As predicted last week, Lil Wayne, supported by the late Static Major, has hit the top of Billboard's Hot 100 with "Lollipop." For longtime Weezy fans, it's a bit of a Pyrrhic victory—the first great rapper of the Web 2.0 era hemming in his flow to score a big hit. But nine years after his emergence on the Juvenile classic "Back That Azz Up," it's still a bit of a thrill to see Wayne's name gracing the top of the charts.

It's not only Weezy's first No. 1 but also his first Top 10 as a lead artist and, amazingly, his first trip to the top slot in 20 chart entries (21 if you include the Hot Boys' 2000 single "I Need a Hot Girl"). Prior to this, he'd never ascended any higher than No. 3 with his supporting performance on Destiny's Child's "Soldier."

How long he stays at No. 1 will depend on whether "Lollipop" settles in as a viral hit a la "Crank That" or "Low"—and on the competition percolating below him. The Top 10 is as fluid as it's been since last summer, which makes things fun for your humble chart columnist.

Weezy is the second act in the past month to evict "Bleeding Love" by Leona Lewis from the top slot, and he might not be the last. After Wednesday's well-received American Idol performance, digital sales of "Bleeding" have exploded again; it's the top-seller on iTunes as of this writing, meaning it could hit No. 1 for the third time next week. (After her initial week at No. 1 in March, Lewis gave way to Mariah Carey's "Touch My Body" for two weeks; that song currently holds on at No. 5.)

In a one-on-one contest between Wayne and Lewis next week, it's hard to say who would prevail. "Lollipop" continues to grow in airplay, but so does "Bleeding"; those are now the fifth and sixth most-played songs on U.S. radio, respectively. The bottom-line question is, is his airplay far enough ahead of hers that next week, when she outsells him on iTunes, he can overcome her download advantage?

One other observation: I mentioned last week that, among upwardly mobile hits, only Wayne's and Mariah's are enjoying airplay—and, hence, a chart boost—from both Top 40 and R&B/hip-hop radio. (Actually, I spoke too soon: Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown are getting a boost from R&B radio too. "No Air" moves into the R&B chart's Top 10 this week.)

The interesting question is, Why isn't Leona Lewis getting R&B radio airplay, too? This might sound like a stupid question—"Bleeding Love" is an adult-contemporary ballad sung by a British gal and written by two lily-white teen heartthrobs.

But being British didn't hold back Lisa Stansfield and her lily-white production team back in 1990. And speaking of 1990, let's ask another question: Is Lewis the new Mariah, or isn't she? Carey's crossover to black radio isn't a recent phenomenon—starting with "Vision of Love," Sony Music's major coup was selling Carey as biracial (which, ahem, she is) and getting her on R&B radio right away. Moving back to 2008, "Bleeding Love" is nowhere to be found on the entire 100-position, airplay-dominated Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. For her part, Lewis is the child of a Guyanese-Caribbean father and an Anglo-Welsh mother, which gives her arguably as much claim to a biracial heritage as the half-Venezuelan, half-Irish Carey.

Just saying: If I were on the Sony/BMG team breaking Lewis in America, I'd be a little worried about the total lack of crossover exposure she's getting. Once these industry pigeonholes are established, they're usually molded in concrete, and no matter how "soulful" Lewis's future projects are, she might face an uphill battle to be accepted on R&B radio.

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

• I keep talking about Madonna's latest single, even while it muddles around the middle of the Top 10—it crawls back up to No. 6 this week—because its chart performance has been an interesting case of the sales-vs.-airplay paradox.

Madge's "4 Minutes" returns to the top of the Digital Songs chart, selling another 186,000 copies; since its first full week of sales, it has never placed lower than second on the list of buck-a-song downloads. But its radio numbers are still huffing and puffing to catch up. It's now ranked 16th in airplay, up from 27th last week—one of its best weeks of radio growth, but that still leaves her at a handicap to the five records above her on the Hot 100. It's a reminder that even now, in these iTunes-centric times, radio still matters.

It's also an interesting sign of how the mighty have fallen. In the '80s and '90s, Madonna was what Top 40 programmers used to call an "instant add," with each new single a no-brainer for playlist rotation. Now, Madge has to prove herself track by track like everyone else, and programmers are still warming to the ditty even while fans buy it in droves.

We'll probably still be talking about "4 Minutes" in the weeks to come, because I expect it to see an iTunes sales surge when Hard Candy, her new album, drops. If her airplay keeps growing, that burst of sales might finally propel the song to No. 1.

• The biggest mover in the Top 40 this week is the latest single by John Mayer, "Say," which vaults to No. 12 from No. 35. "Say" has actually been out since last fall, when Mayer released it on the soundtrack to the geezer flick The Bucket List. So what accounts for this belated explosion? (Bucket isn't even out on DVD yet.) You can thank, or blame, reality TV. Mayer performed the tune a couple of weeks ago on Dancing with the Stars—and in the first full week after that performance "Say" sold 92,000 downloads, a jump of 131%. But it'll be a while before Mayer's ditty is polluting your brain, "Daughters"-style, at the grocery store: "Say" only ranks 65th in radio airplay.

• Country demigod George Strait scores his 43rd No. 1 hit with "I Saw God Today." That's a record for most No. 1 hits, beating out... George Strait, who surpassed Conway Twitty's 40 No. 1's back in 2006 and has been padding his total ever since. As I remind readers from time to time, the Hot Country list is all-airplay. In case you're curious, on the all-genre Hot 100, "Saw God" ranks at No. 33, mostly thanks to all that country radio exposure; he only sold about 12,000 downloads of the song last week.

