Various artists, Soul Messages From Dimona
This compilation from the tireless archivists at the Numero Group collects music made between 1975 and 1981 by a group of American expatriates living in Dimona, Israel, and it's pretty fantastic, melding together gospel, funk, and soul with lyrics that apparently contain precepts of Black Hebrew culture. The Tonistics' "Holding On" sounds like a lost Jackson 5 song that was shelved because it got a little too freaky; I also like the Soul Messengers' "Our Lord And Savior," which makes the "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" melody the backbone for a fiery funk spiritual. [Numero Group]

Air Miami, Fourteen Songs/Sixteen Songs
My adoration for the band Unrest has been chronicled here in the past, and I've spent the past few weeks catching up with the two CDs of demos from Mark Robinson and Bridget Cross' follow-up project Air Miami. The band's sole album, Me. Me. Me., has been in my springtime rotation since its release in 1995, and these early versions of that album's songs (as well as the chiming "Airplane Rider" and a few new-to-me tracks) serve as a fine gateway to Me. Me. Me.'s fully realized takes. (The Sound Of Indie has an MP3 of one of the demos.) [Teen Beat]

Estelle, Shine
The new full-length by this UK singer meshes the best things about the other two records discussed in this space into a breezy, summery R & B album that inspired me to tell my listening companion "I like this, it's really nice, you know?" about 10 times during my first listen to it earlier this week. And hey, the wholesale lifting of the melody from George Michael's "Faith" on "No Substitute Love" shows that at least her influences are in the right place. [MySpace]

The upper reaches of this week's Billboard Hot 100 are a little sleepy—two songs sneak into the bottom rungs of the Top 10, and every song above them either holds position or moves at most a spot or two.

But one of the Top 10 entrants boasts an unusual pair of credits: he has his first Top 10 hit as a recording act in the same week that he's enjoying his first chart-topper as a songwriter. Making it somewhat more unusual, at least among multi-hyphenate types: he just turned 21 about a month ago.

We're talking about former boy bander, former small-screen star, and TRL mainstay Jesse McCartney. The song he co-wrote—Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love," penned with OneRepublic schlock-meister Ryan Tedder—is actually in its fourth nonconsecutive week at No. 1. The newer hit is his own: "Leavin'," which leaps four spots to No. 10 after a huge, iTunes-fueled debut last week.

Throw in the fact that he did a voice for the March blockbuster Horton Hears A Who! and this kid's having an awfully good spring.

Most weeks, a song rising four places into the Top 10 is nothing to blog about, but McCartney's little move defies recent trends in a big way. Just moving up the chart at all after such a big, sales-driven debut is unusual.

Look at what happened to last week's highest debut, Chris Brown's "Forever," which materialized at No. 9. As I expected, this so-called "special edition" bonus cut fell out of the Top 10 in week two. It follows the typical pattern of songs that debut big on sales alone but haven't gotten on the radio yet. Sure enough, "Forever"'s sales drop 21% and it continues to lack radio airplay.

I expected that, after popping onto the chart at No. 14 last week, McCartney would experience a similar second-week swoon. After all, "Leavin'" has been available to radio stations and MTV since early March, and until last week it looked like a flop. But the song's numbers actually improved in week two: digital sales now top 100,000, an 8% improvement, and it's finally made an appearance on Billboard's all-format radio list. Radio PDs are usually quite a bit slower to respond to sales smashes.

Nowadays it's not at all unusual in the world of hip-hop to see acts flipping between writing/producing and performing. When a Diddy or Fitty type is hot, you'll see them all over the charts with multiple above- and below-the-line credits. But in the pop world, at least recently, it's fairly unusual for someone so young to pull it off.

And the simultaneous coming-out as writer and performer is quite unusual, even in the not-so-recent past. Big hits co-written by that other McCartney, but performed by other acts, came after a slew of Beatles smashes. Other singer-songwriters flipped the order, first writing Top 10s and then recording their own: Dylan scored hits by the likes of Peter, Paul and Mary years before "Like a Rolling Stone"; for Bruce Springsteen, Top 10s penned for Manfred Mann and the Pointer Sisters came before his own "Hungry Heart."

Okay, I'm not going to remotely compare this TRL pipsqueak's talents to any of the above. "Leavin'" is charming and catchy and that's about it; and that Leona Lewis hit is rapidly turning into an earworm fungus. (Actually, the fact that I love the verse and build of "Bleeding Love" and hate the repetitive-ass chorus makes me want to credit McCartney with the former and blame Ryan "Apologize" Tedder for the latter.) Also, it's not as if McCartney just started recording—his slow-building, eventually inescapable hit "Beautiful Soul" reached the Top 20 way back in 2004.

Still, the fact that he now bookends the Top 10 after never appearing there at all before a few weeks ago is a worthy achievement. Nice going, Bradin.

