Idolator: T.I.

A Strapped America Goes To The 99-Cent Store, And New Singles Storm The Top 40

Chris Molanphy — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:00:00 EDT

In a week where it seems the global financial crisis is inescapable, America decides that a buck is a nice price to spend on music, and the Top 40 of Billboard's Hot 100 sees a wave of new best-selling singles—including two in the Top 10 and a massive leap by a new No. 1 smash.

With that 79-place jump (which, ahem…I called last week), T.I. accomplishes two major chart feats. New No. 1 “Live Your Life” featuring Rihanna sets the record for the biggest leap to the top in history—which would be unremarkable, given the frequency with which this record has been broken recently, if not for the fact that T.I. is beating himself, having reset the mark just six weeks ago.

More impressively, by ousting his own “Whatever You Like,” T.I. joins a very elite club: acts that succeeded themselves at No. 1. During the Hot 100’s entire 50-year history, there have only been eight, and if you ignore featuring-artist credits, the number is six.

Besides these chart feats, T.I.’s hit also sets a record for the biggest debut sales week for a digital single. But we might want to get used to that happening. Already, iTunes is reporting a wave of new best-sellers as the music industry’s last blockbuster holiday hits full swing.

Let’s hold off on discussing T.I.’s record-setting leap (yawn) and talk about how the firehose of digital sales affects his single and several others.

Since Apple’s iTunes Store opened for business five years ago, the week just after Christmas has set a new record for digital sales volume, as millions of new iPod owners rush to their computers to fill the devices. By early January, Apple has crowned a new song the all-time one-week best-seller. The most recent beneficiary and current record-holder is Flo Rida, whose pop-rap smash (and likely No. 1 hit for all of 2008) “Low” sold nearly half a million downloads in the week between Christmas and New Year’s.

Just to give you an idea of scale, in a typical week, maybe five songs sell more than 100,000 copies. During that most recent late-December week, the top 24 songs all sold that well, and the 10 best-sellers moved more than 200,000 each.

That’s what makes this otherwise ordinary early-October sales week notable: almost the entire Top 10 of Billboard’s Digital Songs chart sold in the six-figure range, and each song in the Top Five moved more than 140,000. That’s not Christmas-big, but it’s impressive at a time that doesn’t seem to have any specific holiday or special-event-related trigger. If the forthcoming (inevitably dreadful) holiday season has any effect at all, it’s the fact that all of the blockbuster albums on which the industry has pinned its fourth-quarter hopes have leadoff singles, and they’re all dropping now.

These include new tracks by Christina Aguilera, Nickelback and David Cook, all of which we discussed in this column last week. Two of those three records make even more impressive Hot 100 debuts than I expected, and a fourth one I didn’t mention last week outperforms expectations as well.

Aguilera’s “Keeps Gettin’ Better” and Nickelback’s “Gotta Be Somebody” both debut within the big chart’s Top 10—at Nos. 7 and 10, respectively. Each is fueled by a decent amount of airplay and a whole lot of sales: 144,000 downloads for Xtina, 127,000 for the Canuck post-grungers.

The Cook single, by contrast, is a bit of an underperformer. With 109,000 downloads, Cook’s “Light On” makes a respectable Hot 100 showing at No. 17. But compared with fellow American Idol finalist David Archuleta, whose “Crush” debuted at No. 2 in August with 166,000 downloads in its first week, those numbers look a little… um, light. (Sorry.) Where Cook’s hit goes from here will depend on radio’s embrace, and so far things don’t look good: “Light On” is totally absent not only from the all-genre Hot 100 Airplay list but from both the Mainstream and Modern Rock charts, despite Cook’s status as the first Idol “rocker” winner and the presence of co-writer Chris Cornell.

Finally, the Killers' catchiest song (and weirdest chorus lyric) in years results in their second-biggest Hot 100 debut: “Human” sells 70,000 copies and enters the big chart at No. 32. Only 2006’s “When You Were Young” did better, debuting at No. 29. Credit their promotional team with good timing: the band’s appearance on Saturday Night Live last weekend, in the last 24 hours of the tracking week for the chart, probably accounts for many thousands of those downloads.

All of these songs’ sales totals are impressive, but they’re dwarfed by the song at No. 1.

“Live Your Life” isn’t the lead single of T.I.’s Paper Trail, which debuts atop the album chart this week. Technically, “Life” isn’t even a single at all—despite previewing it at MTV’s Video Music Awards in early September and giving radio stations advance copies, Atlantic Records (and Island Def Jam, Rihanna’s label, which is co-promoting the song) never made it available at iTunes in advance of the album, Weezy-style. But the instant T.I.’s album dropped at iTunes, with all of its tracks simultaneously on sale at 99 cents, an army of fans swept in to buy the song.

To be exact, 335,000 fans bought it, making “Life” the second-biggest one-week seller of all time behind Flo Rida’s “Low,” and the biggest-selling digital song (a) in a non-holiday week and (b) in its debut week. The previous record-holder for that last distinction was Mariah Carey, who moved 286,000 copies of “Touch My Body” in its debut week last spring.

The first-week sales of “Life” are more than double those for this week’s second-biggest seller, Pink’s “So What.” In terms of the Hot 100, sales like that made the leap to No. 1 by the T.I./Rihanna song inevitable, regardless of how much airplay the song was receiving. But hey, airplay ain’t shabby: “Life” is already the 22nd most-played song at radio nationwide. On the airplay-heavy Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, “Life” is already in the Top 10.

As for the records T.I. sets, succeeding himself at No. 1 is the real mind-blower, because so few acts have done it. And when they do, it’s usually a sign that they’re at a peak of culture-dominating popularity: think the Beatles in 1964, Boyz II Men in 1994, or Usher in 2004.

In his column this week, Fred Bronson at Billboard has the complete list of acts that have done it, and he counts nine. But that includes an Elvis Presley twofer that precedes the existence of the Hot 100 (back in the days when Billboard reported multiple big singles charts), and two acts that scored with a featured-artist credit: Puff Daddy in 1997 (his “I’ll Be Missing You” was succeeded by the Notorious B.I.G.–fronted “Mo Money Mo Problems”), and Ja Rule in 2002 (his “Always on Time” was followed by Jennifer Lopez’s “Ain’t It Funny”). I’d argue to put those acts on a lower tier, leaving a half-dozen who did it on the Hot 100, with tracks they fronted: the Beatles, Boyz, Nelly, OutKast (a bit of a cheat to those of us who regard “Hey Ya!” as an André 3000 single and “The Way You Move” as a Big Boi single, but never mind), Usher, and now Clifford “T.I.” Harris Jr.

When T.I. soared from No. 71 to No. 1 with “Whatever You Like” in late August, I sniffed that this chart feat was becoming less amazing all the time, as several current acts like Usher and Maroon 5 had leapt to the top from outside the Top 40 (or, in Rihanna’s case, routinely: she’s done it three times).

Indeed, by beating his own record this week with the 80–1 leap of “Live Your Life,” the Atlanta rap king shrinks the time between record-breaking instances almost as low as it can go. It took 38 years for the Beatles (“Can’t Buy Me Love,” 1964, 26–1) to lose the record to Kelly Clarkson (“A Moment Like This,” 2002, 52–1); four and a half years for her to lose it to Maroon 5 (“Makes Me Wonder,” 2007, 64–1); 16 months for them to lose it to T.I.’s “Whatever”; and a month and a half for him to beat it himself.

Let me reiterate one word in the prior paragraph: almost. The smallest possible gap between record-setting instances, of course, would be one week, and it’s possible that that’s about to happen.

This week, Britney Spears debuts on the Hot 100 at No. 96 with “Womanizer,” entirely thanks to radio points. The song was until recently not available for purchase. Like T.I. a week ago, Spears has garnered remarkable out-of-the-box airplay, as “Womanizer” already ranks 55th among all songs spun, just a couple of weeks after going to radio. Which means the formula that sent T.I.’s last two hits to No. 1—first, early airplay, then an instant explosion of sales—is working for Spears as well: “Womanizer” was put on sale at iTunes three days ago, and lo and behold, at this writing it’s Apple’s top-seller, beating “Live Your Life.”

Should Britney pull a one-week sales total on the scale of T.I.’s—over 300,000, or even just the low 200’s—next week she could leap from No. 96 to No. 1, defeating his record after just seven days and possibly setting it for all time. That is, unless one day the stars align and a song debuts at Nos. 97, 98, 99 or 100 before shooting to the top. And then, once we’ve run out of Hot 100 positions, we’d never have to talk about this increasingly dubious chart record again.

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

• A couple more tidbits about the Killers: “Human,” with its New Order–esque synth sound, is being received warmly at the band’s “home format.” Last week, the song entered the Modern Rock chart at No. 13. That’s by far their best debut there—“When You Were Young” debuted at No. 27 on that list in the summer of 2006. And this week, “Human” becomes the band’s fastest Top 10 Modern Rock hit, rising to No. 8; “Young,” by contrast, took three weeks to move into the winners’ circle.

• When Billboard publishes its year-end charts, I’ll be a bit surprised if the person with the No. 1 R&B/Hip-Hop song of the year isn’t Keyshia Cole. She’ll either do it with her seven-week chart-topper from last winter/spring, “I Remember”; or her even bigger nine-week chart-topper from last spring/summer, “Heaven Sent.” I mention this because the latter just won’t die: a week after “Heaven” dropped out of the R&B/Hip-Hop Top 10 after a four-month run there, it jumps back to No. 9, for reasons known only to urban radio programmers. Interesting tidbit: because “Heaven” moved into the Top 10 last May the week after “Remember” dropped out, last week’s chart was the first week since early January that Cole hasn’t been somewhere inside the R&B Top 10. Even Alicia Keys (the other likely year-end winner) has been out of the winners’ circle more weeks than Cole.