• For the first time since last August, the Modern Rock Top 10 contains no Foo Fighters songs, as two of Dave Grohl's former No. 1 smashes simultaneously fall out of the winners' circle. The recent hit "Long Road to Ruin" tumbles to No. 12 from No. 4, while the deathless "The Pretender," which spent 36 of its 38 chart weeks in the Top 10, finally falls to No. 13. I would have loved to have told you that there were no Foos songs and no Linkin Park songs on that list, but just this week, the fourth Top 10 hit from LP's Minutes to Midnight, "Given Up," moves up to No. 8. For a Fooless, Linkinless Top 10, you'd have to go all the way back to April 2007.

Top 10s
Last week's position and total weeks charted in parentheses:

Hot 100
1. Lil Wayne feat. Static Major, "Lollipop" (LW No. 2, 6 weeks)
2. Leona Lewis, "Bleeding Love" (LW No. 1, 10 weeks)
3. Jordin Sparks with Chris Brown, "No Air" (LW No. 3, 16 weeks)
4. Usher feat. Young Jeezy, "Love in This Club" (LW No. 4, 10 weeks)
5. Mariah Carey, "Touch My Body" (LW No. 5, 10 weeks)
6. Madonna feat. Justin Timberlake, "4 Minutes" (LW No. 7, 5 weeks)
7. Ray J & Yung Berg, "Sexy Can I" (LW No. 6, 12 weeks)
8. Sara Bareilles, "Love Song" (LW No. 9, 25 weeks)
9. Chris Brown, "With You" (LW No. 8, 21 weeks)
10. Miley Cyrus, "See You Again" (LW No. 11, 21 weeks)

Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
1. Usher feat. Young Jeezy, "Love in This Club" (LW No. 1, 11 weeks)
2. Mariah Carey, "Touch My Body" (LW No. 2, 11 weeks)
3. Lil Wayne feat. Static Major, "Lollipop" (LW No. 3, 6 weeks)
4. Ray J & Yung Berg, "Sexy Can I" (LW No. 5, 15 weeks)
5. Keyshia Cole, "I Remember" (LW No. 4, 25 weeks)
6. Ashanti, "The Way That I Love You" (LW No. 8, 10 weeks)
7. Rick Ross feat. T-Pain, "The Boss" (LW No. 7, 15 weeks)
8. Jordin Sparks with Chris Brown, "No Air" (LW No. 12, 7 weeks)
9. Alicia Keys, "Like You'll Never See Me Again" (LW No. 9, 26 weeks)
10. J. Holiday, "Suffocate" (LW No. 10, 29 weeks)

Hot Country Songs
1. George Strait, "I Saw God Today" (LW No. 2, 11 weeks)
2. Trace Adkins, "You're Gonna Miss This" (LW No. 1, 20 weeks)
3. James Otto, "Just Got Started Lovin' You" (LW No. 3, 27 weeks)
4. Taylor Swift, "Picture to Burn" (LW No. 5, 15 weeks)
5. Phil Vassar, "Love Is A Beautiful Thing" (LW No. 6, 25 weeks)
6. Brad Paisley, "I'm Still a Guy" (LW No. 8, 9 weeks)
7. Rascal Flatts, "Every Day" (LW No. 9, 9 weeks)
8. Chris Cagle, "What Kinda Gone" (LW No. 4, 40 weeks)
9. Lady Antebellum, "Love Don't Live Here" (LW No. 11, 29 weeks)
10. Carrie Underwood, "Last Name" (LW No. 12, 6 weeks)

Hot Modern Rock Tracks
1. Seether, "Rise Above This" (LW No. 2, 9 weeks)
2. Puddle of Mudd, "Psycho" (LW No. 1, 25 weeks)
3. Atreyu, "Falling Down" (LW No. 3, 13 weeks)
4. The Raconteurs, "Salute Your Solution" (LW No. 7, 4 weeks)
5. 3 Doors Down, "It's Not My Time" (LW No. 6, 9 weeks)
6. The Bravery, "Believe" (LW No. 5, 29 weeks)
7. Flobots, "Handlebars" (LW No. 15, 3 weeks)
8. Linkin Park, "Given Up" (LW No. 13, 7 weeks)
9. Death Cab for Cutie, "I Will Possess Your Heart" (LW No. 10, 5 weeks)
10. Disturbed, "Inside the Fire" (LW No. 11, 4 weeks)

1 Sex Sex 0.132%
2 Lil Wayne Music (Artist) 0.109%
3 Low Music (Artist) 0.100%
4 Chris Brown Music (Artist) 0.091%
5 No Air Music (Song Title) 0.081%
6 Porn Sex 0.078%
7 Family Guy TV 0.077%
8 Soulja Boy Music (Artist) 0.065%
9 Naruto Anime 0.065%
10 Funny Comedy 0.063%
11 Jonas Brothers Music (Artist) 0.063%
12 Usher Music (Artist) 0.053%
13 Hannah Montana Music (Artist) 0.050%
14 Jeff Dunham Comedy 0.050%
15 Miley Cyrus Music (Artist) 0.048%
16 Jabbawockeez TV (Dance Group) 0.047%
17 Touch My Body Music (Song Title) 0.047%
18 Love Song Music (Song Title) 0.045%
19 Fights Sports 0.044%
20 American Idol TV 0.043%
21 Bleeding Love Music (Song Title) 0.042%
22 Mariah Carey Music (Artist) 0.042%
23 With You Music (Song Title) 0.041%
24 Sexy Can I Music (Song Title) 0.039%
25 WWE Sports 0.038%

I'm pretty sure that the "Low" coming in at No. 3 is the unkillable T-Pain assisted Flo Rida track and not the Minnesota indie-rock stalwarts, but man would I love to be wrong.