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

• I shouldn't neglect the other new Top 10 hit, which actually made a bigger move than McCartney, up 11 spaces to No. 8. But the reason Natasha Bedingfield's "Pocketful of Sunshine" don't impress me much is that it had an assist from American Idol—Bedingfield performed the song on last week's results show. "Sunshine" is the third-biggest digital seller this week, more than doubling to 135,000 downloads, but radio is still catching up; in its third week on the all-airplay list, it sits just outside the top 50.

This is Bedingfield's first Top 10 hit since her unkillable up-with-people anthem "Unwritten" reached No. 5 two years ago. Two years is not a bad span between Top 10 hits, but it's notable because there have been numerous failed attempts to get the British Bedingfield past the sophomore jinx in America over the past year: her British hit "I Wanna Have Your Babies" was nixed for American release last year, and her incongruous duet with Sean Kingston, "Love Like This," just missed the Top 10 in January and didn't do much for sales of her U.S. album. The "Sunshine" single finally appears to be doing the trick, as her album sales are up 200% this week.

• Weezer moves into the penthouse on the Modern Rock chart with "Pork and Beans," surprising no one after last week's explosion into the Top Three on that list. On the big chart, however, the single is looking like a dud, falling six spots to No. 90. Digital sales are down 11%, and non-rock radio stations aren't picking up on the laconic twanger at all—it's nowhere to be found on the Hot 100 Airplay list.

• Madonna's quest to take "4 Minutes" to No. 1 is clearly over. Even though Hard Candy debuted atop the album charts, the single doesn't get the typical corresponding release-week boost and slips two notches to No. 6 on the Hot 100. That may be because, like Mariah Carey, Madge is already moving on to single number two: the Pharrell Williams-backed "Give It 2 Me" is the Hot 100's top debut at No. 57, thanks to its nearly 30,000 digital downloads. It's kind of ironic, because slow-moving PDs were just catching on to "4 Minutes"—after weeks of slow-growing airplay, it's finally approaching the 10 most-played songs on the radio.

• We'll talk more about this next week, but for now, I'll give you a topic to discuss. Resolved: special-edition bonus tracks are a scam, but they work.

The reason we'll have more to talk about a week hence is that next week's chart-topper could be Rihanna's "Take a Bow," a song from the forthcoming "special edition" of Good Girl Gone Bad. "Bow" currently resides all the way down at No. 53 after four weeks on the chart, but thus far it's been charting based on airplay alone. That's about to change, big-time: "Bow" was released this past Tuesday on iTunes and already is No. 1 there. Like Chris Brown with his "special edition" track "Forever," sales alone for "Bow" will undoubtedly be enough to vault it into the Top 10. But unlike Brown, she's got solid and growing airplay for the snippy ballad, which suggests a leap all the way to the top is possible. Stay tuned.

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

Hot 100
1. Leona Lewis, "Bleeding Love" (LW No. 1, 12 weeks)
2. Lil Wayne feat. Static Major, "Lollipop" (LW No. 2, 8 weeks)
3. Jordin Sparks with Chris Brown, "No Air" (LW No. 3, 18 weeks)
4. Usher feat. Young Jeezy, "Love in This Club" (LW No. 5, 12 weeks)
5. Ray J & Yung Berg, "Sexy Can I" (LW No. 6, 14 weeks)
6. Madonna feat. Justin Timberlake, "4 Minutes" (LW No. 4, 7 weeks)
7. Mariah Carey, "Touch My Body" (LW No. 7, 12 weeks)
8. Natasha Bedingfield, "Pocketful of Sunshine" (LW No. 19, 12 weeks)
9. Sara Bareilles, "Love Song" (LW No. 8, 27 weeks)
10. Jesse McCartney, "Leavin'" (LW No. 14, 2 weeks)

Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
1. Lil Wayne feat. Static Major, "Lollipop" (LW No. 1, 8 weeks)
2. Ashanti, "The Way That I Love You" (LW No. 4, 12 weeks)
3. Usher feat. Young Jeezy, "Love in This Club" (LW No. 3, 13 weeks)
4. Mariah Carey, "Touch My Body" (LW No. 2, 13 weeks)
5. Jordin Sparks with Chris Brown, "No Air" (LW No. 7, 9 weeks)
6. Rick Ross feat. T-Pain, "The Boss" (LW No. 5, 17 weeks)
7. Plies feat. Ne-Yo, "Bust It Baby (Part 2)" (LW No. 10, 10 weeks)
8. Ray J & Yung Berg, "Sexy Can I" (LW No. 6, 17 weeks)
9. Keyshia Cole, "I Remember" (LW No. 8, 27 weeks)
10. 2 Pistols feat. T-Pain and Tay Dizm, "She Got It" (LW No. 9, 16 weeks)