• Some quick notes on struggling hits: Sony’s quest to give Leona Lewis a second Top 10 hit on the Hot 100 hasn’t died yet, as “Better in Time” creeps up four spaces to No. 14. "Better" might still make it, but Lewis’ team is really sweating it—the song is now in its 13th week on the Hot 100, and the label was pushing it to radio a couple of months before that. Just for perspective, “Bleeding Love,” best-selling single of this calendar year, made the Top 10 in its fifth chart week last March.

Right next to Lewis, at No. 15, is a song that just two weeks ago I thought stood a chance of reaching No. 1: Kanye West’s “Love Lockdown.” The collapse in his digital sales, in a week where iTunes buyers have other shiny new songs to distract them, is the culprit; “Lockdown” now ranks 12th on the Digital Songs chart. On the big chart, “Lockdown” has probably peaked overall, but continued growth at radio—it now ranks 48th there, up from 69th a week ago—could bring it back to the Top 10 by the time ’Ye’s 808 and Heartbreak drops in November.

Top 10s
Last week's position and total weeks charted in parentheses (Digital Songs chart includes total downloads/percentage change in parentheses):

Hot 100
1. T.I. feat. Rihanna, "Live Your Life" (LW No. 80, 2 weeks)
2. T.I., "Whatever You Like" (LW No. 1, 9 weeks)
3. Pink, "So What" (LW No. 2, 7 weeks)
4. Rihanna, "Disturbia" (LW No. 4, 16 weeks)
5. Kevin Rudolf feat. Lil Wayne, "Let It Rock" (LW No. 15, 6 weeks)
6. Katy Perry, "Hot N Cold" (LW No. 6, 10 weeks)
7. Christina Aguilera, "Keeps Gettin' Better" (CHART DEBUT)
8. T-Pain feat. Lil Wayne, "Can't Believe It" (LW No. 7, 10 weeks)
9. M.I.A., "Paper Planes" (LW No. 5, 12 weeks)
10. Nickelback, "Gotta Be Somebody" (CHART DEBUT)

Hot Digital Songs
1. T.I. feat. Rihanna, "Live Your Life" (CHART DEBUT, 335,000 downloads)
2. Pink, "So What" (LW No. 2, 165,000 downloads)
3. Kevin Rudolf feat. Lil Wayne, "Let It Rock" (LW No. 10, 148,000 downloads)
4. T.I., "Whatever You Like" (LW No. 1)
5. Christina Aguilera, "Keeps Gettin' Better" (CHART DEBUT, 144,000 downloads)
6. Nickelback, "Gotta Be Somebody" (CHART DEBUT, 127,000 downloads)
7. Katy Perry, "Hot N Cold" (LW No. 4)
8. David Cook, "Light On" (CHART DEBUT, 109,000 downloads)
9. Taylor Swift, "Love Story" (LW No. 5)
10. Rihanna, "Disturbia" (LW No. 7)

Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
1. T.I., "Whatever You Like" (LW No. 1, 12 weeks)
2. Jennifer Hudson, "Spotlight" (LW No. 3, 21 weeks)
3. T-Pain feat. Lil Wayne, "Can't Believe It," (LW No. 2, 13 weeks)
4. Jazmine Sullivan, "Need U Bad" (LW No. 4, 23 weeks)
5. Ne-Yo, "Miss Independent" (LW No. 6, 11 weeks)
6. Lil Wayne feat. Bobby Valentino, "Mrs. Officer" (LW No. 5, 14 weeks)
7. Lil Wayne feat. T-Pain, "Got Money" (LW No. 7, 21 weeks)
8. T.I. feat. Rihanna, "Live Your Life" (LW No. 16, 4 weeks)
9. Keyshia Cole, "Heaven Sent" (LW No. 13, 28 weeks)
10. Robin Thicke, "Magic" (LW No. 9, 20 weeks)

Hot Country Songs
1. Kenny Chesney, "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven" (LW No. 2, 10 weeks)
2. Darius Rucker, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" (LW No. 1, 25 weeks)
3. Toby Keith, "She Never Cried in Front of Me" (LW No. 3, 15 weeks)
4. Carrie Underwood, "Just a Dream" (LW No. 6, 13 weeks)
5. Kid Rock, "All Summer Long" (LW No. 4, 21 weeks)
6. Brad Paisley, "Waitin' on a Woman" (LW No. 8, 17 weeks)
7. Jimmy Wayne, "Do You Believe Me Now" (LW No. 5, 28 weeks)
8. Tim McGraw, "Let It Go" (LW No. 9, 12 weeks)
9. Taylor Swift, "Love Story" (LW No. 11, 4 weeks)
10. George Strait, "Troubadour" (LW No. 7, 19 weeks)

Hot Modern Rock Tracks
1. The Offspring, "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid" (LW No. 1, 11 weeks)
2. Weezer, "Troublemaker" (LW No. 2, 13 weeks)
3. Staind, "Believe" (LW No. 3, 15 weeks)
4. Apocalyptica feat. Adam Gontier, "I Don't Care" (LW No. 6, 14 weeks)
5. Rise Against, "Re-Education (Through Labor)" (LW No. 4, 7 weeks)
6. Metallica, "The Day That Never Comes" (LW No. 5, 7 weeks)
7. Carolina Liar, "I’m Not Over" (LW No. 7, 23 weeks)
8. The Killers, "Human" (LW No. 13, 2 weeks)
9. Theory of a Deadman, "Bad Girlfriend" (LW No. 10, 16 weeks)
10. Kings of Leon, "Sex on Fire" (LW No. 17, 7 weeks)

"Weird Al" Yankovic Puts Himself On Sale At The 99-Cent Store

Maura Johnston — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 09:30:00 EDT

It's a day late, but "Weird Al" Yankovic's take on T.I.'s "Whatever You Like" has finally made its way to the iTunes Store. And if the economy keeps going the way it's been going, he's probably written the template of label-dropping songs for the next few years: Louis Vuitton and Prada are out, Costco and McDonald's are in. Which should, at the very least, make the cottage industry of product placement in music videos at least a little more interesting, if just as stuffed with Nokia phones as it is as the moment. [iTunes]

"Weird Al" Does T.I.: How It Came To Be

Maura Johnston — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:15:00 EDT

"Weird Al" Yankovic takes to his blog and offers up the inside scoop on his rush-recorded parody of the country's No. 1 song that arrives at the iTunes Store tomorrow: "Actually, the name of my song is ALSO 'Whatever You Like.' For you history buffs, I believe this is the first time that my parody has had the exact same name as the song I was parodying. Just so you know, I'm only doing this as part of my on-going effort to confuse as many people as I possibly can. But I promise you, even though my song title is the same as T.I.'s, I DID change the lyrics. Somewhat."

Big thanks go out to T.I and his manager for their support—not only was he nice enough to give me his permission and blessing for this parody, but he responded so quickly that I was able to make everything happen insanely fast. In less than a two week period—seriously—I was able to come up with an idea for the song, get legal permission for the song, write the song, record the song, mix the song, master the song, upload the song to my label and deliver the song to iTunes. Talk about instant gratification! One of the other cool things about putting out music this way is, there's not really enough time for Internet leaks to happen. I try to maintain a certain amount of secrecy around my projects for obvious reasons… and this time, as far as I can tell, the only person leaking information to the Internet has been ME!"

Ah, God bless you, Al. Now if you could start a YouTube channel for those moments when you're inspired to create new AL TV segments, maybe this here Internet experiment would seem like a little bit less of a wash.

WYL ["Weird Al" Yankovic's MySpace Blog]

Whatever He Likes: T.I. Holds Chart Penthouse, Takes Reservation for Next Week

Chris Molanphy — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 15:00:00 EDT

In a sleepy week for Billboard's Hot 100, Atlanta rap king T.I. maintains his grip on the No. 1 spot, his fifth nonconsecutive week there, with “Whatever You Like.”

The “jump ball” I expected to break within the Top Three turned out to be a dead ball, as the three hits hold their positions. T.I. actually outsold both Pink and Kanye West at buck-a-song retailers, blunting those two challengers’ previous digital-sales advantages and padding his already huge lead at radio. West, in particular, will probably muddle along for a while now, as his sales two weeks later have fallen off, and his airplay is emerging, steadily but slowly.

Besides, T.I. appears be settling into a long run atop the chart, and within a week or two it might be with a different song. His newest hit, previewed three weeks ago with Rihanna at the MTV Video Music Awards, leads a parade of fall contenders that will likely explode on next week’s chart. So in effect, this week feels like the calm before the pre-holiday storm.

All the action this week isn’t on the Hot 100: It’s at iTunes, where a handful of highly anticipated pre-album song releases are selling like gangbusters. Let’s run them down, because the sales they’re ringing up now will shake up the big chart next week:

T.I. featuring Rihanna, “Live Your Life”: Also known as “The Numa Numa Song, Redux.” This irresistible melding of T.I.’s flow with one of the biggest Internet memes of all time, vocalized by the Barbadian chart goddess, has been iTunes’ top seller since midweek. That’s because it appeared there as a 99-cent download on Tuesday, the same day T.I.’s new album Paper Trail dropped. Clearly, tens of thousands of pop fans had been anticipating the download availability of “Live Your Life” since the VMA performance, and I can understand why: it’s a better song than “Whatever You Like,” with a more interesting T.I. rap, and the “Numa” hook is remarkably suited to Rihanna’s voice. Moreover, for all its millions of YouTube views, O-Zone’s “Dragostea din tei” (the song soundtracking “Numa Numa”) never had a breakout moment as a digital song in America, and T.I.’s hit will serve as its proxy.

