A day before the Grammys in February, Whitney Houston died suddenly and producers hastily pulled together a tribute segment for the late singer. And with the Billboard Music Awards just around the corner — the event is being broadcast live this Sunday, May 20, from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas at 8 p.m. EST — we can’t help but wonder if there will be some sort of similar acknowledgment in store for Donna Summer, who lost her battle to lung cancer yesterday at the age of 63.

Houston is already set to be honored at the BBMAs. She’s the recipient of this year’s Billboard Millennium Award, and both Whitney’s Sparkle co-star Jordin Sparks and John Legend are on tap to pay tribute to the singer.

Head below for a roundup of what else to expect at this year’s telecast.

YOUR HOSTS FOR THE NIGHT

Emmy-winning Modern Family pair Julie Bowen and Ty Burrell will be guiding viewers through the night. Why them? Because they’re funny. And they’re not Anne Hathaway and James Franco.

ADELE IS NOMINATED FOR EVERYTHING

Okay, not really. But pretty much. Yes, we’re having de ja vu, as well. With a deep breath intake, here are all the statues the professional awards collector stands to add to her trophy case:

Top Artist
Hot 100 Song (for “Rolling In The Deep”)
Billboard 200 Album (for 21)
Hot 100 Artist
Billboard Top 200 Artist
Top Female Artist
Top Radio Songs Artist
Top Radio Song (for “Rolling In The Deep”)
Top Streaming Song (for “Rolling In The Deep”)
Top Digital Songs Artist
Top Digital Song (for “Rolling In The Deep”)
Top Digital Media Artist
Top Pop Artist

Adele's Amazing year

12 Photos »

ARTISTS WHO AREN’T NAMED ADELE WHO MIGHT WIN AN AWARD OR TWO

Last year Justin Bieber nabbed Best New Artist at the BBMAs, but lost Best Male Artist to Eminem. He’s back in the latter category, and, who knows — the Bieb is on a hot streak with his hit “Boyfriend”. And his voice finally changed (a little). That counts for something, right, voters? (Other awards JB stands to win: Billboard 200 Artist, Top Digital Media Artist and Top Social Artist.)

Also up for a slew of awards (including Hot 100 Song, Top Radio Song, Top Streaming Song, Top Streaming Artist, Top Digital Songs Artist, Top Dance Artist and Top Dance Album): goofball duo LMFAO. They even have the distinction of standing to win eight awards through just four categories, as both “Sexy And I Know It” and “Party Rock Anthem” are nominated for Top Digital Song, Top Pop Song, Top Dance Song and Top Rap Song. The mind, it boggles.

THE PERFORMERS

Multiple nominees Justin Bieber, LMFAO, Chris Brown and Katy Perry (who’s said to be doing new single “Wide Awake”) are all set to take to the stage and sing on Sunday, as are Kelly Clarkson, Linkin Park, Cee Lo Green, Nelly Furtado, Carrie Underwood, Usher, The Wanted, Carly Rae Jepsen (you know you’re dying to hear “Call Me Maybe” live) and, as mentioned, John Legend and Jordin Sparks, who will be paying tribute to Whitney Houston.

OTHER THAN THAT…

We just have two requests: 1.) Take That, who haven’t had an album see a US release in 17 years, should totally win the Top Touring Artist award they’re up for. Yours truly saw them perform in Milan last summer, and they were pretty spectacular. And, 2.) please, Billboard — show Donna some love this weekend. With four #1s on the Hot 100, two handfuls more of Top 10 hits, five Grammys, an Academy Award and a Golden Globe to her credit, she deserves it. She worked hard for the… well, you know.

Log on to Idolator on Sunday evening, where we’ll be covering the Billboard Music Awards live. Also, who are you most looking forward to seeing perform? Let us know below, or by hitting us up on Twitter and Facebook!

The roster of performers for the May 20 Billboard Music Awards is getting larger by the week. Previously, Justin Bieber, Carrie Underwood, The Wanted, LMFAO and Cee Lo Green had been announced as artists who will take the stage at the event, which is being held at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. And today the lineup expanded even further with the additions of Kelly Clarkson, Usher, Linkin Park and Nelly Furtado. Curiously absent from the performers (so far) is Adele, who has stands to win the most this year.

Adele has a total of 18 nods, making her the Billboard Music Awards finalist with the most. She’s just ahead of LMFAO, who have 17, and Rihanna, who has 13. Who knows — maybe Adele learned her lesson after trying to clear airport security with six Grammys, and decided to sit this one out?

The awards gig is scheduled to air live May 20 on ABC at 8 p.m. EST.

[Via Billboard]

The critics are still posting lists ranking the great songs and albums of the past year — but what about the artists who helped shape the sound of 2010? As a special holiday treat to you, we’ve picked a special class of singers, musicians and groups — artists we consider among the most creative emerging stars in pop — to participate in our special year-end feature, exclusively sharing with us their reflections on the albums, songs and performers that made their year really… pop. And in many cases, their answers were surprising.

So far in our year-end series, Far East Movement gave props to Eminem’s Recovery while Adam Lambert waxed poetic about Sia. Thanks to his hit track, “I Like It”, we already know what Enrique Iglesias likes — the way you move on the floor, screaming like never before — but when it came to picking his favorite song of the year, we didn’t know what to expect. Jump below to find out what tune had Enrique’s fists pumping in 2010!