Hot Country Songs
1. James Otto, "Just Got Started Lovin' You" (LW No. 2, 29 weeks)
2. George Strait, "I Saw God Today" (LW No. 1, 13 weeks)
3. Taylor Swift, "Picture to Burn" (LW No. 4, 17 weeks)
4. Trace Adkins, "You're Gonna Miss This" (LW No. 3, 22 weeks)
5. Brad Paisley, "I'm Still a Guy" (LW No. 6, 11 weeks)
6. Phil Vassar, "Love Is A Beautiful Thing" (LW No. 5, 27 weeks)
7. Rascal Flatts, "Every Day" (LW No. 7, 11 weeks)
8. Lady Antebellum, "Love Don't Live Here" (LW No. 8, 31 weeks)
9. Kenny Chesney, "Better as a Memory" (LW No. 10, 7 weeks)
10. Carrie Underwood, "Last Name" (LW No. 9, 8 weeks)

Hot Modern Rock Tracks
1. Weezer, "Pork & Beans" (LW No. 3, 3 weeks)
2. Seether, "Rise Above This" (LW No. 1, 11 weeks)
3. Flobots, "Handlebars" (LW No. 5, 5 weeks)
4. Puddle of Mudd, "Psycho" (LW No. 2, 27 weeks)
5. Atreyu, "Falling Down" (LW No. 4, 15 weeks)
6. The Raconteurs, "Salute Your Solution" (LW No. 6, 6 weeks)
7. Linkin Park, "Given Up" (LW No. 8, 9 weeks)
8. Death Cab for Cutie, "I Will Possess Your Heart" (LW No. 9, 7 weeks)
9. 3 Doors Down, "It's Not My Time" (LW No. 7, 11 weeks)
10. Disturbed, "Inside the Fire" (LW No. 11, 6 weeks)

• A woman who was at one time in love with R. Kelly was allegedly paid an undisclosed amount by one of the singer's aides to hand over a tape of a sexual encounter between her, Kells, and an underage girl. [Chicago Sun-Times]
• The Tribune is liveblogging the whole trial as best they can. One detail: Two men who played on the singer's contribution to the Ali soundtrack by holding up a sign that said "R. Kelly World's Greatest Pedophile." Clever? [Chicago Tribune]
• Kells' normal Thursday-night basketball game in the south Chicago suburb of Markham was marked by him angrily hurling a basketball at a reporter who'd stopped by to watch the game/come up with metaphors for future stories about the trial. Also, a former opponent of the singer's claims that he insists on playing point guard and that he "hogs the ball and shoots all the time." [Chicago Sun-Times]
• What's the best way to maximize pageviews from a big news event that will bring more people to your newspaper's Web site than ever? A photo gallery! [Chicago Tribune]

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: With a musical bed clearly influenced by Prince's "The Beautiful Ones," this slow jam from Usher's upcoming Here I Stand reminded me of that terrible book Porn For Women, in which "beautiful PG photos of hunky men cooking, listening, asking for directions" are accompanied by captions like "I love a clean house!" and "As long as I have two legs to walk on, you'll never take out the trash." Here, Usher decides to let his lady friend do all the things that men usually do in the relationship—pay for a date, enjoy breakfast in bed, insist to Usher that the sex isn't over until she's satisfied, dammit. The lyrics manage to be both over-the-top and mundane at the same time in many spots, which I guess is Ush's tribute to married-life copulation. (My particular favorite is the line where he talks about how his paramour will "order Chinese food right before you do me.") But wait, what's this at the end, when Usher closes out the song with a promise that part two will have Usher "put it on your ass"?! I guess all that Folgers-making does come with a price.

WHERE TO FIND IT: Music Is The Heart Of Our Soul.

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: It's a six-minute song that opens with a cheering crowd and a piano plonking out the old Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts"—and as the title suggests, the rest of the song is sort of based on that melody, although along the way it incorporates a Fred Durst imitation, a military drum-beat, some falsetto (actually, this part is pretty good, and would probably sound great as its own song), and a spoken-word break. Did I mention that it's six minutes long? This is really not shaking my feeling that their forthcoming red album is just going to be a great big Harvard semantics project/giant middle finger to the world.

WHERE TO HEAR IT: The Hype Machine. Please, someone, click over there and explain to me what's happening before I dare click the other Weezer song that's made its way to the Hype servers.

23-Aug - Cardiff, Millennium Stadium
26-Aug - Nice, Stade Charles Ehrmann
28-Aug - Berlin, Olympic Stadium
02-Sept - Amsterdam, Arena
04-Sept - Dusseldorf, LTU Arena
06-Sept - Rome, Olympic Stadium
09-Sept - Frankfurt, Commerzbank Arena
11-Sept - London, Wembley Stadium
20-Sept - Paris, Stade de France
03-Oct - E. Rutherford, Izod Center
06-Oct - New York City, Madison Square Garden
07-Oct - New York City, Madison Square Garden
15-Oct - Boston, TD BankNorth Garden
18-Oct - Toronto, Air Canada Centre
22-Oct - Montreal, Bell Centre
26-Oct - Chicago, United Center
30-Oct - Vancouver, BC Place Stadium
01-Nov - Oakland, Oracle Arena
04-Nov - San Diego, Petco Park
06-Nov - Los Angeles, Dodger Stadium
08-Nov - Las Vegas, MGM Grand Garden Arena
11-Nov - Denver, Pepsi Center
16-Nov - Houston, Minute Maid Park
19-Nov - Philadelphia, Wachovia Center
22-Nov - Atlantic City, Boardwalk Hall
24-Nov - Atlanta, Philips Arena
26-Nov - Miami, Dolphin Stadium

news [madonna.com]

This past Monday, Idolator posted the cover image of the June 2008 Blender, which Your Correspondent assesses this week. What follows is the first comment, from Dead Air ummm Dead Air, that followed the post...