“Live Your Life” is already on the Hot 100, debuting this week at No. 80 not because of sales but because it’s already the 45th most-played song in the country. That’s a staggering airplay ranking for a song that’s only been available to radio programmers for a couple of weeks. Expect “Life” to positively explode on next week’s chart—possibly shooting all the way to No. 1, which would set a new chart record. There have been countless examples in chart history where a superstar act releases a just-okay song as his album’s first single, gets a big hit with it, and then drops the monster, which becomes the massive, memorable hit. Long story short, I suspect “Life” will be the “Billie Jean” to “Whatever You Like”’s “The Girl Is Mine.”

Christina Aguilera, “Keeps Gettin’ Better”: Also debuted to the world at the VMAs, Xtina’s lead single for her forthcoming greatest-hits disc was released to the U.S. iTunes Store on Tuesday. It’s already selling phenomenally there, which might surprise some of us here who were kinda “meh” on her and co-writer Linda Perry’s thin Goldfrapp ripoff. But homegirl has fans, and it doesn’t hurt that “Keeps” is garnering solid radio attention already, debuting this week on the Hot 100 Airplay list at a respectable No. 71. Expect a Top 40, probably Top 20 and possibly Top 10 debut on the Hot 100 next week.

Nickelback, “Gotta Be Somebody”: Previewing the followup to the longest-charting hit album of the 2000s (sigh), the Canuck radio-dominators offer this synthy prom anthem, already iTunes’ third-biggest seller after four days on-sale. Which is fairly remarkable, considering hardcore Nickelback fans were able to download the MP3 free for 24 hours this past Monday. No measurable Top 40 airplay yet, but expect a massive debut on the rock charts shortly and a probable Top 20 debut on the big chart.

David Cook, “Light On”: Message to David Archuleta: it’s on! The leadoff single to the 2008 American Idol winner’s debut album comes freighted with oddly fey cover art and huge expectations. One month after the runner-up moved 166,000 downloads in a week and crashed onto the chart at No. 2, Cook’s grunge-schlock single is looking like a somewhat milder performer; iTunes currently has it ranked fourth. The interesting thing to watch next week won’t necessarily be the debut of “Light On” on the Hot 100—it’ll be whether the song, cowritten by Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell, musters enough cred to make an appearance on any of the rock charts. As Idol’s first “rock” winner, Cook and his handlers clearly see the young-white-male formats as keys to his success when his album drops in November—reportedly the same week Nickelback’s album debuts.

(For the record, both Davids have outperformed expectations at radio this year. Cook’s single from the Idol finale, “The Time of My Life,” held on long after its explosive chart debut in May. It ended up riding the Top 40 all summer long, eventually also topping the Adult Contemporary chart—the slow-as-molasses, dull-as-dirt format that nonetheless represents thousands of radio stations and millions of listeners. And Archuleta’s hit, after its big August debut, has emerged as a solid radio hit, now among the 50 most-played songs nationwide and hanging onto the Hot 100’s Top 20.)

With these four singles all storming iTunes’ Top Five in the same week, it’s fair to say the holiday sales race is on, and next week’s Hot 100 will be the first scorecard.

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

• There’s one more digital single making waves on iTunes, but it’s not new and has been rising on the Hot 100, quietly and steadily, for a little over a month now: “Let It Rock,” by Kevin Rudolf, featuring his label boss Lil Wayne. Kevin who? We’ve seen so many hits by Wayne this year, teaming him with virtually every luminary in hip-hop and R&B, but this one is the opposite of those singles: it’s a pop/rock record from a Miami-based singer who’s about to drop his debut album on the New Orleans–based Cash Money label, Weezy’s career home. Rudolf is his newest protégé and a branch-out into a different genre, kind of like what OneRepublic was to Timbaland last year with “Apologize.” (Except “Rock” doesn’t make you want to tear your hair out.) As such, “Rock,” which moves up six spots to No. 15 on the Hot 100, is the only hit song Weezy’s name has appeared on all year that isn’t on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop list. It’s already among the 10 biggest-selling digital songs this week, and with radio growth solid (it now ranks 43rd on Hot 100 Airplay), it should make the big chart’s Top 10 within a week or two.

• Speaking of hits with limited name recognition, Raheem DeVaughn, an R&B singer who’s never made the R&B/Hip-Hop chart’s Top 10, is a week away from making a different kind of Top 10: the list of longest-charting R&B hits. At 56 weeks, DeVaughn’s “Woman” will be among the 10 longevity champs next week, as Billboard chart guru Fred Bronson notes in his column this week.

All I’ll add to Fred’s post is that, with this feat, DeVaughn becomes the Duncan Sheik of the R&B/Hip-Hop chart. Having peaked at a lowly No. 17 last April, “Woman” is by far the lowest-charting of the R&B list’s longevity champs, including such undeniable smashes as Mary J. Blige’s “Be Without You” (the all-time leader, with a staggering 75 weeks on the chart in 2005–07), Usher’s “You Make Me Wanna” and R. Kelly’s “Step in the Name of Love.” All of DeVaughn’s fellow hangers-on peaked in the Top Five or thereabouts. On the Hot 100’s list of all-time longevity champs, there are several songs that didn’t make the Top 10, such as Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want to Wait.” But for a brief time in 1996, Duncan Sheik held the longevity title with “Barely Breathing,” a mellow-radio favorite that hung around the Hot 100 for 55 weeks despite only peaking at No. 15.

(Sheik’s record was beaten within a few months, first by Los Del Rio’s 60-week-charting No. 1 smash “Macarena,” and then again a year later by what are now the two all-time champs: Jewel’s 65-week double-sided hit “You Were Meant for Me”/”Foolish Games” and LeAnn Rimes’s 69-week monster “How Do I Live.”)

So: congrats, Raheem. And maybe you can browbeat your label into working the phones a little more assiduously for the next single?

Top 10s
Last week's position and total weeks charted in parentheses (Digital Songs chart includes total downloads/percentage change in parentheses):

Hot 100
1. T.I., "Whatever You Like" (LW No. 1, 8 weeks)
2. Pink, "So What" (LW No. 2, 6 weeks)
3. Kanye West, "Love Lockdown" (LW No. 3, 2 weeks)
4. Rihanna, "Disturbia" (LW No. 4, 15 weeks)
5. M.I.A., "Paper Planes" (LW No. 6, 11 weeks)
6. Katy Perry, "Hot N Cold" (LW No. 9, 9 weeks)
7. T-Pain feat. Lil Wayne, "Can't Believe It" (LW No. 8, 9 weeks)
8. Ne-Yo, "Closer" (LW No. 7, 24 weeks)
9. Taylor Swift, "Love Story" (LW No. 5, 3 weeks)
10. Estelle feat. Kanye West, "American Boy" (LW No. 10, 24 weeks)

Hot Digital Songs
1. T.I., "Whatever You Like" (LW No. 3)
2. Pink, "So What" (LW No. 1)
3. Kanye West, "Love Lockdown" (LW No. 2)
4. Katy Perry, "Hot N Cold" (LW No. 7)
5. Taylor Swift, "Love Story" (LW No. 4)
6. M.I.A., "Paper Planes" (LW No. 6)
7. Rihanna, "Disturbia" (LW No. 5)
8. Jason Mraz, "I’m Yours" (LW No. 8)
9. Akon, "Right Now (Na Na Na)" (CHART DEBUT)
10. Kevin Rudolf feat. Lil Wayne, "Let It Rock" (LW No. 12)

Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
1. T.I., "Whatever You Like" (LW No. 1, 11 weeks)
2. T-Pain feat. Lil Wayne, "Can't Believe It," (LW No. 2, 12 weeks)
3. Jennifer Hudson, "Spotlight" (LW No. 4, 20 weeks)
4. Jazmine Sullivan, "Need U Bad" (LW No. 3, 22 weeks)
5. Lil Wayne feat. Bobby Valentino, "Mrs. Officer" (LW No. 5, 13 weeks)
6. Ne-Yo, "Miss Independent" (LW No. 6, 10 weeks)
7. Lil Wayne feat. T-Pain, "Got Money" (LW No. 9, 20 weeks)
8. Plies feat. Jamie Foxx & The-Dream, "Please Excuse My Hands" (LW No. 11, 16 weeks)
9. Robin Thicke, "Magic" (LW No. 8, 19 weeks)
10. Young Jeezy feat. Kanye West, "Put On" (LW No. 7, 21 weeks)

Hot Country Songs
1. Darius Rucker, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" (LW No. 1, 24 weeks)
2. Kenny Chesney, "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven" (LW No. 2, 9 weeks)
3. Toby Keith, "She Never Cried in Front of Me" (LW No. 5, 14 weeks)
4. Kid Rock, "All Summer Long" (LW No. 4, 20 weeks)
5. Jimmy Wayne, "Do You Believe Me Now" (LW No. 3, 27 weeks)
6. Carrie Underwood, "Just a Dream" (LW No. 7, 12 weeks)
7. George Strait, "Troubadour" (LW No. 8, 18 weeks)
8. Brad Paisley, "Waitin' on a Woman" (LW No. 6, 16 weeks)
9. Tim McGraw, "Let It Go" (LW No. 11, 11 weeks)
10. Luke Bryan, "Country Man" (LW No. 12, 30 weeks)