Enrique has had quite a year. He dropped his ninth (ninth!) album, Euphoria, and the only thing steamier than his sultry duet with Nicole Scherzinger on “Heartbeat” was him water-skiing naked in celebration of Spain winning the World Cup. (Baby, we like that.)

Of course, the singer and scored a major hit this year with the Pitbull-assisted, Jersey Shore-approved club jam “I Like It”, which was voted the Song Of The Summer by our readers. But as far as what Enrique’s listening to, he chose Linkin Park’s “Waiting For The End” from their new album A Thousand Suns as his favorite song of the year. (Watch the single’s music video here.)

The Spanish singer isn’t the only one praising the rock band. MTV compared Linkin Park’s latest to Radiohead’s Kid A, describing it as “dark, sprawling, discordant, [and] ambitious”, and calling it “so completely different from the band’s previous efforts that it will almost certainly stand as the line of demarcation between everything that came before and everything that will come after.”

Clearly, many people were fond of this new direction — the band’s fourth studio album topped the Billboard 200, and “Waiting For The End” peaked at #2 on both the Rock and Alternative charts.

Enrique tells us why he picked the rockers’ single as his fave of 2010:

Enrique Iglesias: It’s so hard for me to select just one song or album that is my absolute favorite of the year.  I listen to so many different types of music that it’s difficult to compare and pick one above the rest.  Whether it’s Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Cee Lo Green, Jason Mraz, Juan Luis Guerra, Marco Antonio Solis, Lionel Richie, Wisin & Yandel or Pitbull, it is difficult for me to select JUST ONE artist, let alone one song or one album.

I usually listen to new music through the radio, finding songs on YouTube and from recommendations through friends.  One song in particular that keeps standing out is Linkin Park’s new single, “Waiting For The End”. I know that the most recent album from the band has been a bit of departure from their usual style, and I always admire musicians who grow and take risks musically.

“Waiting For The End” has been in my heavy rotation recently because it has an amazingly melodic quality that builds into an upbeat rock anthem.  The song has a hook that gets stuck in your head, but I’m not mad at that.  It’s super catchy and has elements of pop, but holds true to the band’s rock roots. I like that the somber lyrics of the song contrast with the catchy begging and upbeat ending.  The more I listen to it the more I truly appreciate what the band has done with this song and their new album.

Sara Bareilles not only got bumped off the #1 position on the Billboard Top 200 album chart, her sophomore effort Kaleidoscope Heart slid all the way down to #12. Chalk it up to the one-two punch of Linkin Park’s A Thousand Suns and Trey Songz’s Passion, Pain & Pleasure—which capture the top two spots on the chart, respectively—combined with four other debuts this week.

Still, Billboard‘s Keith Caulfield points out that sales for Linkin Park’s latest (241,000) were far lower than thoses of the California band’s 2007 LP, Minutes To Midnight (623,000). Trey Songz was about 1,000 copies shy of matching Linkin Park’s tally this week.

Four other albums enter the Top 10—Jamey Johnson’s The Guitar Song (#4), Robert Plant’s Band Of Joy (#5), Weezer’s Hurley (#6) and Brandon Flowers’ Flamingo (#8). Elsewhere,  Florence + The Machine’s Lungs jumps from #44 to #14 in the wake of the MTV VMAs. Over on the Hot 100 singles chart, Florence’s “Dog Days Are Over” flies up 72 positions to #21.

Bruno Mars, who ran into a scrape with the law last weekend after being busted while allegedly in possession of cocaine, captures the top spot on the Hot 100 this week with “Just The Way You Are.”

Just watch how you celebrate, Bruno.

The Top 10 of Billboard’s Top 200 Albums:

1. Linkin Park, A Thousand Suns *new*
2. Trey Songz, Passion, Pain & Pleasure *new*
3. Eminem, Recovery
4. Jamey Johnson, The Guitar Song *new*
5. Robert Plant, Band Of Joy *new*
6. Weezer, Hurley *new*
7. Various, Now That’s What I Call Music! Vol. 35
8. Brandon Flowers, Flamingo *new*
9. Katy Perry, Teenage Dream
10. Justin Bieber, My World 2.0

Artists continue to pledge their support for relief aid following last week’s devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti. The latest to step up is Linkin Park, whose Music For Relief nonprofit organization has collected ten unreleased tracks from different artists for the Download To Donate album. (Hear the tracks after the jump.)

“Just last Monday, I was saying how I would like to start directing more of Music For Relief’s attention to Haiti and developing some sustainable housing,” said Linkin Park bassist David “Phoenix” Farrell in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “Then the earthquake happened Tuesday, and we really started scrambling to figure out a way that we could garner as much support from the music community as we could to hopefully raise a ton of money for the cause.”

Additionally, Rihanna will sing a cover of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” and Maxwell will perform “Fistful Of Tears” on The Oprah Winfrey Show today in an episode covering the Haiti tragedy. Wyclef Jean will show Winfrey’s audience footage he shot in the devastated country last week.

Rolling Stone also reports that on Friday, January 22, MTV’s Hope For Haiti television special will air commercial-free on all major networks. Artists performing include U2, Jay-Z, Bruce Springsteen, Coldplay, Taylor Swift, Shakira, John Legend, Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys, Sting and Christina Aguilera.