Top 25 YouTube Search Terms: March 2008 [Compete.com, via mediaeater]

The fake:

The allegedly real:

Hoodwinked!: Please tell me this is the real Carter III cover [Miss Info]
Lil' Wayne's Carter III Pushed Back [SOHH]

Wayne's drastic improvement from his Cash Money days, coupled with the South's moment in the sun, ensured that narrative-hungry writers would annoint someone sub-Mason-Dixon as the new king of hip-hop. With Scarface and Andre 3000 falling back and half of UGK locked up, Wayne seemed like the best bet. In a way, his rise seemed tailor-made for the zeitgeist of this jangled Internet age, his songs blessed with a sense of ephemera that jibes with the notion of constant content fit to be devoured and forgotten ten minutes later. There are as many Wayne songs as there are blogs, and like the blogosphere, the quality is wildly uneven. For every show-stopping moment like "Cannon" or "Upgrade U," there are ten tracks filled with repetitive simile-laden boasts that Wayne's champions would like to call free-associative genius, but really just prove that it is somehow possible to be both the hardest working man in hip-hop and incredibly lazy at the same time.

Given the chance to appear on Graduation and American Gangster, two rap albums from 2007 that were good enough to receive burn beyond the turn of the decade, Weezy whiffed—squandering the rare opportunity to broaden his fanbase beyond his key constituency of Southerners, 13-year olds, and white music critics with 180+ IQs, prestigious liberal arts degrees, and questionable taste in hip-hop. Wayne apologists scoffed that their hero had already had so many great moments that year, but his detractors sagely pointed out that anyone purporting to be the best rapper alive shouldn't suck this much on both of the year's big-ticket rap records.

That's perhaps the most frustrating thing about the Wayne question: only two opinions seem to exist, both of which are wrong. (Wayne is neither savior nor Satan. What he is a talented rapper with absolutely no concept of quality control.) The first swallows his hyperbole and concludes that he is the greatest rapper alive, a prolific, infallible genius who operates in a Bizarro galaxy heretofore reserved for such king weirdos as Mike Tyson, Cam'ron, and Kim Jung-Il. The other labels him complete garbage, a walking, talking, Baby-kissing plague on humanity responsible for SARS, Ebola, and the assassinations of both Kennedys.^** Ultimately, what this yields is bad criticism, with his admirers refusing to acknowledge his myriad atrocious moments and his "haters" never conceding an inch, with both teams waiting for the "classic" album that will either confirm his place in the pantheon or halt the critical love train.

The notion of needing to drop a classic album seems slightly antiquated, but in fact it isn't. While short stories, short films, and single MP3s obviously have their merits, no amount of postmodernist revision will ever alter the fact that the novel, the feature film, and the album will remain the standard-bearers of art. (Sorry.) Lil Wayne has not dropped a classic album, though if you lopped 20 minutes off Carter II, you could arguably state your case. Logically, Carter III would be make-or-break time, the chance for Wayne to either shut up the peanut gallery^*** or leave the heads of the hype machine with a whole lot of omelet on their face. Neither of these two things will probably happen.

While it remains to be seen what exactly would convert Wayne's naysayers, it is certain that no matter how bad Carter III is, some corners of the critical community will stop at nothing to convince you of its greatness. In particular, no two critics have been more strident in their homerism than Tom Breihan, of the Village Voice and Pitchfork and Marc Hogan, the main writer of Pitchfork's Forkcast. ReadBreihan's love letter to "Lollipop," a song that he himself manages to call

a blatant sellout-move capitulation to everything lame in today's pop-music world: gallingly obvious central lyrical sex-as-candy analogy, T-Pain-esque layered-up autotuned vocals, simplistic snap-music drum-pattern, hushed trancey synth-whooshes playing something that sounds suspiciously like the melody to Flo Rida's "Low," no rapping whatsoever and... screaming butt-rock guitar solos.

Forget the fact that "Lollipop" does have rapping, however terrible it may be; forget the fact that Breihan somehow manages to compare "Lollipop" to Earth Wind & Fire's "Let's Groove," a piece of spin that would make James Carville smile. The review concludes by telling us that we should "celebrate the fact that Lil Wayne has made his "Candy Shop" without compromising his inner weirdness."

In fact, there is nothing weird about "Lollipop," a song that feels more cynically calculating than almost anything released in 2008. It's lyrical content is a clumsy homework assignment from 50 Cent's School Of How To Write Songs For 14-Year-Old Girls With Tacky Sex Metaphors For Hooks. (In particular, "Shorty Want a Thug/Bottles in the Club/Shorty Need a Hug" makes Benzino look like Arthur Rimbaud.) Meanwhile, it completely style-jacks T-Pain, a guy who stole every one of his ideas from Roger Troutman, never mind Snoop Dogg's "Sensual Seduction." Hell, even the "Lollipop" video is corny, a glitzy, formulaic romp through Las Vegas that feels suspiciously like a cliched combo of the videos for 112's "Only You" and 2Pac's "How Do U Want It."

Incidentally, there is one defense for "Lollipop": It's a big, absolutely retarded pop song that you enjoy dancing to at clubs. This is its sole intent. As rap music, it's garbage; as pop, it's middle-of-the-road filler fit to be played until Labor Day and not a moment later. What it isn't is "sly, heady... melodrama," as Breihan puts it, or a "savvy pop move," as Hogan calls it. What Snoop did was a "savvy pop move," the sort of desperate sellout look that artists need to do when there's nothing left in the well; "the greatest rapper alive" shouldn't have to resort to singles you can Xerox (no Hillary Clinton).