Hot Modern Rock Tracks
1. The Offspring, "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid" (LW No. 1, 10 weeks)
2. Weezer, "Troublemaker" (LW No. 3, 12 weeks)
3. Staind, "Believe" (LW No. 2, 14 weeks)
4. Rise Against, "Re-Education (Through Labor)" (LW No. 5, 6 weeks)
5. Metallica, "The Day That Never Comes" (LW No. 6, 6 weeks)
6. Apocalyptica feat. Adam Gontier, "I Don't Care" (LW No. 8, 13 weeks)
7. Carolina Liar, "I’m Not Over" (LW No. 4, 22 weeks)
8. Foo Fighters, "Let It Die" (LW No. 7, 26 weeks)
9. Coldplay, "Viva la Vida" (LW No. 9, 17 weeks)
10. Theory of a Deadman, "Bad Girlfriend" (LW No. 11, 15 weeks)

T.I. Shows Off His Homework

Maura Johnston — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 10:00:00 EDT

Our look at the closing lines of the biggest new-music reviews continues with a roundup of reactions to Paper Trail, the new album by the house-arrested Atlanta MC T.I.:

• "You get the impression that as much as he says he hates the fame, he's living a Spike Lee movie. Only instead of growing less angry with the world and more upset with himself the way Norton does, T.I. essentially blames his circumstances, his enemies, and his own paranoia." [Boston Globe]

• "As if it weren't already thrilling enough, West's goose-bump-producing beat features a hook sampled from M.I.A.'s sleeper-hit 'Paper Planes.' Hear it once, and you'll feel a permanent wrinkle puckering in your brain tissue. That's good news for T.I. No genre moves faster than here-today/gone-tomorrow hip-hop. His jail sentence might feel like an ice age in rap years, but Paper Trail makes an indelible forget-me-not." [Washington Post]

• "T.I. is still a bit too keen to remake his signature hit 'What You Know,' but songs like the clever 'I'm Illy' and the Just Blaze-produced stomper 'Live Your Life' find T.I. reconciling himself to his lot in life: he's a well-oiled hit machine who's more fun than deep." [RS]

• "Paper Trail does succeed at banking enough strong singles, including 'Swagga Like Us,' with Jay-Z and Kanye West, and 'Swing Ya Rag,' with Swizz Beatz, to keep T.I. on the charts during his upcoming incarceration. Maybe he can use all that time to decide which side of his personality he plans to cultivate permanently. Going back and forth only hurts both sides." [Newsday]

MySpace Music Will Not Let You Buy Whatever Popular Single You Like

Maura Johnston — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:30:00 EDT

The just-launched MySpace Music is all about making money for the labels, right? So it would behoove them to have songs that the people want to buy available for purchase on the service, no? Come with me as I try to buy the top 10 songs on this week's Hot Digital Tracks chart by using MySpace's widgetry:

1. Pink, "So What"
Streamable from Pink's MySpace page; not available for purchase via MySpace Music widget, despite presence on Amazon.

2. Kanye West, "Love Lockdown"
First 1:30 streamable from West's MySpace page; not available for purchase via MySpace Music widget, despite presence on Amazon.

3. T.I., "Whatever You Like"
Streamable from T.I.'s MySpace page; not available for purchase via widget, despite presence on Amazon.

4. Taylor Swift, "Love Story"
Seems to be bypassing MySpace Music's official player/commerce widget, opting instead to pre-sell her forthcoming album on MySpace (with the option to buy a $75 box set!) and give people the download for "Love Story" instantly.

5. Rihanna, "Disturbia"
Streamable from Rihanna's site; official version available for purchase if the user uses the album pull-down menu and selects Good Girl Gone Bad.

6. M.I.A., "Paper Planes"
Streamable from M.I.A.'s MySpace page; official version available for purchase if the user uses the album pull-down menu and selects either Kala or the "Planes" remix EP.

7. Katy Perry, "Hot N Cold"
Streamable from Perry's MySpace page; not available for purchase via widget, despite presence on Amazon. (On the bright side, the awfulness of having to visit Perry's page was mitigated slightly by a pop-up ad for Ted Leo & The Pharmacists. Teach the children, Ted!)

8. Jason Mraz, "I'm Yours"
Streamable from Mraz's MySpace page; official version available for purchase if the user uses the album pull-down menu and selects the right version of the "I'm Yours" digital single.

9. Estelle feat. Kanye West, "American Boy"
Streamable from Estelle's MySpace page; not available for purchase via widget, despite presence on Amazon. (It would appear that the Estelle insta-tribute band the Studio All-Stars don't have a MySpace page.)

10. David Archuleta, "Crush"
Streamable from Archuleta's MySpace page; available for purchase if you select "Crush" from the pull-down menu in the widget.

So, out of the ten most saleable songs in the U.S. right now, MySpace Music is letting its users purchase four of them—and all four have to be navigated to, instead of them being presented to the user straight off. Can someone tell me why Tom & Co. felt like they had to launch this thing today, before it was ready for prime-time at all? I know that the site's supposed to be "iterative," but not having six of the top ten singles for purchase on what is being pitched as a track-by-track marketplace is not unlike trying to open an outlet of The Gap that's missing jeans.

Earlier: MySpace Music Gets Ready For A Big Amazon Affiliate Check

T.I. Did Not Fake Out The Leakers

Maura Johnston — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:30:00 EDT

Surely I'm not the only person who thought that the O-Zone-inspired "Live Your Life" was T.I.'s attempt to put one over on the Internet and leak a fake single that pushed the right memetic buttons, and that the recently house-incarcerated rapper would premiere his real new single at the VMAs last night. Alas, not only did that not happen, T.I. and his duet partner Rihanna didn't even channel Gary Brolsma in their choreography. And lo, the Diggboys, they did cry into the milk of their Cheerios. [MTV]

T.I. Sets Perennially Broken Hot 100 Record

Chris Molanphy — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:00:00 EDT

Atlanta hip-hop king T.I. vaults 70 places into the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Hot 100 this week with "Whatever You Like," a sing-songy, smudgy Xerox of his classic 2006 hit "What You Know."

With this move, Clifford Joseph Harris Jr. scores his first No. 1 as a lead artist (he was credited two years ago on Justin Timberlake's chart-topper "My Love") and sets a new Hot 100 record for biggest leap to the top spot. T.I. takes the record away from Maroon 5, who set it just 16 months ago when "Makes Me Wonder" leapt from No. 64 to No. 1 in a single bound. They, in turn, had stolen the record from Kelly Clarkson, whose only No. 1 hit, "A Moment Like This," held the record for about four years, after she leapt from No. 52 to the top in 2002.

Before Clarkson, this record was held for 28 years, by the Beatles' "Can't Buy Me Love" (No. 26-No. 1 in 1964). The fact that a record held for three decades has been broken thrice in the last six years says less about these songs' popularity and more about the quirks of the modern charts and the sometimes dysfunctional relationship between sales and airplay.

And it means T.I. shouldn't gloat for too long—this record's likely to be broken again.

Prior to this week, "Whatever You Like" was performing so modestly on the chart that I'd barely even noticed it. The song debuted a couple of weeks ago, way down at No. 99. Then it made a solid 28-spot move last week—but that still left it in the bottom third of the chart.

The August 19 digital release of "Whatever" provided the rocket fuel: the song sold more than 200,000 copies in its first week at iTunes and elsewhere. Radio airplay is growing quickly, too, as it leaps into the top 20 of the Hot 100 Airplay chart and the Top 10 of the radio-centric Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart. But T.I.'s airplay growth is dwarfed by his explosion in sales.

As I've said here often, in the modern, iTunes-fueled music economy, the mismatch between sales and airplay—particularly on new records by established artists—produces weird chart moves. The only reason T.I. is setting the leap-to-No. 1 record this week is that he had a fairly serious misalignment between radio and pent-up fan demand.

Let me offer a hypothetical: If "Whatever," which was sent to radio back in mid-July, had been embraced by radio programmers sooner, as of last week the song would have been further up the Hot 100 thanks to airplay points—say, the Top 50. Then, when those 200,000 in sales came crashing in, the song still would have made an impressive moon-shot to No. 1, but it wouldn't have beaten Maroon 5's record. (The same goes for Maroon 5 in 2007, with a song radio eventually played to death but not right away; and especially Clarkson in 2002, with a song that American Idol fans bought in droves but radio embraced only half-heartedly.)

The fact is, chart feats like T.I's are becoming more yawn-inducing all the time. This year alone, we've seen numerous massive Hot 100 leaps, all fueled by sudden digital sales bursts on songs that were a little too new for radio.

Two of them shot to No. 1 with leaps that didn't quite beat Maroon 5's record: Usher in early March, with a 50-spot jump by "Love in this Club"; and Rihanna in mid-May, with a 52-space move by "Take a Bow." Other big chart moves this year included two back-to-back jumps of more than 70 spaces each, by Lil Mama, with the short-lived Top 10 hit "Shawty Get Loose," and Lil Wayne, with the chart-topper-to-be "Lollipop."

In three of the above four cases, radio eventually caught on and made the songs not just chart smashes but radio ubiquities. (Poor Lil Mama.) But what all four songs had in common was an aberrant week of massive digital sales, fueled by a carefully timed iTunes release designed to maximize the acts' impatient fans—the kind you can count on to buy anything you release the instant it's available. We saw something similar just last week, when Idol runner-up David Archuleta dropped his official post-show single, and rabid fans bought enough copies to give the song a big debut at No. 2 on the Hot 100. Nice, but who knows—if Archie had scored slightly better airplay the week before, the song might've spent a week at No. 99 or so before pole-vaulting to the runner-up slot, and we'd be talking about him setting a different record.