Here’s the tracklist for Music For Relief’s Download To Donate (music clips below):

1. “Not Alone” – Linkin Park
2. “Mother Maria” – Slash featuring Beth Hart
3. “Never Let Me Down” – Kenna
4. “Heroes” – Peter Gabriel
5. “Still” – Alanis Morissette
6. “Resurrection” – Lupe Fiasco feat. Kenna
7. “We Are One” – Hoobastank
8. “The Wind Blows (Skrillex Remix)” – All-American Rejects
9. “It Must Be Love” – Enrique Iglesias
10. “Typical Situation (live)” – Dave Matthews Band

Today the fancypants Hollywood site The Wrap ran a lengthy piece on what author Dominic Patten saw as the demise of the soundtrack, using as evidence the weak performance of the Linkin Park-led tie-in album for Transformers 2; lousy sales for the 500 Days Of Summer soundtrack compared to Zach Braff’s Garden State juggernaut; the lack of soundtracks Bruno and Obsessed (the latter of which starred Beyoncé); and the generally crummy atmosphere for album sales this year. But despite having a bit of reportage and a few statistics sprinkled into its stew of bad news, the whole article felt kind of off to me. I asked Courtney Smith, a sometime music supervisor and writer for the music-in-movies blog The Playlist, what she thought of the piece. Our back-and-forth, after the jump.


My query:

Seems odd that none of the Disney soundtracks (Hannah Montana, Camp Rock, etc.) were mostly glossed over in this roundup. And there have always been sorta-crappy tie-in soundtracks that haven’t sold very well—the cutout bins at the Princeton Record Exchange would seem to bear that out!


More specifically… the Linkin Park song from Transformers 2 wasn’t as big of an event this time as it was last year, because a) that was their first song in a while and b) the new song sounded a lot like it was conceived as a single to the first one. And isn’t making the Twilight soundtrack album-only, which one of the sources said was not a great idea, a savvy way of capitalizing on a rabid fanbase? There’s a reason Paramore’s “Decode” keeps winning every voted-by-fans award, and it certainly isn’t the quality of the music relative to other pieces of Paramore’s catalog. I suspect the Diablo Cody movie’s soundtrack will do well, too, because it’s pretty focused to people who are into the whole Fueled by Ramen thing.


Anyway, any thoughts you might have would be great! This article just smelled like a heap of “reported” bullshit to me, especially since last year we had the Mamma Mia! soundtrack, High School Musical, and Camp Rock all finishing the year relatively strong.

Courtney replied:

This article is incorrect—the main reason soundtracks are not sold as a la carte downloads on download services is because publishers and the labels who own the master rights don’t want them sold that way or demand a high premium for that licensing usage. They’d rather the movie drive to album sales for the artist than the soundtrack, especially if they aren’t the label releasing the soundtrack. It’s very typical.


A lot of this article strikes me as looking at it the wrong way. A lot of the movies they’re talking about are not music-driven films. In fact, most of the past examples they site as releasing seminal, best-selling soundtracks—Titanic, The Bodyguard, Hannah Montana movie, Twilight—these are chick flicks, and the latter two are heavily invested with a music element. The proper comparison is Mamma Mia!, whose soundtrack did gangbusters. To compare them to Watchmen or Bruno is silly.


Also why would I or anyone buy a Bruno soundtrack? That movie failed to meet monetary expectations at the box office to start with and it has a soundtrack full of things everyone owns already. It would have been flatly dumb for a studio to bother releasing a soundtrack to that film. I’d ask the same thing about a Transformers 2 soundtrack—why would anyone buy that? The target market, young men, are less inclined than any other audience to rebuy (or buy in the first place) stuff they already own (or can get for free). Also, that Linkin Park are leading the soundtrack is folly—it’s playing it safe. The Pew Internet Study of 2008 said people’s No. 1 place to discover new music was in movie and TV soundtracks. That is, not to discover artists they’ve known about for 10 years. New music. Honestly, how can your soundtrack not fail if your lead marketing tool is a band who have been fizzling for the last five years.


The 500 Days of Summer vs. Garden State argument is more interesting, although the piece could have swapped in Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist and Juno—why does one do better and the other flop when they should essentially be the same thing in terms of how and to whom they were marketed? Because the first one to the market wins. An idea is only original once, so to remarket basically the same concept and expect it to have the same social impact the second time is a faulty plan. Plus, maybe in both those cases the originals were just better and had a more lasting impact.

Indeed, comparing Transformers 2 to something like Titanic seems like something of a stretch, and if anything the Linkin Park song is not doing that badly on the Hot 100 (it’s currently No. 19) for being a fairly lackluster song by an older-than-most band that doesn’t really slot in well to the increasingly rhythmic direction of current chart-pop. And the success of Garden State and its attendant album, if I remember correctly, was a much slower burn than that afforded to 500 Days at this point—the Zooey Deschanel vehicle may seem like it’s been out for months because it’s been marketed from here to next week, but it only went into limited release in mid-July, as did its very oldies-heavy soundtrack, which has scanned 12,000 copies through last week’s charts. It kind of makes sense—after all, who wants to buy another copy of Hall & Oates’ “You Make My Dreams (Come True)” when there are Michael Jackson retrospectives to get, am I right?


