Idolator

Last Friday, one of the regular commenters on my "100 and Single" column poured cold water all over my prediction that Estelle's "American Boy" might finally creep into the U.S. Top 10. Noted regular reader ukidol, "Estelle's song has been removed from iTunes since the start of the week, so she'll drop sharply in the next chart. Think they're hoping for a Kid Rock-style album boost."

We won't find out how Estelle fared until the new Hot 100 appears later today, but yesterday's release of SoundScan figures bears out ukidol's prediction. "American Boy," which the prior week was the sixth-best selling digital song in the country, fell to 64th, as its sales took a 78% tumble from 86,700 copies to 19,100 copies. (Presumably, virtually all of those 19,100 copies sold in the first day or two of the tracking week before the song got pulled from iTunes.)

As of last week, "American Boy" was at No. 11 on the big chart. While the radio half of the Hot 100's sales-plus-airplay formulation might keep the song from falling out of the Top 40, no amount of radio growth will keep it from dropping at least a double-digit number of slots—if not this week, then the next.

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Kid Rock has refused to put his Warren Zevon/Lynyrd Skynyrd homage "All Summer Long" on the iTunes Store as an a la carte download, and it's paid off for him in a few ways: This week, his album Rock N Roll Jesus (which features the track) hit the double-platinum mark, and he's gotten a ton of promotional mileage out of being a nearly-lone holdout from Steve Jobs' empire. But an act who's profited even more from Kid Rock's tantrum is the fairly anonymous act Hit Masters, who specialize in karaoke and "party" versions of old and new hits. (I can find no other information on this act; if you know of any, feel free to send your tips along.) The band rush-released a version of the song (in straightforward and "karaoke" versions) to the iTunes store and other digital outlets, and it's currently at No. 5 on iTunes' single-song chart. Whether this speaks to the fact that people like Kid Rock's song more than his "artistry" or not, one thing's for sure: the guy who puts together Kidz Bop is kicking himself for not having thought of this first. [via Lefsetz's latest mailbag]

A front-line act with a months-old album decides to push his most obvious hit-bound song to radio—a song heavily reliant on a prominent sample of a deathless pop hit. But, bucking the day's prevalent trend, he decides not to release the song on the most popular singles medium, forcing most customers to buy his album.

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?

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Kid Rock must know better than anyone that "All Summer Long" would cross over bigtime if he'd just bounce across our TV singing it while earbud-accessorized silhouettes dance around him, but in the name of Fats Domino he must refuse. "Back in the day, we all know the stories of the Otis Reddings and Chuck Berrys and Fats Dominos who never got paid...I will be on iTunes eventually because I can't avoid it, but I like to always stick to my guns and prove a point and do something original and because I believe in it." This might help explain why the song has yet to hit the Hot 100, and has only scraped a few peripheral charts. At least he's OK with you stealing the fucker so you can sing along at shows—this way, he doesn't have to suffer the indignity of a weak royalty rate. More »