"There's not one word or image on that cover that would entice me to buy that."

The post asked Blender's new editor, "why?" Although YC is certain Idolator's writers know the answer, he'll suggest that the reason Joe Levy rolled out the red carpet for Tila Tequila is the same as why YC suspects that the page views for this post are going to be greater than if, say, the accompanying image was that of the gentleman who fronts Fucked Up. The latter is fat, while the former fits all manner of requirements for the masturbatory fodder of many young men.

The promise of images and words regarding music figures of estimable worth are hardly a guarantor of newsstand sales, and the type of reader that Blender would have been able to depend on a few years ago now fills comment boxes with invective along the lines of "OMFG, I can't believe that they're putting this creature on the cover" and "whatever happened to talent?" So why, precisely, should the big music mags do what pleases Idolator- and Pitchfork-niks? Why shouldn't Blender, like MTV, appeal to people who like to watch strippers, cocktail waitresses, and goofball dudes debase themselves?

Were YC in Joe Levy's shoes, he'd probably put Tila Tequila on Blender's cover. This is simply because doing so helps subsidize some content that would interest Idolator- and Pitchfork-niks—this was the way that Blender operated when YC worked there, and given the first two issues of Levy's tenure as the mag's editor, he doesn't see any evidence that the "respect for artists" that Levy once promised to foster in Blender's pages is resulting in an infusion of Rolling Stone fustiness. The Hippocratic Oath's first rule is "Do No Harm," and Levy hasn't harmed Blender... yet.

Indeed, Ms. Tequila—or rather, Ms Nguyen, as scribe Chris Norris refers to her— has but the most slender rivulet of a burgeoning music career upon which Blender hangs "Everybody Loves Tila": a Lil' Jon and will.i.am-assisted ep entitled Sex. Otherwise, Norris attempts to unravel this Singapore-born Sphinx, but she remains as inscrutable and unforthcoming as any woman who must promote another season of a program in which her affections are the prize. She tells Norris that she thinks that "every girl is born bisexual," which both she and Blender's editors (who dutifully place her quote in display type in the issue's table of contents) know is a good thing to say when appealing to readers once referred to by a Blender critic as "walking boners."

Norris calls upon Dr. Drew for an explanation of the kind of participant common to Shot of Love, Rock of Love, and Flavor of Love. He says they tend to be "narcissist/borderline sociopath(s)," and that "producers actually do psychological testing to find people who (bespeak) this kind of makeup...they put them in an isolation tank away from their usual anchors, in this very intense environment with someone they're attracted to and encourage them to have intense feeling for them." YC has watched very little of this kind of programming, but he wouldn't be surprised if the producers have also inculcated or reintroduced some of these unfortunate people to the joys and pains of methamphetamine.

This issue sees the debut of Rob Sheffield's first "Station to Station" column. Sheffield's prominence at Rolling Stone was mostly due to Levy's beneficence, so YC fully expected "Nonstop Erotic Cabaret," a paean to Madonna, to ricochet from non sequitur to incongruous song lyric to 21 Jump Street reference even more recklessly than his RS columns. But it's nice to see that he keeps his eye on the ball for the most part: Sheffield loves Madonna (and her new album Hard Candy) and says why in less caffeinated prose than he used at his old gig. He does often betray the sense that he listens to music and watches television by himself in such worryingly massive doses that his ability to contend with ideas other than his own is either compromised or nonexistent (a hallmark he shares fellow Blender contributing editor/Levy crony/"my opinions are so precious that I needn't ever commit to real reporting"-adherent Robert Christgau), but he seems much, much closer to the ground here than usual.

A few paragraphs ago, YC mentioned that Blender uses cover images of the likes of Tila Tequila to finance content that might enlighten blog readers, should they be able to tear themselves away from their Yeasayer-centric playlists. This issue's contender as such is "The Eyeliner Wars" by senior editor Josh Eells, a guy who consistently gets out there and ruins his shoe leather real good. He goes to Mexico City to report on the mass hysteria and frequent beatings that Mexican emo fans often endure. (Note to Dead Air Umm Dead Air: YC believes that Chuck Klosterman wrote about Mexican-American devotees of Morrissey a few years ago, so Blender's article herein cannot be tarred with the brush you suggest.)