In short, I advise chart-watchers not to be too amazed anymore by big leaps into the upper reaches or seemingly out-of-nowhere debuts. It's an event to be savored by screaming fans or savvy label promotional teams—but the true measure of a song's reception by the general public is what it's doing a week later.

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

• Speaking of week two, and big debuts, let's talk about the two aberrant debuts from last week, and one more from this week. Archuelta's single makes a predictable second-week plummet, falling 13 spots to No. 15. Digital sales fell by nearly half after Archie's big iTunes debut, and the song's airplay remains too weak (it's still nowhere to be found on Hot 100 Airplay) to offset that fall-off. Falling even faster is Taylor Swift's "Change," which drops 29 spots after its No. 10 debut last week. Her sales go down by 56%, and country radio still isn't focused enough on the song to give it an airplay boost.

This week, the eye-popping debut comes from Pink's "So What." Sales of more than 100K out of the box splash her onto the chart at No. 9—the exact position her last two hits peaked after much longer, more deliberate chart runs. (Something tells me, a year from now, we'll still be hearing those two very good hits, "U + Ur Hand" and "Who Knew," on the radio a lot more than we'll be hearing "So What.")

• Following up on my Thursday report, on Atlantic's campaign to sell more Estelle albums by pulling her from iTunes, the near-Top 10 hit "American Boy" makes (sigh) an expected massive drop this week. Falling 26 spots to No. 37, it's barely clinging onto the Top 40. It's a bad week for Estelle all around: not only does Atlantic's gambit not produce growth in her corresponding album sales, but radio is cooling on the song, too. "Boy" loses its bullet and falls back a bit on the Hot 100 Airplay list; it's now the 25th-most-played song at radio nationwide.

• Meanwhile, Estelle's label-mate and fellow iTunes boycotter Kid Rock is still seeing airplay growth and a Hot 100 bullet—but the highest-charting version of "All Summer Long" is no longer his! The cheesy insta-cover by Hit Masters vaults 46 notches to No. 19, outdistancing the Kid, who holds at No. 25. Meanwhile, as I noted in a comment yesterday, there's now a cheesy insta-cover of the Estelle song, too, by a group calling itself the Studio All-Stars. According to iTunes, this cover has been on sale since mid-July, but unsurprisingly it only sold enough copies to register on the charts the week Estelle's original version got pulled. With more than 30,000 downloads sold last week, the "Boy" cover debuts on the Hot 100 at No. 85—and you can expect it to make a big leap next week.

(A quick public service to loyal readers and pop fans: I actually spent $1.98 to hear these two covers, and... oy! The Hit Masters' "Summer" is actually passable and surprisingly listenable, if you can ignore the obvious replacement of the original Warren Zevon and Lynyrd Skynyrd samples. But the Studio All-Stars' "Boy" is nigh-unlistenable, with the worst Kanye West impersonation imaginable. Avoid at all costs.)

• Even if you know little or nothing about country, you'll probably recognize two names in its Top 10 this week: Kid Rock, whose crossover smash "All Summer Long" makes its inevitable rise into the red-state winner's circle; and Darius Rucker, whom a couple of my sharp-eyed commenters noticed entering the Country Top 10 last week. "Don't Think I Don't Think About It," the debut country-crossover single by The Artist Formerly Known As Hootie, moves up to No. 7 this week.

One of my favorite throwaway gags in Airplane! is the bit where the little old lady asks Julie Hagerty's flight attendant for "something light" to read, and Hagerty replies, "How about this leaflet, Famous Jewish Sports Legends?" A list of Famous African-American Country Stars would fill a similar-sized document. When this Guardian article was written two years ago, Grand Ole Opry-inducted legend Charley Pride was the only black country star signed to a major label's Nashville imprint. It's impossible to search Billboard chart records by race—so if anyone has some decent research on this, help me out. But best as I can tell, Rucker's Top 10 hit is the first on country radio by a black artist in a long, long while. Pride's last Top 10 hit was 20 years ago, and in the '80s only Lionel Richie and Ray Charles—both with duets—made inroads on this chart.

• The R&B/Hip-Hop chart continues to be August's most interesting list, with constant shake-ups at the top. There's yet another new No. 1 this week—the fourth chart-topper in four weeks—this time from newcomer and Missy Elliott protégée Jazmine Sullivan, with the growling ballad "Need U Bad." (Interestingly, she's probably getting an airplay boost from the guy at No. 1 on the Hot 100—T.I. joins Missy on the song's official remix.) The one constant in all this change at the top: Keyshia Cole can't be stopped. Her former No. 1, "Heaven Sent," which was evicted by Lil Wayne three weeks ago, has been quietly holding down No. 2 ever since while the songs that succeeded her at No. 1 (Weezy's, and Rihanna's "Take a Bow") have both dropped past her.

A little lower down, two songs move into the Top 10: the aforementioned T.I. track, and "Spotlight," the surprisingly excellent post-Dreamgirls debut by Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson.

• On the flip side, Modern Rock continues to be the most boring chart of the summer, with the entire Top Eight staying the same from last week. Hilariously, last week's No. 9 track, Offspring's "Hammerhead," is this week replaced at No. 9 by a newer song from the same band. Oh, and Weezer now has two songs in the Top 10. (Zzzzz.)

• The most notable rock debut of the week is by Metallica, whose "The Day That Never Comes" materializes on three charts. The song is the week's highest Modern Rock debut at No. 25. But at Mainstream Rock, the band's more natural home, "Day" debuts all the way up at No. 7. Finally, thanks to nearly 58,000 digital sales, the song debuts on the Hot 100, at a solid No. 31—for the record, that's Lars & co.'s sixth career Top 40 hit, dating back to their first (still their best!), "One," in 1989.

Top 10s
Last week's position and total weeks charted in parentheses (Digital Songs chart includes total downloads/percentage change in parentheses):

Hot 100
1. T.I., "Whatever You Like" (LW No. 71, 3 weeks)
2. Rihanna, "Disturbia" (LW No. 1, 10 weeks)
3. Chris Brown, "Forever" (LW No. 3, 18 weeks)
4. Katy Perry, "I Kissed a Girl" (LW No. 4, 16 weeks)
5. Kardinal Offishall feat. Akon, "Dangerous" (LW No. 7, 16 weeks)
6. M.I.A., "Paper Planes" (LW No. 6, 6 weeks)
7. Coldplay, "Viva la Vida" (LW No. 5, 16 weeks)
8. Ne-Yo, "Closer" (LW No. 8, 19 weeks)
9. Pink, "So What" (CHART DEBUT)
10. Rihanna, "Take a Bow" (LW No. 8, 20 weeks)

Hot Digital Songs
1. T.I., "Whatever You Like" (CHART DEBUT, 186,000 downloads)
2. Rihanna, "Disturbia" (LW No. 2, 144,000 downloads)
3. M.I.A., "Paper Planes" (LW No. 4, 116,000 downloads)
4. Pink, "So What" (CHART DEBUT, 116,000 downloads)
5. Hit Masters, "All Summer Long" (LW No. 32, 95,000 downloads)
6. David Archuleta, "Crush" (LW No. 1, 89,000 downloads)
7. Coldplay, "Viva la Vida" (LW No. 7, 79,000 downloads)
8. Katy Perry, "I Kissed a Girl" (LW No. 8, 78,000 downloads)
9. The Pussycat Dolls, "When I Grow Up" (LW No. 12, 76,000 downloads)
10. Jason Mraz, "I'm Yours" (LW No. 13, 73,000 downloads)

Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
1. Jazmine Sullivan, "Need U Bad" (LW No. 4, 17 weeks)
2. Keyshia Cole, "Heaven Sent" (LW No. 2, 22 weeks)
3. Rihanna, "Take a Bow" (LW No. 1, 18 weeks)
4. Lil Wayne, "A Milli" (LW No. 3, 18 weeks)
5. Young Jeezy feat. Kanye West, "Put On" (LW No. 5, 16 weeks)
6. Yung Berg feat. Casha, "The Business" (LW No. 9, 14 weeks)
7. Robin Thicke, "Magic" (LW No. 6, 14 weeks)
8. T.I., "Whatever You Like" (LW No. 13, 6 weeks)
9. David Banner feat. Chris Brown, "Get Like Me" (LW No. 7, 26 weeks)
10. Jennifer Hudson, "Spotlight" (LW No. 12, 15 weeks)

Hot Country Songs
1. Keith Urban, "You Look Good in My Shirt" (LW No. 2, 14 weeks)
2. Keith Anderson, "I Still Miss You" (LW No. 3, 30 weeks)
3. Brad Paisley, "Waitin' on a Woman" (LW No. 5, 11 weeks)
4. Jimmy Wayne, "Do You Believe Me Now" (LW No. 4, 22 weeks)
5. Taylor Swift, "Should've Said No" (LW No. 1, 15 weeks)
6. Kenny Chesney, "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven" (LW No. 13, 4 weeks)
7. Darius Rucker, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" (LW No. 10, 19 weeks)
8. George Strait, "Troubadour" (LW No. 9, 13 weeks)
9. Toby Keith, "She Never Cried in Front of Me" (LW No. 11, 9 weeks)
10. Kid Rock, "All Summer Long" (LW No. 14, 15 weeks)

Hot Modern Rock Tracks
1. Coldplay, "Viva la Vida" (LW No. 1, 12 weeks)
2. Foo Fighters, "Let It Die" (LW No. 2, 21 weeks)
3. Staind, "Believe" (LW No. 3, 9 weeks)
4. Weezer, "Pork & Beans" (LW No. 4, 19 weeks)
5. Disturbed, "Inside the Fire" (LW No. 5, 22 weeks)
6. Carolina Liar, "I'm Not Over" (LW No. 6, 17 weeks)
7. Saving Abel, " Addicted" (LW No. 7, 23 weeks)
8. Ludo, "Love Me Dead" (LW No. 8, 23 weeks)
9. The Offspring, "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid" (LW No. 19, 5 weeks)
10. Weezer, "Troublemaker" (LW No. 16, 7 weeks)

T.I. And Rihanna Do The Numa Numa Dance

Maura Johnston — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:30:00 EDT

ARTIST: T.I. featuring Rihanna
TITLE: "Livin' My Life"
WEB DEBUT: Aug. 26, 2008

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: If making a song that forces Rihanna to sing a vocal hook based around the "may-ya-heee" melody from O-Zone's "Dragostea Din Tei" is T.I.'s revenge on the Internet for leaking tracks from Paper Trail before its release, I am now in love with him more than ever. And I can't wait to see the video for this track.