If "Lollipop" is a shameless, poorly executed, but well-thought out play for the charts, "A Millie" is the opposite, a half-baked and sloppy street single with Wayne once again in mixtape mode, stringing together simile after simile for five and a half minutes of banal shit-talking. Of course, there are a few clever lyrical turns. "I don't owe you like two vowels" is as good as anything Lupe Fiasco has written, but like Weezy's entire discography, "A Millie" is maddeningly inconsistent. Its beat is a hiccuping, overly repetitive, minimalist mess that sounds like it could only have been selected by someone under the influence of too much drank and drugs. Meanwhile, Wayne attempts to mask his empty-calorie lyrics by relying on his now-familiar grab-bag of vocal tics, forcing syllables to stretch that shouldn't stretch, modulating his voice without purpose, everything strictly for schtick and effect. At one point, he even boasts that "none of this shit is written down," but that goes without saying. After all, any rapper who writes a lyric as lazy as "we pop 'em like Redenbacher" deserves his MC pass revoked. (Can we all admit that Jay and Big's claims that they never wrote down lyrics have caused more harm than any trivia tidbit in music history?)

But Hogan dismisses anyone with a gripe: "haters are already foaming at the mouth... the rest of us know better than to rush the flow." God forbid, anyone gets between Hogan and Wayne's uh..."flow." "A Millie" is just mediocre, a boiler mix-tape track that would be met with yawns were it released by Papoose, most frustrating than is the one-sided nature of its criticism, with its arrogant tone and nebulous taunts at "haters." Flip through the Pitchfork archives, and you'll be hard-pressed to find inasmuch as a negative word about Wayne, with the one universally loathed Wayne record, Like Father Like Son, weirdly never getting a review despite its single, "Stuntin' Like My Daddy," receiving a glowing, four-star review from Breihan.

Granted, Wayne's detractors are notoriously venomous and often misguided, but their anger partly stems from a critical vogue that refuses to praise anything that isn't crack rap and/or nakedly commercial. In the past six months, hip-hop has seen strong output from a new generation of rappers—Jay Electronica, Wale, The Knux, Pacific Division, Blu and Clean Guns—yet not one of these worthy artists has gotten their own post on the Forkcast or Status Ain't Hood, despite obviously needing the exposure a whole lot more than the platinum-plus "Young Money Millionaire." It remains to be seen whether Carter III will be the masterpiece capable of validating the slavish Wayne worship that has taken place over the past few years. But what is certain is that judging from the reviews of its first two singles, you'll be hearing the praises of its unmistakable brilliance.

Besides, no matter what, it can't be worse than Mike Jones or Paul Wall.

^* On another note, if "Loungin" is not the most quintessential mid-'90s rap video, than what is?
^** Though if one were to judge Wayne strictly off his appearance—which is not unlike that of a drank and pills-addled Whoopi Goldberg—SARS seems like a reasonable guess.
^***Likely filled with fans of Peanut Butter Wolf.

As we previewed yesterday, Leona "Limey Mariah" Lewis has fulfilled our prediction from last week and shot to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with her debut single, "Bleeding Love."

But she's not the only newsmaker in the winners' circle. After one of the most stagnant winters in pop-chart history—just last week, the top seven records were unchanged—music lovers welcome spring by throwing a grenade into the middle of the Top 10, where songs scatter everywhere. The results: Lil Wayne has his first Top 10 hit as a lead artist, Lil Mama has her second, and an exceedingly tacky Ray J song is hurtling toward the top.

He'll have to wait, however, if he expects to crown the chart. Lewis is going to be replaced at No. 1 next week, but not by him.

First, a word about Weezy. "Lollipop," Lil Wayne's attempt to cash in on the T-Pain vocoder sound and the 50 Cent-style single-entendre, previews his long-delayed Tha Carter III with an actual Top 10 hit. Just two months ago, Wayne's supporting performance on Wyclef's "Sweetest Girl (Dollar Bill)" made it to No. 12; his highest charter to date as a supporting act was on Destiny's Child's No. 3 hit "Soldier" (2005). Frankly, both of those are better songs than "Lollipop," which features the recently deceased Static Major and not so much of the flow that makes Weezy a demigod. But at least he reaches the upper tier in style: the song makes this year's biggest move on the Hot 100, shooting 76 spots to No. 9 thanks to a fat debut on iTunes.

Until this week, the biggest jump of the year was last week's 73-place vault by Lil Mama's "Shawty Get Loose." Bucking the recent trend of songs that make a big move thanks to iTunes sales and then recede, "Shawty" has another great week and moves up another nine spots to No. 10, placing Lil Mama one space behind Lil Wayne and matching the peak position of last summer's "Lip Gloss."

Finally, Ray J's "Sexy Can I," the stupidest Top Three U.S. hit since "My Humps," now matches that song's peak position. It's right behind Lewis and Usher at No. 3, thanks to ever-growing airplay and digital sales blowing up by more than 50%. With its novelty lyrics and insidious hook, "Sexy" smells like the kind of fad hit that tops the charts from time to time, but if that's going to happen, it won't be anytime soon.

That's because Leona Lewis's forbear, Mariah Carey, is expected to fulfill her destiny next week and hurtle to No. 1 with the wispy, Jack-the-Page-fueled "Touch My Body." She will do it despite sliding one notch to No. 15 this week (she maintains her bullet), because the song's sales on iTunes are already explosive.

It'll be the least surprising leap to No. 1 from outside the Top 10 in chart history. And it will make chart history by putting Carey all alone in second place among acts with the most No. 1 hits, pulling her out of a tie with Elvis Presley and placing her just two smashes shy of the Beatles' all-time record.

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

• Even though we kind of saw it shaping up last week, the seven-notch leap to No. 1 by Lewis's "Bleeding Love" was something of a jaw-dropper. Usher's "Love in This Club" has been on a tear both in terms of sales and airplay (even as he falls to No. 2 this week, the song maintains its bullet), and Lewis's fat week of Oprah-fueled downloads might not have been enough to give her the edge. But radio helped: while Usher picked up more than 600 spins on monitored Top 40 stations last week, Lewis picked up over 700; he still leads her in airplay, but she's narrowed the gap considerably. That airplay plus her 219,000 buck-a-song downloads propel her to the top.