Eells reports that sensitive boys wearing eyeliner and identifying with darkly dramatic rock music flourish in a culture that favors drama (telenovelas, masked wrestlers); but that same culture contains deeply ingrained, intertwined-with-Catholicism notions of machismo, which results in "cholos" and punks often assaulting these "faggots." Something similar happened, by the way, in England last year: a young goth girl from Lancashire named Sophie Lancaster was beaten to death by a bunch of "chavs," the cholos of their country. Since YC does not frequent emo-culture hotbeds on his computer and was thus unaware of these events, he thinks Eells has done a commendable job.

Now a few quick notes...

• YC should mention his amusement at seeing that the some of the stock questions asked to nine music figures in this year's "Summer Music Blowout" are the same he posed to a bunch of musicians in the same roundup in 2002 and 2003: in fact, he thinks he came up with some of them.

• YC was also amused by the front-of-book featurette "Armadrinkin' It," in which three oenophiles from Def Leppard opine upon the merits of various wines proffered by six musicians. Guitarist Vivian Campbell asks whether Vince Neil's Vince Petite Sirah 2006 is called "duuuuuude"; singer Joe Elliott asks of the proprietor of Little Jonathan Winery Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, "Who's Lil Jon? He named for the Robin Hood guy?"; and bassist Rick "Sav" Savage, based on the accompanying shot of the three, looks like he goes to the same hairdresser and plastic surgeon as your great aunt.

• Finally,YC thinks that, in pop music journalism, it is unwise to publish more than one major feature on the same artist inside of six months, since it bespeaks a certain "appearance of impropriety," i.e. it makes a mag look like it's in the tank for said artist. Lil Wayne is one entertaining mufugger in this issue's "Dear Superstar" feature, in which he answers—ahem—"reader questions." But since he was already profiled in a feature in Blender's March issue by the same writer behind the piece in this new issue, senior editor Jonah Weiner, the mag should probably cool it with Lil Wayne, review his record whenever it comes out, and leave it at that.

Anyway, in a best-case scenario he'll get picked up by Brushfire Records and make a light album that's heavily influenced by the surf, then tour university rec centers with Josiah Leming; the more Jason progressed through the competition, the more I realized that Leming couldn't have made it through to the top 24, if only because the two of them would have been mirroring each other, song-choice and trajectory-wise, week after week. Well, maybe without the forgotten lyrics on Leming's part.

Man, the next two weeks are not going to be fun to watch at all, huh.

If you're going to skim images from documentaries and put them on a tilt-a-whirl with famous actors, why is it better to include surrealism involving Richard Gere and a town full of dwarfs rather than treating the cameos like cameos and playing it for laughs? If you've got Richard Gere staring across the horizon on a horse with no name and you're not trying to crack me up, how could you possibly be making something good? Why cast David Cross as Allen Ginsberg if you're not going to have him be funny? There are two reasons to dress up Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan. One is comedy, and the other is Oscar bait. I'm more inclined to respect the former.

I don't know how someone who didn't already like Dylan could get into his music after watching I'm Not There and seeing so much earnest superficiality, but the truly award-worthy musical homages that fill The Rutles are only improved by the light mood. I can see how Dylanologists and folks entranced by the bard's hair could get off on I'm Not There's "the point is there is no point, man" jive, but fans of Dylan's music are basically given this:

And how is that preferable to (or even more evocative of its subject than) this?

The Rutles Intro [YouTube]
THE RUTLES - Let's Be Natural (1969) [YouTube]
Bob Dylan - Goin' To Acapulco [YouTube]

ONE-LISTEN VERDICT: Wow, Oasis are seriously changing up the game on our asses. You'd think this was the Dukes Of Stratosphear or something, the way they've suddenly started taking on Beatle-isms! "Nothing On Me" mixes brash guitars and snide, Lennon-esque vocals from Liam Gallagher that plead for "truth." "I Wanna Live A Dream" flows from wan acoustic strumming with Noel Gallagher's blank vocals into a stomping, psychedelic coda familiar to fans of homages to "I Am The Walrus." "Stomp The Clocks" also flows from wan acoustic strumming topped by Noel Gallagher's blank vocals into a stomping, but the volume takes a lot longer to rise, and when the drums suddenly crash in, followed by a loud guitar solo, it's really more of a classic Radiohead-type of thing. I guess that's progress?