Slumping CD Sales, iTunes Policies Take Their Toll [The Wrap]

Come back, Stan Bush, all is forgiven. (Although maybe you could ditch the rapping guy, since Linkin Park seem to have done so for their contribution to the Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen soundtrack. Just trying to be helpful!) [YouTube]

Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda on whether musicians will benefit from being on a major label these days: “if you want to make a living making music, and you don’t need the ‘fame’ aspect (you don’t need to ‘blow up’), then you don’t need to go with a major. it’s more complex than “avoiding majors” though. AND, to be perfectly clear, i’m also not saying the ONLY other option is an indie label (you could distribute it and promote it yourself, for example). i’m saying that there are many ways to be a self-sustaining musician these days. recording is easier and cheaper than ever, distribution can be nearly as simple as setting up a paypal account, and online fanbases are out there for you to find and connect with. the key still is, and will always be: is your music good? do i, as a fan, like it? to what degree am i interested in being a part of what you have to offer through your recordings, shows, or merchandise?” Yes, yes, the arguments over whether or not Linkin Park’s music is “good” are still wide open for debate, but his perspective on signing to majors–and how the climate for musicians has changed since the ’90s–is pretty interesting nonetheless. [mikeshinoda.com]

Mope-rockers Linkin Park’s show at Alpine Valley on Saturday night was notable because one of the dudes took a break from whining about the world and his place in it to tell the crowd that people shouldn’t always take themselves so seriously. The band then went on to don blond wigs (??) and perform what may be one of the worst covers of Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine” that I’ve heard in the 21 years since the song was first released. (And I’ve seen my share of GN’R cover bands, so I feel comfortable making this statement.) That guitar solo, oy! Maybe this melodic ignorance is why they have a DJ? [YouTube]

Many people find it hard to tell the great from the godawful when it comes to 21st-century mainstream rock. To help figure out which is which, here’s “Corporate Rock Still Sells,” where Al “GovernmentNames” Shipley examines what’s good, bad, and ugly in the world of rock and roll. This time around, he gives the year’s rock charts a midway-mark overview.

It’s time to see what the most-played songs and artists on rock radio have been from January to June. And surprise, surprise, the drummer/singer/guitarist you can’t get away from is in the top 5 of each list–twice. First, the top songs:

1. Seether, “Fake It”
2. Foo Fighters, “The Pretender”
3. Foo Fighters, “Long Road To Ruin”
4. Linkin Park, “Shadow Of The Day”
5. Puddle Of Mudd, “Psycho”
6. Bravery, “Believe”
7. Seether, “Rise Above This”
8. Finger Eleven, “Paralyzer”
9. Paramore, “CrushCrushCrush”
10. Rise Against, “The Good Left Undone”
11. Atreyu, “Falling Down”
12. Weezer, “Pork & Beans”
13. Three Days Grace, “Never Too Late”
14. Linkin Park, “Given Up”
15. Flobots, “Handlebars”
16. 3 Doors Down, “It’s Not My Time”
17. Death Cab For Cutie, “I Will Possess Your Heart”
18. Jack Johnson, “If I Had Eyes”
19. Panic At The Disco, “Nine In The Afternoon”
20. Chevelle, “I Get It”

Almost every song here cracked the top 5 of Billboard’s Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart, and the four that didn’t–Rise Against, Jack Johnson, Death Cab and Panic–peaked elsewhere in the top 10. But these figures are all about longevity, songs that stay on playlists for months and months, not the ones that make a big splash and then quickly disappear. Therefore, we get plenty of the 2007 hits that refuse to die like “The Pretender,” “Paralyzer,” and “Never Too Late.” And songs that broke in the spring and have been unavoidable ever since, like “Pork & Beans” and “Handlebars,” will almost surely rate higher on the year-end list.

“Nine In The Afternoon,” which I predicted would be a flash in the pan airplay-wise, has turned out to have substantial legs based on its placement here. That’s not to say I’m ready to halt my sophomore-slump schadenfreude for Panic At The Disco–their album Pretty. Odd. has still sold below expectations, and the slightly more tolerable follow-up single “That Green Gentleman” failed to chart at all, which may have helped clear the way for the long radio shelf life “Nine” has had.

Now, let’s look at the 20 most-played artists on alternative radio so far in 2008:

1. Foo Fighters
2. Linkin Park
3. Red Hot Chili Peppers
4. Green Day
5. Nirvana
6. Seether
7. Weezer
8. Pearl Jam
9. Stone Temple Pilots
10. Smashing Pumpkins
11. Three Days Grace
12. Offspring
13. Sublime
14. Incubus
15. Nine Inch Nails
16. Puddle Of Mudd
17. Paramore
18. Beastie Boys
19. Alice In Chains
20. Killers

Again, no surprises at the top, where the Foos and Linkin Park take their predictable spots, dominating with multiple singles from their 2007 albums and a comfortable bedrock of earlier hits. And Seether’s two big recent hits get them plenty far up, despite a relative lack of airplay for previous singles. But overall you’ve got an interesting cross-section here, one that demonstrates just how much older recurrents dominate alt-rock radio these days. Less than half of the artists–nine total, four in the top 10–have had new singles out in the last few months. Three of the bands haven’t been together for more than a decade, and the fact that those bands are Nirvana, Sublime, and Alice In Chains, all of whom have deceased frontmen, is a little creepy.