• What was the song of winter '08? Arguably, it wasn't Flo Rida's No. 1-hogging "Low," but rather the radio-burnout smash "Apologize" by OneRepublic (credited to producer Timbaland), which never reached the top slot but spent a staggering 25 weeks in the Top 10. That's not a record, but as Billboard chart columnist Fred Bronson points out, that's the longest any song has spent in the Top 10 since Santana's "Smooth" in 1999, which polluted our brains with Rob Thomas's white-boy mambo for 30 weeks.

It's somehow poetic that "Apologize" finally exits the Top 10 in the first chart following the onset of spring. But over at OneRepublic headquarters, they're still popping the bubbly: lead singer/songwriter Ryan Tedder cowrote "Bleeding Love," Leona Lewis's new No. 1. (The other writer: fellow moonlighting singer Jesse "Beautiful Soul" McCartney, who's also a moonlighting actor.)

• The Hot 100's highest debut of the week is yet another track by Flo Rida: "Roll," which has Sean Kingston backing him up, enters at No. 61. Uncle Flo's official followup single, "Elevator" with Timbaland, is back up at No. 19 but still hasn't matched its peak of No. 16 from three weeks ago. Both tracks benefit from the release of Flo Rida's album Mail on Sunday, but America must finally be sick of his original hit, "Low," because it's down in both sales and airplay.

• Other Hot 100 debutantes include "4 Minutes" by Madonna featuring Justin Timberlake (No. 68)—you can expect that song to shoot into the Top 10 next week, thanks to big iTunes sales; Ferras' American Idol-fueled "Hollywood's Not America" (No. 84); the presumptive second single from Gnarls Barkley's new album, "Going On" (No. 88); and Ne-Yo's "Go On Girl" (No. 96).

• Sam Endicott is having the last laugh: the Bravery, once dismissed as a Killers-imitating flash in the pan, is emerging as a staple modern-rock radio act. "Believe" is their biggest hit yet, elbowing into the Top Five on the Hot Modern Rock list and bubbling under the Hot 100. That sound you just heard was Brandon Flowers's ego shrinking a little.

Top 10s
Last week's position and total weeks charted in parentheses:

Hot 100
1. Leona Lewis, "Bleeding Love" (LW No. 8, 6 weeks)
2. Usher Featuring Young Jeezy, "Love In This Club" (LW No. 1, 6 weeks)
3. Ray J & Yung Berg, "Sexy Can I" (LW No. 7, 8 weeks)
4. Chris Brown, "With You" (LW No. 2, 17 weeks)
5. Sara Bareilles, "Love Song" (LW No. 4, 21 weeks)
6. Jordin Sparks with Chris Brown, "No Air" (LW No. 6, 12 weeks)
3. Flo Rida feat. T-Pain, "Low" (LW No. 7, 22 weeks)
8. Rihanna, "Don't Stop the Music" (LW No. 5, 18 weeks)
9. Lil Wayne feat. Static Major, "Lollipop" (LW No. 85, 2 weeks)
10. Lil Mama feat. Chris Brown & T-Pain, "Shawty Get Loose" (LW No. 19, 5 weeks)

Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
1. Keyshia Cole, "I Remember" (LW No. 1, 21 weeks)
2. Usher Featuring Young Jeezy, "Love In This Club" (LW No. 6, 7 weeks)
3. The-Dream, "Falsetto" (LW No. 3, 16 weeks)
4. Alicia Keys, "Like You'll Never See Me Again" (LW No. 2, 22 weeks)
5. Ray J & Yung Berg, "Sexy Can I" (LW No. 11, 11 weeks)
6. Mario, "Crying Out for Me" (LW No. 9, 30 weeks)
7. J. Holiday, "Suffocate" (LW No. 4, 25 weeks)
8. Mariah Carey, "Touch My Body" (LW No. 10, 7 weeks)
9. Mary J. Blige, "Just Fine" (LW No. 5, 26 weeks)
10. Chris Brown, "With You" (LW No. 7, 17 weeks)

Hot Country Songs
1. Alan Jackson, "Small Town Southern Man" (LW No. 1, 20 weeks)
2. Trace Adkins, "You're Gonna Miss This" (LW No. 3, 16 weeks)
3. Chris Cagle, "What Kinda Gone" (LW No. 6, 36 weeks)
4. George Strait, "I Saw God Today" (LW No. 7, 7 weeks)
5. Carrie Underwood, "All-American Girl" (LW No. 2, 17 weeks)
6. James Otto, "Just Got Started Lovin' You" (LW No. 9, 23 weeks)
7. Rodney Atkins, "Cleaning This Gun (Come on in Boy)" (LW No. 4, 27 weeks)
8. Jason Aldean, "Laughed Until We Cried" (LW No. 10, 33 weeks)
9. Taylor Swift, "Picture to Burn" (LW No. 11, 11 weeks)
10. Phil Vassar, "Love Is A Beautiful Thing" (LW No. 13, 21 weeks)

Hot Modern Rock Tracks
1. Foo Fighters, "Long Road to Ruin" (LW No. 1, 22 weeks)
2. Puddle of Mudd, "Psycho" (LW No. 2, 21 weeks)
3. Linkin Park, "Shadow of the Day" (LW No. 3, 25 weeks)
4. The Bravery, "Believe" (LW No. 7, 25 weeks)
5. Atreyu, "Falling Down" (LW No. 9, 9 weeks)
6. Seether, "Rise Above This" (LW No. 11, 5 weeks)
7. Seether, "Fake It" (LW No. 4, 30 weeks)
8. Foo Fighters, "The Pretender" (LW No. 6, 34 weeks)
9. Paramore, "crushcrushcrush" (LW No. 5, 19 weeks)
10. 3 Doors Down, "It's Not My Time" (LW No. 14, 5 weeks)

