrong” is the first single released under the “iTunes Pass” experiment heralding the release of Depeche Mode’s new LP, Sounds of the Universe. For $18.99, an interested party can sign up for a season pass of sorts to the album; “Wrong” and a remix are immediately downloadable with purchase, with videos and other goodies being part of the 15-week subscription. That includes the album, which streets April 21. It’s an interesting concept, and iTunes is a good content delivery system for this sorta thing—but the price still seems high to me, given there is no physical product involved. Wouldn’t it be great if every album purchase had this sort of extra content for the same price as a regular album? As a preorder experiment, it’s nice. However, I feel like the major labels get that consumers want extra content but still haven’t figured out that, in the end, it’s the price (economy), stupid.

Depeche Mode – Wrong [Dailymotion]