Even some of the still-active older bands get a negligible amount of their chart placement from recent material: Smashing Pumpkins have eight songs in the top 500 most played songs of the year, but last year’s underwhelming comeback single “Tarantula” is the least popular of those; all 10 of Pearl Jam’s entries are from no later than 1994; and even if Stone Temple Pilots came home from their reunion tour
tomorrow and recorded a smash hit, it’d struggle to get as many spins as “Interstate Love Song.” Meanwhile, Green Day, RHCP, Weezer and Nine Inch Nails get healthy spins for songs from the ’90s as well as those from this decade.

The enduring popularity of first-wave grunge bands makes the presence of umpteenth-wavers like Three Days Grace and Puddle of Mudd unsurprising. But it’s impressive that a relatively new band like Paramore has inched up so high on the list–especially since its two big hits were released in ’07, and the one single the band released this year, the Idolator fave “That’s What You Get,” pretty much tanked, barely cracking the Modern Rock chart. And though The Killers’ Sam’s Town, released way back in 2006, was widely deemed a disappointment, enough of the band’s singles, including that album’s “When You Were Young,” have remained in recurrent play enough to keep them high up on the list. In fact, they’re up much higher than bands who achieved comparable success around the same time and haven’t had alt-rock hits lately, like My Chemical Romance (59) and Fall Out Boy (74). FOB might wanna keep that “Mr. Brightside” cover in their set for a while, because it might eventually be more familiar to the casual fans in the crowd than any of their originals.

All you gossiping fools saying that Chester Bennington is going to leave Linkin Park and join Velvet Revolver? He wants it to be made very clear that those rumors are just that, rumors. So stop spreading rumors about Chester Bennington, unknown people who were spreading those rumors. “It would be very uncomfortable for me to join that band because I’m friends with all of them, including Scott,” he told Kerrang! “If I was even going to do just one show, or record just one song with them, I’d have to know it was okay with my band, all those guys and Scott [Weiland] too.” It does seem odd that people would (allegedly, as I can’t find these rumors anywhere) think Chester would leave his cash cow to play with a past-its-prime act like Velvet Revolver, but then again, watching Slash work on a solo is probably a lot more fun than watching Mike Shinoda work on a rap.

Slash and Chester knocked out “Sweet Child O’ Mine” at a Camp Freddy all-star gig in Vegas, at the very least confirming that he would be a better fit for Velvet Revolver than a difficult junkie who can only pull off “It’s So Easy.”

The band also did “Highway To Hell” and “Whole Lotta Love,” songs considerably happier and hornier than anything Linkin Park has come up with. If he’s not leaving his compatriots in sensitive rap-rock, is he at least going to do more songs that match his increasingly metal look and lifestyle. After all, the guy who sang “Somewhere I Belong” is married to a Playboy Bunny.

Chester: “I am not Velvet Revolver’s new singer” [Kerrang! via Blabbermouth]
Chester Bennington, Slash… Playing Paradise City [YouTube]

I still haven’t seen Sunshine (No. 23 on my queue, between Primer and MST3K: Ring Of Terror), but from the trailer alone I know Linkin Park’s new video for “Leave Out All The Rest” shamelessly swipes many of its visuals. I’m totally fine with that, as the idea of Linkin Park floating in space and singing one last song of regret before being burnt alive in the ultimate act of martyrdom is pretty sweet. Mike Shinoda removing a space helmet, Chester floating in zero gravity, a tense band meeting with lots of paper ruffling before retiring to their hyperbaric chambers, virtual chess games–this video has it all. [YouTube]

Maybe it’s not fair to Linkin Park to call them has-beens, but it’s a little late for them to be releasing a track titled “We’ve Made It.” And Busta Rhymes? Hell, he might need to make it again.

This track is probably supposed to have the turgid, inspirational drive of “Lose Yourself,” but Chester Bennington would have been better off just singing the hook from “Eye Of The Tiger,” which Busta would have probably preferred back when his music was fun. Rhyming “my life is glorious” with “I’m a symbol of greatness, you can call me Morpheus,” indicates Busta’s stuck at the turn of the century even more than his decision to work with Linkin Park. Mike Shinoda would also like you to know that once upon a time, people didn’t give Linkin Park respect. But that’s all changed now! Awww yeah!

I assume the “Jimmy” Busta references in the last verse is Interscope honcho Jimmy Iovine. 50 Cent also name dropped the former Stevie Nicks producer in a single recently, and I’m wondering if these recent on-track shout-outs are meant to stave off the release delays that Iovine has become notorious for in recent years. It was always common for Arista artists to open their liner notes with a thank you to God and Clive Davis, but I’m pretty sure he never inspired a rapper to announce they were staying alive, making money like Clive.

Busta Rhymes ft. Linkin Park – We Made It [GREAT QUALITY!] [Youtube]

Since many people find it hard to tell the great from the godawful when it comes to 21st-century mainstream rock, welcome to “Corporate Rock Still Sells,” where Al “GovernmentNames” Shipley examines what’s good, bad, and ugly in the world of Billboard‘s rock charts. This time around he looks at the return of nu-metal in the guises of Disturbed and oddly rap-free rap-metal.