Extended Players—which are probably best defined as a record that's shorter than an album, but longer than a single—have always played a nebulous role in the recording industry. They've gone in and out of vogue in indie rock and dance music circles over the years, but one genre in which they've never held much significance is hip-hop. There may have been a few popular EPs in its early years, but no classics; rap has no Chronic Town. A few years ago, during its crunk-fueled peak that recently came to a crashing halt, TVT Records came to briefly favor them as victory-lap releases, chasing successful albums by Lil Jon, Pitbull and the Ying Yang Twins with EPs chock full of remixes and outtakes to strike while the iron was hot. More recently, though, major labels have turned to them as a way to rush out low-budget debut releases for new artists to whom they're not ready to make a full-album commitment.

In 2006, Jive Records signed the Berkeley, Calif., teenagers The Pack on the strength of their shoe-endorsing hit "Vans." But when the song peaked in the top 40 later that year, the label only released the Skateboards 2 Scrapers EP to capitalize on it. And when the group's follow-up singles failed to generate anywhere near the success of "Vans" and the hyphy bubble where they'd risen to prominence had burst, their 2007 full-length debut Based Boys was left out to dry, selling even fewer copies than its teaser EP. Similiarly, when Chicago rapper Yung Berg's single "Sexy Lady" peaked last summer, his label Epic, which needed help from indie label Koch just to break the song at radio, only dropped Almost Famous: The Sexy Lady EP to capitalize on it. But Berg's proper debut album, due out this year, might have better luck than The Pack's, given that his collaboration with Ray J, "Sexy Can I," is currently on its way to becoming bigger than his previous hit. Orange County rapper Ca$his, signed to Eminem's Shady Records, released an EP, The County Hound last year, with a full-length due out in 2008. But unlike Yung Berg or The Pack, Ca$his had no hit single at the time, and should probably be happy he got any kind of release out on the label, given that Shady's new artist was Obie Trice, who was launched nearly five years ago.

The trend doesn't look to be slowing down anytime soon: yesterday, Jermaine Dupri told MTV News that he may issue an EP from his latest Def Jam signing, DJ Felli Fel, before putting an album on the label's release schedule. And when Houston rapper Mike Jones lost the platinum luster of his 2005 debut during the long wait for his 2007 album The American Dream, he ended up scrapping the album and combing four of its songs with two previous hits for a bonus EP that accompanied a DVD of the same name.

The elephant in the room regarding hip-hop EPs is thrown into stark relief once Lil Wayne, who's released literally dozens of songs via mixtapes since his last official album, is brought into the conversation. Wayne—whose Tha Carter III has been the most anticipated rap album of this year, last year, and the year before that—got into the EP business in December, when he released the five-song The Leak to make up for the incessant delays that have plagued the album. For the past decade, pretty much every mainstream rapper worth his salt has released more material on mixtapes and collaborations than on their own major label releases. To toss a paltry handful of songs and a bonus remix out in stores as a teaser, when you can probably hear hours worth of material from the same artist at any number of mixtape spots or Web sites, isn't just a cheat on the artist that has more than enough songs ready for an album. It's a ripoff for the consumer, who pays just a little less for a lot less music. If they pay for it at all.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: Not exactly sure when this dropped, but it's news to us and good news at that, because it proves urban radio's return to the hip-house era should continue well into 2008. Lil Wayne, perhaps invigorated by the tempo of the Chubb Rockian (throw)backing track, actually jumps on the beat like he gives a shit for a change, making me suddenly want to hear him tackle every entry on Edan's Fast Rap mixtape. (As much as love as I have for Weezy, I do understand the gripes of his detractors when they complain that the autopilot outré of his one-take guest verses often makes them sound like he recorded them half in the bag on his party bus.) Ditching the cranked up slow jam synths of the original,Mary J. extolls her own virtues as she hits the dancefloor in a pair of bamboo earrings, with a breakbeat refit so absurdly 1989 that I spontaneously grew a flattop while it was playing.

WHERE TO HEAR IT: YouHeardThatNew (fix your permalink game, folks) has the downloadable MP3 (complete with annoying DJ intrusions) and MissInfo has the clean stream.

Lil Wayne Just Won With All The Retro Kids... [MissInfo]

Tidily, the first Billboard Hot 100 dated for 2008 brings the new year's first No. 1 single, as Flo Rida's generic, T-Pain-backed banger "Low" finally ends Alicia Keys's run at the top after five weeks. On the whole, the chart looks a lot like last week's: static toward the top (the No. 1 changeover notwithstanding) but with lots of interesting activity in the lower regions.

The Year of Weezy? Let's skip the activity in the Top Five—we've been talking about "Low," "No One," "Apologize," "Kiss Kiss" and "Clumsy" for months—and do like we did last week, running down some lower-chart highlights:

• For a pair of well-known, omnipresent hip-hop figures, Wyclef Jean and Lil Wayne have fairly middling pop-chart histories, but that might be about to change. "Sweetest Girl (Dollar Bill)" (also featuring R&B/jazz songstress Niia and some dude named Akon, who sings the song's stickiest hook) vaults 11 slots, landing just outside the Top 10. Likely fueling the jump: the release of the inevitable, Wu Tang-biting remix that makes the song's "C.R.E.A.M." allusion complete. As a lead artist, Clef has only one solo Top 10 to his name, 1997-98's "Gone 'Til November"; his featured appearances on smashes by Destiny's Child and Shakira were bigger (and he probably made more cheddar on the song he produced and wrote for Santana, 2000's 10-week chart-topper "Maria Maria"). Similarly, Lil Wayne has done better as a featured act, only riding into the Top 10 on hits by Destiny's Child ("Soldier") and Lloyd ("You"). This Clef-credited hit won't change Weezy's stats, but his expert rap on "Sweetest Girl" might set him up for the pop crossover he probably fears and covets in equal measure.