NEW OASIS SONGS [MySpace via Independent Music]

Biggest Debuts: As we mentioned, last week was a pretty great one for new releases, with lots of excellent albums dropping in the pre-paycheck, post-tax-return rush. So how'd they all do? Let's run down the list:
The Roots, Rising Down: No. 6, 54,000 sold (No. 2 digital, 15,000 sold)
Portishead, Third: No. 7, 53,000 sold (No. 3 digital, 15,000 sold)
Lil Mama, VYP: Voice Of The Young People: No. 25, 19,000 sold (not on digital albums chart)
Estelle, Shine: No. 38, 15,000 sold (No. 16 digital, 3,700 sold)
SantogoldNo. 74, 9,500 sold (No. 13 digital, 4,000 sold)
Robyn: No. 100, 7,100 sold (No. 25 digital, 2,800 sold)

All of them were out-debuted by Madge, Lyfe Jennings' Lyfe Change (No. 4, 80,000 sold), and Def Leppard's Live From The Sparkle Lounge (No. 5, 55,000 sold). So what have we learned? You can't stop Def Leppard. The Lil Mama record maybe should have come out when "Lip Gloss" was hot, if only to be the beneficiary of not-as-bad-as-they-are-now record sales. All the Fader covers and Bud Light Lime ads in the world can't help shift copies of an album, even when they do wonders for RCRD LBL's Google Blog Search hits. And holding a record back from U.S. release for an extended period of time, then hoping that Perez Hilton's breathless, syntax-challenged endorsement can be the foundation for a marketing campaign, is a lousy strategy—no matter how good the album is.

Notable Jumps: Natasha Bedingfield's appearance on American Idol last week goosed sales of The Album That's Really Called NB No Matter How Dumb Record Executives Think Americans Are—its sales totals jumped 199% week-over-week, and it shot from No. 97 to No. 24 (19,000 copies sold) on the chart.

Dropping Off: Ashlee Simpson's Bittersweet World was off 64% week to week, falling from No. 4 to No. 31 (17,000 sold); Atmosphere's When Life Gives You Lemons You Paint That Shit Gold had a 61% drop, tumbling from No. 5 to No. 41 (14,000 sold); and Flight Of The Conchords was down 57%, although its chart drop was a mere 14 places (No. 3 to No. 17, 22,000 sold).

Nickelback Award For Inexplicable Durability: An executive decision: This category is going to be held down by Alvin & the Chipmunks until they scurry out of the top 20. (They're at No. 14 this week with 23,000 copies sold.)

The top 20, with last week's sales in parentheses:
1. Madonna, Hard Candy (280,000)
2. Mariah Carey, E=MC² (95,000)
3. Leona Lewis, Spirit (84,000)
4. Lyfe Jennings, Lyfe Change (80,000)
5. Def Leppard, Songs From The Sparkle Lounge (55,000)
6. The Roots, Rising Down (54,000)
7. Portishead, Third (53,000)
8. Mudcrutch (38,000)
9. Now 27 (31,000)
10. Tim McGraw, Greatest Hits 1 & 2 (29,000)
11. Taylor Swift (29,000)
12. Steve Winwood, Nine Lives (26,000)
13. Juno soundtrack (26,000)
14. Alvin & The Chipmunks soundtrack (23,000)
15. Carly Simon, This Kind Of Love (23,000)
16. Jack Johnson, Sleep Through The Static (23,000)
17. Flight Of The Conchords (22,000)
18. George Strait, Troubadour (22,000)
19. Colbie Caillat, Coco (19,000)
20. Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus, Best Of Both Worlds Concert Tour (22,000)

This week's top 10 digital albums, with sales totals in parentheses:
1. Madonna, Hard Candy (73,000)
2. The Roots, Rising Down (15,000)
3. Portishead, Third (15,000)
4. Augustana, Can't Love Can't Hurt (11,000)
5. Leona Lewis, Spirit (9,400)
6. Flight Of The Conchords (7,500)
7. Juno soundtrack (6,700)
8. Mudcrutch (6,700)
9. Mariah Carey, E=MC² (6,500)
10. Def Leppard, Songs From The Sparkle Lounge (4,900)

Ooh, fire. So lazy! I really wish they'd continued down whatever road led them to the cover of 1996's Trial By Fire. It may not have been commercial, but it was art, damn it! No wonder Steve Perry left.

Revelation features a disc of re-recorded favorites (yes, "Seperate Ways" is on it) and a disc of new material. One of the songs on the new disc, "Faith In The Heartland," was also on their 2005 album Generations. This inspirational number is probably "new to you," though.

They want to believe something real Still they're searching They're keeping the faith in the heartland tonight Ooh, it's words that divide them It's love that defines them They're keeping the faith in the heartland tonight

In our darkest hour, oh, we look to the sky
With a silent prayer
Believe that God's on our side
In a land where freedom rings
And where eagles fly
Ooh yeah, yeah

Maybe Obama could make this into a campaign theme to reclaim that "blue collar values" crowd.

Q: It seems like you're always emotionally connected to the lyrics you're singing.

Archuleta: When I was younger, I didn't know what made me sing the song differently or how I sang it. I still don't really understand fully, but the lyrics do mean a lot to me now, a lot more than before. I didn't even pay attention to the lyrics when I was 12, 13. Probably around the second year I did "Star Search" is when I paid more attention to the lyrics. I thought the music itself had such a power to it, and now that I've understood how powerful lyrics are as well, I think that has allowed me to progress.