After a few sluggish months of slow-rising hits, the past few weeks have seen some major movement on the Billboard rock charts, with several new entries making big impacts. And the biggest comes from Disturbed, the Chicago nu-metal band distinguished primarily by frontman David Draiman’s resemblance to Howie Mandel with multiple facial piercings, as well as his usually annoying, occasionally awesome Korn-meets-Shudder-To-Think vocal tics. “Inside The Fire,” the lead single from their forthcoming album Indestructible, entered the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart at a staggering No. 5, and moved up to No. 4 last week–pretty impressive, considering that even the biggest monsters of rock tend to take at least a few weeks to reach that high on the chart. This marks the band’s tenth consecutive top 10 hit, and it’s also quickly becoming one of its biggest hits to date on Hot Modern Rock Tracks, where it’s historically had less traction. But since Draiman neither goes “oooh-wah-ah-ah-ah” nor covers Genesis on “Inside The Fire,” the song is not one of the rare instances where I will refrain from changing the station when a Disturbed song comes on the radio.

Elsewhere on the Mainstream chart, a number of recent entries suggest the following theory: rap-metal is back, just without the rapping. The chart is still littered with holdovers from that widely maligned subgenre’s turn of the century heyday, but right now three of those acts have hits rising up the chart without busting a single fresh rhyme: Linkin Park’s “Given Up”; P.O.D.’s “Addicted”; and Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long.” Now, don’t get me wrong. Mike Shinoda, Sonny Sandoval, and Bob Ritchie are not among my top five MCs of all time; they wouldn’t even make my top 10. (Sorry, Sonny!) But these bands’ early hits were at least a lot more fun than listening to these jokers and their bandmates decide to get ‘melodic.’ Please, nobody tell Fred Durst that all he has to do to get back on the radio is start earnestly crooning. He might cover The Who again.

As Chris Molanphy noted in his last 100 And Single column, the other big Modern Rock debuts come from the Raconteurs and Death Cab For Cutie. “Salute Your Solution,” the lead single from the Raconteurs’ Consolers Of The Lonely, is at No. 11 after entering the chart at No. 26 for the first week that anyone, including radio stations, had a copy of the song, given that the album it comes from was made available in “EVERY FORMAT AT ONCE” on March 25. Although Jack White’s insta-release stunt was ostensibly done in part to circumvent the major-label “first-week sales” mentality, both the album and the single got off to very strong starts. Still, “Salute Your Solution” is one of my least favorite tracks off the album, and I can’t see it topping the chart like “Steady, As She Goes” did in 2006. Death Cab, whose 2005 album Plans was just certified platinum this February, are right behind the Raconteurs at No. 12 with “I Will Possess Your Heart,” an ambitious eight-minute single that most stations are presumably playing in its four-minute radio edit.

So what isn’t on the Modern Rock chart? Two big rock hits currently in the upper reaches of the Hot 100 and the Pop 100.
• Three Days Grace’s actually-kinda-good “Never Too Late” was one of the most-played Modern Rock hits of 2007, but it dropped off the chart well before its current crossover to VH1 and adult top 40 stations. That crossover was helped by program directors being made less squeamish about the song’s anti-suicide theme through a new edit that changes the chorus line “you want to end your life” to “you want to change your life.”
• Meanwhile, Fall Out Boy’s cover of “Beat It,” which has already been hailed by one Idolator contributor as potentially the best rock song of 2008, is all over pop radio, but it has yet to crack the rock charts. I’m not shocked, given that one of the big theories put forth in my ’07 wrap-up was that FOB are quickly losing their rock radio support. But I wonder if those stations will keep holding out on this one, considering that many of them still play that damn Alien Ant Farm version of “Smooth Criminal.” Personally, I think the band’s take on “Beat It” is weak sauce–Patrick Stump earns his better-than-your-average-emo-frontman bona fides much more easily when he’s not held to the higher standards of pop and R&B vocals. Nonetheless, when he hits the Rod Stewart Great American Songbook phase of his career in a couple of decades, he’ll have a head start thanks to this cover, not to mention his previous work interpolating Supertramp and Jermaine Stewart with Gym Class Heroes and covering Go West with New Found Glory.

Since many people find it hard to tell the great from the godawful when it comes to 21st-century mainstream rock, welcome to “Corporate Rock Still Sells,” where Al Shipley (a.k.a. Idolator commenter GovernmentNames) examines what’s good, bad, and ugly in the world of Billboard‘s rock charts. This time around he takes a look at Billboard‘s Top 40 Hot Modern Rock Songs Of 2007 to see just what “rock” meant to radio this year:

Billboard‘s end-of-year lists, as always, provide a feast for those of us who care to painstakingly analyze not just popular music, but exactly what was the most popular and why. While Chris Molanphy made a meal out of the stats–including the Modern Rock numbers–last week, he left plenty of meat on the bones for me to dig into. And the Top 40 Hot Modern Rock Songs of 2007 chart is a mix of the usual suspects with some intriguing surprises.

As is generally the case with Billboard‘s year-end charts, which start in December of the previous year and end in November, this one heavily favors hits from the first half of the year and holdovers from 2006. Pretty much the entire Top 10 had impacted radio by the spring, giving the shaft to songs that have been inescapable over the last few months like the Foo Fighters’ “The Pretender” and Paramore’s “Misery Business,” which had to settle for Nos. 14 and 25, respectively. Unsurprisingly, if depressingly, the top spot is held by Linkin Park’s “Another Version of ‘Numb,’ This Time Without Jay-Z,” with Finger Eleven’s unlikely dance-rock smash “Paralyzer” (a personal favorite) taking runner-up status.