• Improbably, Finger Eleven are still climbing the charts with "Paralyzer." Now approaching its 30th chart week, the song is one rung below the Top Five, breathing down Fergie's neck.

• What were we saying last week about Alicia Keys as the double-hit juggernaut? Scratch that, and take a look at Chris Brown. "With You," the followup to his former chart-topper "Kiss Kiss," leaps nine spots into the Top 20, mostly thanks to a major boost in radio airplay. Meanwhile, Keys has a bad Hot 100 week for a change, as her pair of Top 20 hits, both the former chart-topper and the fast-moving followup, erode. "Like You'll Never See Me Again" drops due mostly to weak iTunes sales, even as airplay continues to grow. The good news for Keys: the new single's digital sales will likely recover after the holidays—she's been busy selling tons of albums—and "Like" is already a smash on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart, where it moves to No. 1, ousting "No One."

• Ickiest chart appearance of the week goes to Alvin and the Chipmunks, whose 2007 remake of their own "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)" is the Hot 100's top debut at No. 70, thanks wholly to digital-song sales. Like the movie from which it's taken—already past $100 million at the box office in just two-plus weeks!—the song is evidence of the public's ghastly taste. Unlike the movie, the song is so unmistakably Christmas-themed that it will (hopefully) be gone by Martin Luther King Day.

• After looking all but dead for weeks, "Piece of Me" by Britney Spears finally becomes an official Top 40 hit, shooting 24 spots to No. 21. Radio airplay has been just okay on "Piece," but the rocket fuel comes from digital sales, where Brit-Brit sees one of the week's biggest gains from new iPod-fillers. Which brings us to our final topic...

Stuff to Watch: Next week's chart will reflect the answer to what is possibly the most interesting music-related chart question of the past three years: What song(s) will win big in the annual post-Christmas iTunes sales bonanza? Each year for the past three, the week between Christmas and New Year's has set a new record for volume of sales on Apple's song store, as iPod gift recipients rush to their PCs to load up on music. In the past, it's made at least one strange record a big hit: D4L's "Laffy Taffy," which topped the Hot 100 for a single week in January 2006 as a nation collectively decided D4L were worth about 99 cents. This year, clearly the equally one-hit-smelling Flo Rida will benefit; but expect more established acts with current big singles, like Britney, to get a bump, too.

The top 20, with last week's position and total weeks charted in parentheses:
1. Flo Rida feat. T-Pain, "Low" (LW No. 2, 9 weeks)
2. Alicia Keys, "No One" (LW No. 1, 16 weeks)
3. Timbaland feat. OneRepublic, "Apologize" (LW No. 3, 21 weeks)
4. Chris Brown feat. T-Pain, "Kiss Kiss" (LW No. 4, 15 weeks)
5. Fergie, "Clumsy" (LW No. 5, 11 weeks)
6. Finger Eleven, "Paralyzer" (LW No. 7, 29 weeks)
7. Colbie Caillat, "Bubbly" (LW No. 6, 26 weeks)
8. Jordin Sparks, "Tattoo" (LW No. 8, 13 weeks)
9. Sara Bareilles, "Love Song" (LW No. 16, 8 weeks)
10. Rihanna feat. Ne-Yo, "Hate That I Love You" (LW No. 9, 17 weeks)
11. Soulja Boy, "Crank That (Soulja Boy), Soulja Boy Tell'em" (LW No. 11, 24 weeks)
12. Wyclef Jean Featuring Akon, Lil Wayne & Niia, " Sweetest Girl (Dollar Bill)" (LW No. 23, 15 weeks)
13. Baby Bash feat. T-Pain, "Cyclone" (LW No. 12, 22 weeks)
14. Kanye West feat. T-Pain, "Good Life" (LW No. 10, 15 weeks)
15. Sean Kingston, "Take You There" (LW No. 18, 8 weeks)
16. Chris Brown, "With You" (LW No. 25, 4 weeks)
17. Plies feat. Akon, "Hypnotized" (LW No. 14, 13 weeks)
18. Natasha Bedingfield feat. Sean Kingston, "Love Like This" (LW No. 19, 10 weeks)
19. Alicia Keys, "Like You'll Never See Me Again" (LW No. 13, 7 weeks)
20. Kanye West, "Stronger" (LW No. 17, 22 weeks)

Not quite sure where we're at in terms of the Lil Wayne hype-to-hate-and-back-again cycle at the moment, and you know, who cares? But hey, if we're going to celebrate a guy who's (contentiously) made "druggy"/"outre" references his reason for rapping, we might as well nominate the droopy weirdness of "I Feel Like Dying" as his best mixtape moment of the year, where Weezy rolls up the crowd-pleasing pop cultural allusions and smokes them in favor of doing the backstroke in a "sea of codeine" and crushing pretenders to the throne under his neon cleats on a "marajuana field," a woozy, extended pharmacological mash note/riff on the joys of a well-stocked medicine cabinet. You may balk at the "best rapper alive" boasts; I don't quite buy the line that Da Drought 3 is the best thing to happen to metaphor in the 21st-century so far; and Wayne's reach will have to be reassessed if and when Tha Carter 3 ever drops. But I can't deny his prolix efforts at self-canonization made me happier than any other rapper this year. (Also: there's something so right about this fan-made video having Wayne's voice coming out of the mouth of Gollum from Lord Of The Rings.)