WHERE TO HEAR IT: Where else but YouTube:

And what the hell, just for comparison's sake:

"Time" Tries To Rack Up The Pageviews With A List Of 10 Songs That A Writer Happened To Hear This Summer

Maura Johnston — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:00:00 EDT

Not that I expect the lumbering newsmagazine Time to be cutting-edge or anything, but its oddly timed package "The Songs Of Summer 2008" sure does provide an argument in favor of the microcriticism service Blippr. The list, which is presented in the time-honored "listicle spread out over ten separate Web pages so as to maximize clicking" form, basically collects 10 songs that have nothing in common except for their having been played on commercial radio sometime this year. (Maybe even as early as February!) You'd think that a publication that fancied itself to be Web-savvy would have been all over some of these songs by now, but apparently Time's overlords need a few more day-late, dollar-short, annoyingly designed packages before they rethink their online culture strategy for the 48,627th time in the magazine's online existence. The mag's list of top songs after the jump.

1. Kid Rock - "All Summer Long"
2. Rihanna - "Disturbia"
3. Usher - "Love in This Club"
4. Estelle - "American Boy"
5. T.I. - "No Matter What"
6. Leona Lewis - "Bleeding Love"
7. Lil Wayne - "A Milli"
8. Pussycat Dolls - "When I Grow Up"
9. Coldplay - "Viva La Vida"
10. Katy Perry - "I Kissed a Girl"

"A Milli" and "I Kissed A Girl," sure. But "Love In This Club"—oh, you mean the song that hit No. 1 back in March? "Bleeding Love"—which also peaked in May? "When I Grow Up"—which sucks? I'm not even going to get into the part where the writer claims that "No Matter What" is underperforming because T.I. is still under house arrest and unable to do promo, since he might have been as confused by the midmorning scheduling of TRL—on which the MC appeared earlier this month—as I was at first. (And I don't really expect a Time writer to have 106 & Park on their TiVo season-pass list.)

The Songs Of Summer 2008 [Time; HT Rap-Up]

Kanye West, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and T.I. twist ...

Maura Johnston — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 11:30:00 EDT

Kanye West, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and T.I. twist M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" into "Swagger Like Us," which West says exhibits "THE RAP OLYMPIC TEAM!" (caps and punctuation his, of course). I'm hoping that the video features at least one fancy model who's wearing an outfit that looks like an umpteen-layer cake. [kanYe West: Blog]

T.I. Is Much More Generous In Your Dreams

Maura Johnston — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:45:00 EDT

Tell me that the scenes of over-the-top extravagance and spending-sprees weren't a huge sign that there was a "twist" ending coming to close out this fairytale of T.I. and an innocent chicken-wing-slinger, what with the tough economy, T.I.'s legal woes, and Paper Trail being pushed back. (Although to be fair, at least she got a good tip for her troubles.) [YouTube]

This nearly-eight-minute remix of Lloyd's ...

Maura Johnston — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:00:00 EDT

This nearly-eight-minute remix of Lloyd's "All Around The World" is pretty much an excuse for every MC on the track—The Game, T.I., Busta Rhymes, Rick Ross, Pitbull, Ace Hood, Yung Joc, Young Dro, and DJ Khaled—to rap over the "Ashley's Roachclip" beat. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the best parts of it are the parts where Lloyd's smooth falsetto from the original version of the track is front and center, although T.I.'s verse isn't all that bad. [XXL]

Last week, word came that the release date ...

Maura Johnston — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:15:00 EDT

Last week, word came that the release date of T.I.'s Paper Trail had been pushed back from August to Sept. 9. Today comes the news that the album's now been delayed until Sept. 30, and that he's already shooting a video for a second single from the album. [Rap-Up]

According to MTV, T.I. and Fall Out Boy have ...

Kate Richardson — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:30:00 EDT

According to MTV, T.I. and Fall Out Boy have recorded a track together for T.I.'s upcoming album. MTV describes the song as "somber and emotional, loaded with dramatic, crashing guitars, soaring strings and the King of the South's deeply personal lyrics, which detail the trials and tribulations he's endured over the past year." And Pete Wentz is throwing around The Nightmare Before Christmas as a reference point for the song. Let's hope this foray into hip-hop fares better than the last. [MTV]

Mariah Carey Rides Her Precious Dolphin Into The Sunset

Maura Johnston — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 10:30:00 EDT

Sure, T.I. may have a "featuring" credit on the single version of Mariah Carey's "I'll Be Lovin' You Long Time," but it's worth noting that in the video she shares screen time with a delighted-looking dolphin more than with Clifford Harris. Perhaps she's feeling a bit estranged from the promotion of her album, and the way T.I.'s cameo was perhaps-unneccessarily glommed onto this track? [Dailymotion]

T.I. Sings, Continues His Half-Assed Repentance

Anthony Miccio — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:30:00 EDT

ARTIST: T.I.
TITLE: "A Better Day"
WEB DEBUT: June 21, 2008

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: Expecting T.I. to start putting out schmaltzy lesson-learned tracks now that he's doing community service? Well, you'd be right about the schmaltz. You want to go straight but you can only get money through dealing drugs? "It's OK, tomorrow will be a better day!" You just got arrested and its your third strike? "It's OK, tomorrow will be a better day!" I'm sure T.I.'s parole officer wishes he'd sung "Trust me that crime don't pay," but I think most of us just wish he wasn't singing. This track follows closely on the heels of "Life Of The Party," and his surprisingly light-on-the-Autotune voice groaning on the chorus despite the audible availability of R. Kelly would seem to mean that we can expect a lot of crooning from the King Of The South.

WHERE TO FIND IT: KNOWXONE posted it Saturday, and it's since made its way to YouTube and beyond.

T.I. Adds His Swagger To A Song That Doesn't Really Need It

Maura Johnston — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:30:00 EDT

No offense to Mr. Harris, of course, but Mariah Carey's "I'll Be Lovin' U Long Time" was pretty OK for summertime consumption the way it was, and this version—which is going to be the official single release, according to word on the e-street—seems somewhat superfluous. Surely there was a song that actually needed some assistance out there that could be transformed into "I'm Real '08" by a few throwaway "heys" in the background and a couple of tossed-off verses? [YouTube]

50 Cent Has Beef With T.I. (Big Surprise)

Dan Gibson — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:30:00 EDT

50 Cent—who apparently still records music, despite what he might have said previously—has decided to take on T.I., because the Atlanta MC isn't going to spend as much time in prison as Curtis would like. To spare you the trouble of picking up the new G-Unit disc, the "controversial" lyrics regarding T.I. are below the cut.

So, what does Mr. Cent have to say about T.I.? According to blogger "That Bitch", here are his insights.

Nowaways this rap shit ain't adding up/ How n—--s get caught with 10 machine guns, only get 12 months?/Oo-weee, don't talk to me/ If you talking to him, you talking to them.../I got the best lawyers that money can buy/ they say at best they woulda got me 10 or maybe 9./I said, how do you explain how the homie breezed?/They said, you keep your mouth shut or you eat the cheese.

Now, why would 50 Cent have called his lawyers recently? One can only guess.

In any case, a comparison of recent material from both parties might be in order:

T.I., "You Know What It Is":

50 Cent, "Get Money":

Stay tuned, at very least, for a week or so, until the entire affair becomes dull and 50 Cent puts out another boring record.

50 Calls T.I. A Snitch [Rhymes With Snitch]

T.I. Signs Three-Picture Deal, Gets Ready For Concert Tour And, Oh Yeah, Prison

Anthony Miccio — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:00:00 EDT

Why are they putting T.I. in jail again? Seeing as how he's just signed a three-picture deal (which includes an upcoming role as a burglar alongside Idris Elba and Matt Dillon in Bone Deep) and is preparing for a TV show and a concert tour, both of which T.I. vs. T.I.P. didn't guarantee on sales and merit alone, it doesn't seem like a year (or less, probably less) in jail is really going to make him regret his recent crimes. Then again, if his current house detention allows him to tour and hang around outside Mr. Chow in Beverly Hills late at night, perhaps "prison" might just mean a stint at Dr. Drew's Celebrity Rehab for gun addiction. [SOHH]

T.I. will turn his public service work and ...