By far the most unexpected and inexplicable stats on the chart are the respective placements of Nine Inch Nails’ two hits from Year Zero. “Survivalism” landed at No. 37, with “Capital G” coming in eight spots above it at No. 29. “Survivalism,” the album’s lead single, was out longer and peaked at No. 1 on the Modern Rock chart. But follow-up “Capital G,” released just before Trent Reznor began his very public divorce from Interscope, didn’t have a video or even a remix single with a “halo number”; it peaked at No. 6, making it the first NIN single to not top the Modern Rock chart since 2001. And the song itself, aside from a drum pattern that was eerily similar to Michael Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel,” sure didn’t smell like a hit, with Reznor’s goofy vocal delivery and heavy-handed indictment of the Bush administration. I’m totally open to any theories on how this song, which I scarcely remember hearing on the radio at all, not only racked up more airplay than “Survivalism,” but apparently became one of the biggest rock hits of the year. Perhaps it became a favorite on West Coast stations I don’t listen to, or a few liberal DJs got a kick out of playing the song as much as possible during graveyard shifts? I’m stumped.

What the list demonstrates most is that modern rock radio in 2007 operated in its own sphere, with a limited amount of pop culture crossover. Fall Out Boy may have been crowned by media outlets like MTV as the biggest (or at least the most visible) young band in the world this year, but their tabloid-fodder relationships and numerous hip-hop collaborations cemented them as pop stars, not rock stars. Their sole entry on the list, “This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race” (No. 26), reflects the fact that this year’s Infinity On High skewed far more pop than their 2005 breakthrough, From Under The Cork Tree. All of Infinity‘s singles peaked higher on the Pop 100 and iTunes sales charts than on rock radio, and only “This Ain’t A Scene” scraped the Modern Rock Top 10, at a lower peak than earlier hits like “Dance, Dance” or “Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down.” Meanwhile, FOB was beat out on the year-end list by bands like Three Days Grace, Breaking Benjamin, Sick Puppies, and The Almost, none of whom you were likely to see on television this year (unless you watch Fuse, maybe).

While a handful of bands land on the list twice, including Muse and My Chemical Romance, only one is there three times, and you probably wouldn’t be able to guess who it is: Incubus. Though their highest spot is a modest No. 12 for “Dig,” the first three singles from the band’s late 2006 album Light Grenades wound up on 2007′s top 40. When Light Grenades debuted at the top of the album charts last November, I figured it was just the usual case of a band’s diehard fans coming out in full force on the release date, coinciding with an otherwise slow week for new releases. But Billboard‘s list reaffirms that Incubus still has a tight grip on Modern Rock radio, even if they’re a long way out from their peak of mainstream popularity in the late ’90s, when frontman Brandon Boyd was the token rocker pin-up on TRL, a spot currently occupied by FOB bassist Pete Wentz. Unless Fall Out Boy plan on completing their transformation into this generation’s Duran Duran with their next album, they might want to consult the guys in Incubus for some advice on how they can avoid losing rock radio’s support entirely.

Since many people find it hard to tell the great from the godawful when it comes to 21st-century mainstream rock, welcome to “Corporate Rock Still Sells,” where Al Shipley (a.k.a. Idolator commenter GovernmentNames) examines what’s good, bad, and ugly in the world of Billboard‘s rock charts. In the first installment, he takes a look at the current state of modern rock radio, a format that he argues is healthier than most will give it credit for:

It might seem like an odd idea to have anyone explain the state of something as commonplace as rock radio, but in the indie-centric blogosphere, you can’t assume prior knowledge about popular music that escapes the Hype Machine‘s gaze. Even in the critical community at large, where pretty much any populist genre (country, Radio Disney, ringtone rap) gets its share of respect and scrutiny from a dedicated gaggle of writers, mainstream rock is just about the only significant slice of the SoundScan pie that gets dismissed across the board without a second thought. (Possibly because those other stabs at populism came out of attempts to banish the bogeyman known as “rockism.”) One of the seeds for this column was planted while playing corporate-rock apologist in response to Maura’s potshot at the Modern Rock Top 10, which looked to me to be a hell of a lot better than the chart’s been at most points in the past five years. And I don’t care what anyone says, “Bleed It Out” (see above) and “Paralyzer” (see below) are fucking catchy songs.

Despite the persistence of faceless nu-grunge merchants like Seether, the chart is fairly diverse at the moment: Warped Tour insurgents (Paramore), pretentious British art-rock (Muse), hoarse-throated orthodox punk (Against Me!), and the perennially critic-friendly White Stripes have all staked out real estate on the current Top 20. Bands with grass-roots followings and indie origins are all over the radio–just not the kind of grass-roots followings and indie origins that get Pitchfork love, for the most part. But these bands all play loud, guitar-heavy rock music that sounds good on FM frequencies, which hasn’t been a big part of the indie zeitgeist for a long, long time. For once, mainstream and underground rock are mutually exclusive, as much for musical reasons as for any kind of indie loathing of the mainstream. There’s still some indie crossover happening on the radio waves, but it’s mostly on sleepy triple-A stations.