Lil Wayne - "I Feel Like Dying" <[YouTube]
Lil Wayne [MySpace]
Idolator's 2007 Top 40 List Of Awesomeness

THE GOOD: Quibble all you like with their picks, but it's still nice to see a publication favor brevity when it comes to compiling their year-end wrap-up lists. Do you really care what some magazine thought was the 76th-best album of 2007? (At least with long singles lists you stand a chance of having time to listen to all 100 entries.) A not-so-well-kept secret: Even professional listeners are largely bullshitting when attempting to seriously rank albums after about No. 20 or so.
THE BAD: All that said, this list is not at all surprising if you're even a little familiar with Urb's editorial remit, drawing entirely from 2007 faves widely-acknowledged by folks from the non-Paste/Harp side of indie, whether it's hip-hop (Wayne, Kanye, the Flosstradamus/Spank Rock axis), dance rock (LCD Soundsystem, Klaxons), or miscellaneous (Battles). Many of these are excellent records of course, but the uniform hipness of it all is pretty suffocating.
THE WHAAA?: Forget placing in the Top 10: There's no way that The Good, The Bad, And The Queen album was the best anything of '07. Except maybe "the best way to give Tony Allen and Paul Simonon a little well-deserved extra spending money."

Seven Singles for '07
Kanye West, "Stronger"
UGK ft. OutKast, "International Players Anthem"
Dude 'N Nem, "Watch My Feet"
Calvin Harris, "The Girls"
Pase Rock, "Lindsay Lohan's Revenge"
Justice, "D.A.N.C.E."
Teki Latex ft. Bitch Bitch Lap Lap, "The Ish"

Best Albums
Lil Wayne, Da Drought III
Klaxons, Myths of the Near Future
M.I.A., Kala
LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver
UGK, Underground Kingz
Blonde Redhead, 23
Mark Ronson, Version
El-P, I'll Sleep When You're Dead
Battles, Mirrored
The Good, the Bad & the Queen, s/t

Best Remixes
Klaxons, "Gravity's Rainbow (Soulwax Remix)"
Justin Timberlake & Timbaland, "Yo Hips, Yo Thighs (Benzi's Ghetto Juke Remix)"
Kanye West ft. Lil Waye, Busta Rhymes & Young Jeezy, "Can't Tell Me
Nothing Remix"
Matt & Kim, "Yea Yeah (Flosstradamus Remix)"
ABC, "The Look of Love? (USA Remix, DUB Version)"

Best Live Show
White Stripes at "Icky Thump Records"
Flosstradamus at the Shortstop
Flaming Lips at Bonnaroo
The Gossip at Emo's
Clipse & Cold War Kids

[Thanks to Michaelangelo Matos for providing the lists.]

Layne alleges in the suit, filed Tuesday in Baltimore Circuit Court, that she was trampled, lost consciousness and suffered a "serious closed head injury" that required hospitalization. She has suffered since from memory loss, lapses in concentration and frequent and severe headaches, according to the complaint.

Along with Lil' Wayne, whose given name is Dwayne Michael Carter, the suit names Universal Records Inc., Cash Money Records Inc. and Young Money Touring Inc. Layne is seeking $1 million in damages.

Actually I'm surprised this hasn't happened more often. Or are most people smart enough to keep the rainmaking on stage? Two other ladies were also injured in the resulting downpour, but no word yet if they're also planning on suing Wayne over their rain-related injuries.

Concertgoers Sues Lil Wayne For Injuries [Yahoo via AP]

The Lil Wayne-heavy mixtape The Rapper Eater has a cover that's, well, kind of gross (yes, that's Jay-Z's brain that Lil' Wayne is about to dine on; if you've already eaten lunch, you can click the above cover for a larger version). If only it was a sanctioned mix and not one that pieced together old-ish material by the super-prolific rapper—we're sure he would have killed on an "All You Zombies" freestyle.

i have found the greatest hip-hop mix-CD cover of the year (possibly ever) [I Love Music]

DJ Benzi presents The Cool Kids & Lil' Wayne - Gettin' It [MP3, link expired; via The Fader]
DJ Benzi [MP3]

Lil' Wayne - La La La [MP3, link removed; via Discobelle]

Lil Wayne dropped by Rap City yesterday and laid down a few verses; the above rhyme is a slightly different take on this freestyle that's supposed to appear on the mixtape The Drought 3, which was rumored to be bogged down by Chinese Democracy-style delays. A collection of MP3s purporting to be the mixtape's first disc dropped into our laps this morning, and while we're not 100% sure of its authenticity, we do know that it's definitely Weezy who's rhyming over some recent hits, including "This Is Why I'm Hot," "Throw Some Ds," and last year's biggest critical jam:

Lil Wayne - Crazy Freestyle [MP3, link expired]
Lil Wayne Rap City Freestyle [OnSmash, via Still Listen To Gangsta Music]

Swizz Beatz feat. Lil Wayne, R. Kelly, and Jadakiss - It's Me Bitches (Remix) [MP3, link expired; via Nah Right]

Jibbs feat. Chamillionaire, Lil Wayne, Yo Gotti & Chingy - King Kong (remix) [MP3, link expired; via Discobelle]

At this point, you probably think that any new clip featuring Lil Wayne, R. Kelly, or T.I. automatically gets our attention—and, to be honest, you're pretty much spot-on. But what are we supposed to do when confronted by a video in which Kels lounges around a blindingly white money-bed, and where T.I. hangs around Wall Street with a suitcase that just happens to be overflowing with cash, and where that hook keeps looping for infinity? We're only human, people.

TOMORROW: An MP3 of Lil Wayne accidentally dialing the wrong number, and then politely hanging up.

Fat Joe, et. al - Make It Rain [YouTube] [via Nah Right]

Lil Wayne - Reggae Shit [MP3, link expired]
BONUS WEEZY REGGAE REMIX: Lil Wayne - Fireman (A-Trak remix) [MP3, link expired]