Anthony Miccio — Wed, 28 May 2008 17:15:00 EDT

T.I. will turn his public service work and honest regret into profit by letting MTV follow him as he tells children that it's bad to illegally stockpile weapons bought by your bodyguard. The eight-part docuseries should begin some time after T.I. begins his jail sentence in early 2009, so that he won't suffer any undue absence from our hearts and media while paying for his sins. [Variety]

T.I. To Youth: "Take It Slow, Buy Your Artillery Legally"

Anthony Miccio — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:30:00 EDT

T.I. recently gave the Atlanta Journal-Constitution a look into his chastened, post-trial soul as he prepares to fufill a year of community service before imprisonment. "Sometimes it was like, 'If I don't get this right now I'm just going to lose it'... When you're going 350 mph it tends to be that way. But when you are stopped—halted—not slowed down, but halted, you figure 'Well I could have just slowed down. I didn't have to be stopped.'... GM had to back up off of me. There are films that I missed out on. Not speaking of, of course, shows. Tours. Tons of business. I've probably lost about $10 to $12 million dollars." See, kids? If you don't take the time to acquire your weapons through the correct channels, you'll miss out on some potential business ventures.

It looks like he'll get one more movie shoot in before jail, though, as he's signed to play a bank robber in Bone Deep, which begins shooting this fall. Along with the movie and that pesky community service, 2008 promises a new album, a new clothing line, a collabo with Amy Winehouse and some TV productions, including a reality show for Young Dro and maybe one for T.I. himself on MTV.

Well, there is some documentation being done. We're actually in the middle of negotiating exactly what it would take to be able to have that type of access to my life. But I think it's something that needs to be out there on a broad spectrum...The message that I'm trying to get out. How much work that I have to do in the time that I have to do it in. All of this, I think, needs to be known. And that's a way to deliver the same message that I just delivered to those 15, 20, 30 kids, to the nation. They'll sit in front of the TV — even if I can't make it to their school; or if I can't make it to their Y."

Wow, he may even make a profit from this community service crap! And how would he describe how he felt about being arrested before his BET Awards performance?

It was sort of like a, well, you remember the [last] Super Bowl, right? You know Jeremy Shockey? He broke his leg. He had to sit up in the press box and watch. He couldn't help his team win. He couldn't play. The greatest, most talked-about, most publicized Super Bowl in our time and he's sitting watching; instead of actually being able to participate. Terrible... And I know, I know, I brought it on myself.

No word on when his inspiring, educational, "I know, I know, I brought it on myself" message will make it onto the airwaves. (Negotiations, you know.)

T.I.: 'I know I brought it on myself' [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

T.I. To Bring The Wisdom Of His Experience To The Children Who Need It

Anthony Miccio — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:31:00 EDT

As part of his recent plea bargain, T.I. will spend at least 1,000 hours of 2008 speaking to youth groups about how you shouldn't take drugs, roll with gangs, or have your bodyguard buy illegal fire-arms outside a shopping center for your private stockpile. Requests for such speaking engagements are already starting to roll in. "The idea really is he can get through to kids and fans like nobody else can," Steve Sadow, T.I.'s lawyer says. "Why not take advantage of what may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?" That's a lot of hours, though; he might show up at the same place twice. And what kind of messages can these audiences expect? Judging from his lyrics, he may already have some of his speeches ready to roll.

The "I regret everything" speech, from "I Still Ain't Forgave Myself," on I'm Serious:

At 14 man, thought I knew everything
I'm slangin slabs, trappin hard, movin heavy 'cane
I bought an '85 cutlass on some dane-a-danes
Now I'm the shit, huh, the motor blew in 30 days
Hardheaded man I ain't listen to anything
I'm getting money so, I'm right and I got plenty game
Besides why I need school, Im'ma be rappin momma
If that don't work, then I guess Im'ma be trappin momma
And yea they say I cant blame myself
But I still ain't forgave myself
Fo the mistakes made on this road to wealth
I still ain't forgave myself
Guess this the chance that you take, when dealt the cards I was dealt
But I still ain't forgave myself
For anybody who ever wondered how I felt I still ain't forgave myself (Ain't Forgave myself)

The "I'm a lost cause, but you're not" speech, from Trap Muzik's "Be Better Than Me":

I never know whether I'm livin fo tomorrow or dyin fo today
But either way I'm tryna move a hundred dymes in a day
They sat that crime don't pay, but I'm gone stay on the grind in the A
Wit the same ole j's I know the lames gone say that I done changed no way
I'm in the gutta everyday tryna slang mo yay
...So be betta than me
I know ya mamma waitin faithfully on her baby to graduate ya see
You way betta than me
Betta than us, betta than this, take a chance nigga change some shit
You could be betta than me

The "fuck it, it's too late for you, so just be on your game" speech, from T.I. vs. T.I.P.'s "Dopeman":

Now once you flipped a couple o's know the game get gravy
Take twelve fifty go git ya two and a baby
Yeah sixty three grams if you whip that right
you should get back five or six that night Stack that money and repeat that twice
Buy you somethin' to ride in, ya gotta be tight
Next time you buy somethin' take twenty-five hundred
Get four and a half it come back in nine don't it
Now stay low key when the money keep comin'
Keep some niggas on ya team to show these suckas they don't want it
By then your connect will clearly see you on ya grind
Shit you come to get a nine and he front you what you buyin'
As long as you bring back your money on time
And if you snort blow, do it on your own time
At this rate you'll be at a brick in no time
They say the want some weight, tell them niggas stand in line

Maybe this is what his life has been building towards.

Requests roll in for rapper T.I. to speak to groups [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via SOHH]
T.I. Lyrics [OHHLA]

T.I.'s plea deal came down this afternoon: ...

Maura Johnston — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:15:02 EDT

T.I.'s plea deal came down this afternoon: "In the year that he is awaiting sentencing, T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris, must complete at least 1,000 hours of a total 1,500 hours of community service, talking to youth groups about the pitfalls of guns, gangs and drugs. He will be sentenced to serve about 12 months in prison after completing the community service, officials said." He'll also have three years of "supervised home detention" and be forced to pay $100,000 in fines. [AP]

T.I. Expected To Plead Guilty In Weapons Case

Maura Johnston — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:00:25 EDT

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting that T.I. is expected to file a guilty plea today in response to multiple Federal weapons charges against him, and that he "faces certain prison time" as a result. T.I.—born Clifford Harris—has been under house arrest since October, when he was arrested in a weapons sting. The plea is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. ET, with his sentencing scheduled for a later date; the Associated Press' sources are claiming that his sentence will involve 1,500 hours of community service—during which he'll speak to youth groups around the country "about the pitfalls of guns, gangs and drugs"—and 12 months in the federal pokey, which could be shortened if he's on good behavior. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution / AP / Photo: AP]

T.I. Now Has Reason To Believe In The Easter Bunny

Maura Johnston — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:10:21 EDT

T.I., who has been under house arrest on Federal weapons charges since October, will finally be able to venture into the outside world this weekend—he's been cleared to attend an Easter service sponsored by New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. The exact venue of the service is currently unknown, thanks to the Georgia Dome, where it was originally scheduled to be held, being damaged by those nasty tornadoes that hit the Atlanta area over the weekend. He'll be able to leave his house from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sunday, a length of time that's either accounting for traffic or a spin through the post-service Easter egg hunt. [WSB-TV / Photo: AP]

T.I. claims that at least one song on his ...

Jess Harvell — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 09:20:31 EST

T.I. claims that at least one song on his upcoming album Paper Chase features the heavy influence of LL Cool J's "Boomin' System" and Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Posse On Broadway," as he elbows into the upper echelon of hip-hop ~~ass men~~ stereo aficionados. [MTV]

Yesterday, the presiding judge bumped a supression ...

jharv — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 08:55:00 EST

Yesterday, the presiding judge bumped a supression hearing in T.I.'s federal weapons case all the way back to Feb. 19, perhaps to make sure no involved enjoys their Valentine's Day. The hearing will determine the validity of T.I.'s legal team's claim that crucial evidence should be excluded thanks to such alleged peccadillos as bungled warrants and insufficient probable cause for the October bust at the rapper's Atlanta home. [XXL]

No. 3: R. Kelly And Friends Are Dogs On The Prowl

jharv — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 17:00:34 EST

And lord help us if a non-flirter gets in their way.

An unflashy example of years of studio time paying off with yet one more effortless take on a known R&B quantity's house style, "I'm A Flirt" is one of those songs that I never would have pegged as a high-placer on a year-end list until I noticed I was getting the same springtime serotonin bump on the hundredth play as on the first, the bouncebouncebounceworthiest track he's released since, well, "Ignition (Remix)." Now we're not the only ones to notice that in a year when many people felt R. had exhausted the batshittery—and this is before the second wave of Trapped In The Closet chapters dropped (we'll give "R. Belly" a pass)—the best single off the mostly embarassing-not-cute Double Up (a helpful Cliffs Notes for what Rich Juzwiak dubs the album's endless "metaphor killers" in that linked essay: R. is now a horny diamond-encrusted dinosaur bitching someone out on the two-way in 3-D stunna shades while shooting sour sex skittles out of his robo-urethra on Neptune... or something) keeps the come-ons to the kind people other than R. will be able to parse (hey there's a girl over there and he's gonna wink at her!) and the handclap-and-descending-bass-bump programming nicely subtle. The closest the song has to a hook other than the g-funky synth scribble is that upper-register piano plink-plink-clunk, played like a jump rope swinging 'round on the beat, and while T.I. steps over it with his arms-folded and a T-Pain en español kicks up his heels as he grins in mid-air, it's R.'s first and final verses that pull out all the crazy double-time double-dutch stops, nimble in a way that the guy who could have prolapsed himself in the "Bump And Grind" days never coulda dared and landing without even needing to dab its brow at No. 3.