Back around the turn of the century, the relative health of rock radio was popular debate fodder for music fans everywhere, but nowadays even its detractors seem to have lost some of their passion for the argument. The endless cycle of “rock is dead!”/”rock is back!” trend pieces that accompanied every major event in the rock press (Radiohead “abandoning” guitars, the Strokes-led garage rock revival, etc.) seem to have run their course, with hip-hop fans now picking up the torch to argue endlessly about whether their beloved genre can be dead despite all evidence to the contrary. It’s a foregone conclusion that mainstream rock sucks. Granted, that assumption’s frequently right. But it’s probably wrong more often than you think.

Recently, Billboard brought back the Top Rock Albums chart that it had discontinued in 1984, which might be seen as an acknowledgment that rock music is as marginalized as it’s been in the last 23 years. Which still isn’t that marginalized, though: the bottom album on the Album Rock chart’s Top 10 is at No. 32 on the big chart, which means that roughly a third of the most popular albums of the country are still rock music, at least by Billboard‘s somewhat inconsistent definition of the genre. Guitar rock doesn’t rule the monoculture like it once did–and it never will again–but the media’s no longer in a panic about it. Rock’s big unit-shifters of recent years have been, for the most par, VH1-friendly balladeers of all stripes, from Maroon 5 to Nickelback, and TRL-beloved emo-not-emo phenoms like Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance. Not exactly the kinds of bands that folks like Jann Wenner would feel great about grooming for eventual canonization in Cleveland, but not as difficult for them to embrace with a straight face as Limp Bizkit or Creed were when they were running shit a few years ago.

But even now, with thoroughly 21st-century mediocrity like Linkin Park ruling rock radio, the format is clearly living in the shadow of the ’90s. Although plenty of bands have tried, and failed, to maintain or regain the relevance they enjoyed a decade ago (paging Billy Corgan), those that have succeeded now get to be big fish in a slightly smaller pond. Bands that made more music in the ’90s–and for the most part were more popular then, too–have enjoyed most of their No. 1 singles on the Modern Rock chart since 2000. Eight of Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ 11 chart toppers, half of Green Day’s eight, four of the Foo Fighters’ five, and all four of Nine Inch Nails’ were racked up in this decade. Perhaps it’s just a less competitive field than it used to be, or perhaps aging program directors will add anything with name recognition to their playlists en masse just to keep Three Days Grace at bay.

The prevailing wisdom is that Modern Rock radio had its glory days, and they’re long gone by now. But looking at lists of ’90s chart-toppers just reminds me that there was always a lot of horrible, horrible bullshit clogging up those stations’ playlists. There was no sudden downhill slide set in motion by Staind, or Sugar Ray, or even Bush. And only once we free ourselves from the rose-colored glasses of the Nirvana era can we crank up our local rock station and enjoy the good–or channel-surf past the bad.

“There’s finally a new No. 1 on Billboard’s Modern Rock chart, as the White Stripes’ “Icky Thump” jumps 2-1 to dethrone Linkin Park’s “What I’ve Done” after an astonishing 15 week run in the lead.” Yeah, I’d probably use a different adjective than “astonishing,” but either way, this can only be seen as good news. [Billboard]

Clearly, Chester Bennington’s frowny-face reputation can’t be erased, no matter how hard he tries; why else would the Hollywood Reporter‘s photo editor pair the happy news with that picture in which the LP singer looks like an apoplectic five-year-old wailing for a juicebox?

Linkin Park’s Minutes To Midnight sold 623,000 copies this week, breaking the record for the highest first-week total of 2007 and entering the Billboard chart at No. 1. The album also moved 84,000 digital copies; that total set a record for the highest single-week digital albums tally, according to Billboard.biz. (See? Linkin Park fans aren’t just harassing Chester Bennington online!)

Biggest Debuts: Coming in behind Linkin Park was the R & B singer (and future bandmate of Tyrese) Tank, whose album Sex, Love & Pain sold 103,000 copies. Wilco’s call to arms to its fanbase seems to have worked; Sky Blue Sky entered the chart at No. 4, selling 87,000 copies and causing the band to have its best one-week sales tally ever. Gretchen Wilson came in at No. 5, selling 73,000 copies of One Of The Boys, while Megadeth completed the round of top-10 debuts, entering the chart at No. 8 with United Abominations, which sold 54,000 copies.

Charting The Decline: The total number of albums sold went up 1% from last week (8.59 million units from 8.51 million units), although it’s probably worth noting that without Linkin Park’s massive numbers in there, the overall units moved would have seen a bit of a dip. A year ago this week, the total number of albums sold totaled 9.24 million copies–so this year’s totals represent a 7% year-to-year dip.

Nickelback Award For Inexplicable Durability: It’s pretty obvious who gets this award this week, isn’t it?

Linkin Park Scores Year’s Best Debut With ‘Midnight’ [Billboard]

The first-week sales figures for Linkin Park’s Minutes To Midnight will be revealed tomorrow, and despite middling reviews, there’s wide speculation that it’ll shatter the 2007 first-week-sales record set by Norah Jones’ Not Too Late, which moved 418,000 copies back in February. But how many people will be willing to shell out for the band’s less-rappy new material?

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