That's from a Billboard chat with David that made me continue to feel bad for the kid, even while I think his level of talent is really overstated—almost as much as his commercial ability is. I mean, his "vocal paralysis" backstory is sad in a pulling-at-the-heartstrings way, but the rest of the interview is sad in a "this is what passes for an interesting pop star" way—a kid who's been tirelessly dragged along the assembly line of televised vocal competitions to be "famous" yet completely ignorant of the pop music marketplace, beaten down to the point where he's just putting together syllables to please the adults that are surrounding him, all of whom see a big dollar-sign mirage when they look at him and all of whom are probably going to dump on him really hard when his Idol coronation album inevitably flops.

Mind you, the other three remaining singers aren't without their flaws. While I continue to really root for Jason Castro's everydorm persona and ability to make the judges (who are apparently seeing Leona Lewis' success as evidence that the old model still works) go into full-on tantrum mode, he definitely needs a little more polish. (At least he sang through his little lyrical misstep last night, unlike Brooke "D.O." White—who probably would have wilted if she had to take the mean-spirited critiques everyone gave Jason, which came on the heels of Paula's losing the script last week.) Syesha Mercado has a reed-thin voice and a really grating persona that was best epitomized by her comparing her Idol trajectory to the civil rights movement. (Whoever said that she's probably going to compare herself to one of the presidential candidates if she keeps on going in the competition is right on.) David Cook is about five beats per minute away from Aaron Lewis territory, but I'd take him over the creepy Wayne Newton Mach II that is Archie any day.

I'm going to keep watching, if only because I have to see this thing through. But the desired outcome of this year's edition is so bad, so off the mark, that I can't help but wonder how the producers are going to fix the show next year, or at least get the 18-to-34 demographic back into watching it again.

Also, seriously, can Randy Jackson be fired, or at least given a thesaurus? At least Paula is entertainingly incoherent.

Q&A: David Archuleta of 'American Idol' [Billboard]

We are looking for teams of two to three people to write and perform product jingles. A team could be anything from an improv troupe to a singing comedy duo or a hip-hop trio. We are looking for fun, high-energy performances mixed with a competitive spirit. Teams will compete weekly for a chance to win $100,000 and a contract with one of the companies!

We're still locking down audition dates and locations - we will be in New York, Austin, Chicago, Nashville, and LA in late May/early June. However, we're currently accepting submissions, so if you live in/near one of these cities and would like to apply, send an e-mail to Adam for an application and information on how to submit.

Let's do this. You can organize in teams in comments! It could be our lasting contribution to the world, for better or for worse. And at the very least, you all should come up with something as good as this:

(That has to be "Weird Al," right?)

One last bit of inspiration:

Free Credit Report Commercial: Dream Girl [YouTube]
IO Optimum Cable Reggaeton Commercial [YouTube]
Earlier: Jingles coverage

8:05 p.m. You know, not that Simon LeBon is a great vocalist or anything, but between this off-key, tossed-off version and that Nicole Scherzinger soap take on "Rio" I'm starting to think that he was way underrated.

8:07 p.m. Randy does not think that David brought the "mad hot vocals," but Paula is hungry! Although I get hungry when I have lots of drinkies too.

8:07 p.m. Simon thinks that it was good, too? What happened to his acerbic wit and biting commentary? Has the entire show lost its magic this season?

8:09 p.m. Commercial break! Indiana still hasn't been called! Also, please note the completely cheesy picture depicting the Idol hopefuls in the Hall of Fame.

8:12 p.m. Syesha is trying to outsparkle her eyeshadow with an all-sequin dress. And she's excited about the tour and "being able to meet all of my fans and all those who support me"! Ah, Syesha, your in-it-to-win-itness is so charming given that you've pretty much skated into the top four.

8:13 p.m. Oh shit, she's singing "Proud Mary." Hence the dress. Which intentionally looks familiar:

8:14 p.m. Pitch problems. But here it kicks into gear.

8:14 p.m. The backing singers are really carrying her here; her voice doesn't go well into the higher—oh, what was that?

8:15 p.m. Randy: "Syesha has showed up and she's in the zone." Oh, Randy, will you ever not speak in Britney Spears album titles?

8:16 p.m. Simon says it's a bad Tina Turner impersonation! Which is pretty much what it was. Syesha: "I'm just trying to have fun." Simon: "Well—I didn't." Randy is chalking the difference in opinion up to the distance between Louisiana and the UK! If only Syesha picked a McFly song for her second one, then we could see what the real deal is.

8:19 p.m. Indiana is still too close to call, and there is an ad on Fox where a woman looks like she's driving a huge hot pink vibrator and yelling "Woo hoo." Which leads into a birth control ad! Sexy, sexy Fox.

8:21 p.m. Jason is up now. Wait, does that mean that David Archuleta is getting the pimp spot Again?

8:22 p.m. "It's a song by Bob Marley ... go figure." Ah, Jason, you are such a goofball.