R. Kelly feat. T.I. and T-Pain - "I'm A Flirt (Remix)" [YouTube]
R. Kelly [MySpace]
Idolator's 2007 Top 40 List Of Awesomeness

T.I. Wishes You A (Rambling) Happy Holidays

jharv — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 13:20:38 EST

Maura and I were just having a "deep" (read: "melodramatic") conversation about how this time of year has a way of reinforcing feelings of isolation, but no matter how you're spending your holidays or who you're spending them with, at least you can leave the house. I got to go bowling on Christmas Eve. T.I., still under house arrest on that weapons charge, probably didn't get to go bowling on Christmas Eve. (Unless he's got an alley in his house. Which he more than likely does.) Though I did make a little sad face when he apologized for not being able to make it to Pimp C's funeral and though this 3:16 video Christmas card gets a little ramble-y places—take it from people who spend most of their time alone and at home: you get batty with the quickness—it's nice to know the King's spirits are still high and that he's keeping busy. As blogger Sandra Rose notes, "he personally decorated not one, but 3 big Christmas trees in his spacious Jonesboro home this Holiday season...T.I. says he assembled all the toys and bikes for his kids with his own hands." See, if he had trimmed, like, seven trees, that'd be a little too Shining-meets-Santa for comfort.

T.I. Merry Christmas [YouTube via Sandra Rose]

No. 25: T.I. (Or Maybe T.I.P.) Takes A Trip To The Islands

jharv — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 15:00:27 EST

Because the song at No. 25 is what it is.

Sure, the lyrical gun talk (gats in waistbands, pistols shoved in faces, a Frank Lucas namedrop) and trigger-cocking sound effects are a little more icky now that the author of No. 25 is under house arrest for a federal gun charge, but the sly "You Know What It Is" is still a highlight on the anticlimatic T.I. Vs. T.I.P.. While I'm always gonna be a sucker for T.I.'s sidling drawl and taste in button-ups (little anchors!), after about the sixth iPod rewind in a row I realized this song had lodged into my brain thanks to the maddening plink-plonk beat, a backing track catchy enough to survive a shouting Wyclef repeatedly rubber-stamping the fact that he was one of the guys who helped cook it up.

T.I. - "You Know What It Is" [YouTube]
T.I. [Official site]
Idolator's 2007 Top 40 List Of Awesomeness

T.I. Sure Did Enjoy Things You Could Shoot People With

jharv — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:10:43 EST

His recent bust on federal weapons charges may be his most high-profile transgression and may earn him his biggest sentence. But presently housebound rapper T.I. was quite the recidivist when it came to playing with illegal firearms, with a laundry list of arrests that are gonna sound even worse in court than they look on paper.

The first incident occurred on December 22, 2001 when the rapper was arrested under the false name Douglas Morgan for possession of a 9mm pistol. He was not convicted in that case. Almost a year later, on November 1, 2002, Tip was arrested and eventually convicted for carrying a 10mm pistol. Finally, on December 18, 2004, police executed a search warrant at his Fulton County home and discovered a firearm with an attached silencer, ammunition and pictures of the rapper holding weapons. Tip was convicted of felony drug charges when he was 17 and sentenced to 7 years probation. He later violated the terms and ended up serving a short jail sentence.

Federal prosecutors plan to air all of this out at T.I.'s trial, provided they win a motion filed earlier today. Also, "Douglas Morgan"? That's a pretty lame alias, even for a guy lazy enough to differentiate his alter egos with nothing but a dangling "P."

U.S. Attorney To Introduce T.I.'s Prior Weapons Charges In Federal Case [XXL]

Did T.I. Have His Rights Violated By The Federales?

jharv — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:15:30 EST

Are you a well-known rapper stuck at home on Thanksgiving while facing federal weapons charges? Well, maybe you'll be out by Christmas if your lawyers can argue the court to "suppress evidence and statements that they believe were obtained illegally."

According to the Associated Press, Tip's lawyers claim that the vehicle he was driving during his arrest on October 13 was searched without a warrant or probable cause, and that statements he made to ATF agents may not have been voluntary. The motions also suggest that the rapper's detention may not have been legal, and the arresting agents could have violated his rights. Further details about the challenges were not available; however, Tip's attorneys say that they intend to file additional motions.

Sadly, we have seemed to reach the point in every cop show where the defense attorneys make the last-ditch "he was never Mirandized/it was a sting/the evidence procedures were cocked up" play for the judge, i.e. two steps from the defendant taking a plea. But who knows, maybe T.I. will get blessed with one of those WTF? twist endings that do your head in right before the credits roll. (Also, maybe I'm just preoccupied with police procedurals today, but what is up with TNT having a Charmed marathon on Thanksgiving? Even some of us who aren't on house arrest had planned on parking our turkey-bloated bodies in front of nine hours of Law And Order tomorrow.)

T.I. Challenges Evidence In Weapons Case [XXL]

T.I. Issues "Video Statement," Refuses To Get Dressed For Camera

jharv — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 10:00:22 EST

As might be expected from a guy still waiting for his day in federal court, T.I. doesn't really say much—or anything—about his case; he's smart enough to know that when you're facing a weapons charge you thank your fans a lot, talk about God, and leave the facts to the lawyers. But he certainly looks like he's taking it easy while stuck on house arrest. Nice robe, Tip. Even housebound bloggers manage to put on a pair of pants and a belt.

T.I. [Street Cred]

He doesn't have to worry about entertaining ...

mjohnston — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 17:25:54 EST

He doesn't have to worry about entertaining a houseful of non-drunk family members on Thanksgiving, so T.I. has decided to spend his days under house arrest recording tracks for a new album, Paper Trail. The name comes from the fact that he's writing out his lyrics longhand, a practice he hasn't engaged in since his debut album. [EW]

T.I. has "withdrawn his request" with an ...

jharv — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 08:50:02 EST

T.I. has "withdrawn his request" with an Atlanta court to have Thanksgiving with the family while on house arrest for federal weapons charges. Perhaps he remembered that "Thanksgiving with the family with no booze" isn't always such an appetizing proposition. [MTV]

Attn. Musicians: The Best Way To Promote Yourselves Is Now Public Embarassment. Or Getting Arrested. Or Both!

jharv — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 11:00:25 EST

Record sales are pretty bad right now, right? And sometimes no matter how much you pimp yourself to the media to get the word out about your project, your numbers are still gonna suck. But then Britney's Blackout and American Gangster (with an all-important 10 minutes of T.I. screen time) come out and dominate the sales charts. Frustrating! So maybe musicians would be better off turning themselves into narcotized deadbeat moms? Or going out and getting themselves a federal weapons charge? MTV and Entertainment Weekly writer Margeaux Watson think yes!

And fortunately for Jive Records, Britney's the type of superstar who doesn't need to go the traditional route when it comes to promoting a project. "She has a built-in audience that's enormous and she sells herself," Watson said. "She's like, 'Why do I have to do an interview? You're gonna write about me anyway.' So it's unnecessary, and it's kind of lucky for a record label that they don't have to spend the money on promotion. It's kind of a win-win situation for all." Even if Jive had wanted to mount an extensive promotional campaign, it would have been impossible because Britney has just not made herself available to them — but with Britney, every time she steps out of her house, that's a public appearance.

So what about the bazillions of musicians without a "built-in audience that's enormous"? Still, at least that makes sense in this particular instance—woman who's been "dominating" the news cycle shifts mad units through a mix of spin and luck—even if it does yet again underscore the sad fact that no one shifts mad units anymore on the back of the music, at least without a compelling (or horrifying) media tie-in. But the article's second assertion, that Universal is using T.I.'s arrest to subliminally promote American Gangster, makes a little less... okay, it makes no sense.

"The one scene that he's in is basically what they keep showing in the commercials," Watson points out. "It almost seems like they're trying to play up the fact that, 'Here's this guy who's in hot legal water, and now he's in this movie "American Gangster" and he's telling [Denzel's character], "I wanna be just like you, Uncle Frank." ' So it almost seems like they're trying to play that up and capitalize on it."
And though no one can know for certain whether Watson's theory worked, "American Gangster" did open at #1 at the box office.

Huh? Or maybe it's a well-promoted movie with two high-profile leading hunks and a Jay-Z tie-in, plus the fact that America doesn't really need its arm twisted to go see people blow each other away? Or maybe the commercials (and trailers!) were cut months before T.I.'s arrest? Or maybe judging by T.I.'s sales this year he needs do as much promotional work as he can? (T.I. Vs. T.I.P. didn't exactly see a monster spike after he got busted.) And his record label would probably rather have him around to do interviews than forcibly stuck at home playing Xbox. Since "crazy drugged-out broad" and "dude on house arrest" are such surefire money-makers.

Do Britney Spears And T.I. Need Promotion? [MTV]

All T.I. Wants Is Some Cranberry Sauce (And Maybe Some Extra Gravy)

jharv — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:30:13 EST

T.I.'s arrest on weapons charges may yet sink his career and/or land him a serious federal jail term. But right now it's mostly screwing up his Thanksgiving plans.

In a motion filed in federal court Tuesday, T.I — who was born Clifford Harris Jr. — requested that the judge waive the no-more-than-three visitors-at-a-time provision of his $3 million bond.

Harris, 27, wants the exception only for Turkey Day, only between the hours of 9 a.m. and 6:30 p.m., and only for a group of visitors whose names he submitted for approval.

In another motion Tuesday, Harris also asked the judge to allow access for workers who can come clean his yard, pool and home.

Well, that lawn isn't mowing itself. But at least let the man carve a bird with his family. Especially since he "can serve sweet tea, but his bond conditions forbid him from consuming alcohol," he's going to need as much of that mind-altering tryptophan as he can get.

Rapper T.I. Wants Judge To Allow Thanksgiving Gathering [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]