8:23 p.m. You can tell that he knows this song because he is more animated than he has been on any other episode ever. (Too bad the horns are a little wedding-bandy.) Randy is gonna hate this.

8:23 p.m. His vocal is very Josiah Leming, I have to say.

8:24 p.m. He finished with the David Cook sneer!

8:24 p.m. Randy hated it. Of course. Randy is so predictable. If you looked at his record collection it would look like it was preserved in amber sometime during the last Whitney Houston chart reign.

8:25 p.m. Simon drops the "first round audition massacre" bomb. But is it reverse psychology to get his fanbase calling in???

8:26 p.m. Simon: "I don't know what you're thinking." Jason: "I was thinking... Bob Mar-ley!" Harold & Kumar 3 just had its signature moment etched into the American consciousness.

8:27 p.m. David Archuleta always sings "Stand By Me" when he's by himself, or "to a dog or something."

8:27 p.m. I don't like this kid. The patent leather sneakers are not helping. Although the Danzigish design on his shirt is.

8:28 p.m. OH NO HE JUST INTERPOLATED "BEAUTIFUL GIRLS" INTO HIS PERFORMANCE. To appear, you know, more current than Wayne Newton. Never mind that it completely torpedoes the lyrical intent of the song... ugh.

8:29 p.m. 30 seconds of screaming.

8:29 p.m. Randy continues to be in the tank for Archuleta. It's really just starting to be funny at this point, I guess.

8:30 p.m. Paula dropped the "only 17" bomb. Yes, he is the chosen one, people.

8:30 p.m. Simon christens it the best performance so far. Ryan asks David why he always looks sort of faint. David is panting. This is your American Idol? Oh, pop music.

8:32 p.m. Indiana is still too close to call with 52% of the precincts reporting; it's a 54-46 split in Clinton's favor but there's the whole northwestern part of Indiana that needs to come in, as well as Bloomington, Indianapolis, etc. Seriously, have you ever looked at Bush/Kerry and Clinton/Obama maps side-by-side in some of these more rural states? It's kind of—okay, very creepy.

8:35 p.m. Lavender Diamond for JC Penney! I wonder how Becky Stark would fare in front of Simon?

8:36 p.m. OK this Lurex-pinstriped jacket that David Cook is wearing is not a good look.

8:37 p.m. "Baba O'Riley," the nu-metal version.

8:38 p.m. I am in an empty room, but that did not stop me from saying "Oh, God," when he started going into the chorus. How do you strip every ounce of of excitement from this song? How about slowing it down just enough to make it sound like Staind's "Outside"?

8:39 p.m. Paula is screaming "I want more! I want more!" And Simon Cowell cynically says "welcome back, David Cook," a thought that I will finish by saying "because we need someone to shunt off to the active rock stations."

8:44 p.m. David Cook's horrible outfit explained: Rascal Flatts is in the audience. Hope they share more than just their clothes, wink wink.

8:45 p.m. Do you think that Syesha, when she was looking at the lyrics to "A Change Is Gonna Come," made her dad show her a picture of his rehab diploma via Webcam?

8:46 p.m. I mean if Idol wasn't completely and utterly broken, I would say that Syesha is going to walk away with this whole thing. She's got the annoying diva singing and the ability to open her mouth big on big notes and the not-too-humble-for-stardom persona.

8:47 p.m. But Randy doesn't like it! "Sam Cooke is one of the greatest singers ever in life... you don't need to do anything different... trying to be something that it wasn't."

8:47 p.m. As a counterpoint, Paula stands up and starts clapping like a seal. Also, she thinks this was a "superstar performance," and that a change has, in fact, come for Syesha. Well, not really in that she'll probably still be in the bottom two tomorrow.

8:48 p.m. Syesha is crying. And now that Simon's revealed that he liked it too, let the waterworks commence.

8:49 p.m. Onstage sobbing. Shoutouts to the civil rights movement. Bye bye, Jason Castro, it's been real.

8:50 p.m. But first, before Jason gets voted off, he has to sing another song! And he has a motto: "Stick with the Bobs, you can't go wrong."

8:50 p.m. He's doing the Dylan arrangement.

8:51 p.m. Edit: He's forgetting the words to the Dylan arrangement.

8:52 p.m. This is too bad because this is actually not terrible, save the lyric-spaz. The camera cuts to Carly, who looks pissed that she isn't on stage.

8:53 p.m. Simon is not happy either: "I'd pack your suitcase." Jason looks like he wants to crawl into the nearest hole and curl up with his guitar.

8:54 p.m. Is this, in fact, the worst Idol season ever? Well, for the purposes of blogging, it's been pretty awesome. But the falling-off-a-cliff ratings would provide yet more evidence that bloggers are in a minority.

8:55 p.m. Precincts in Indiana are running out of ballots! The race is still too close to call! I might have to picture-in-picture during Archuleta's performance just to keep my sanity.

8:57 p.m. David Archuleta is singing "Love Me Tender" and in the pre-song video he's reciting facts about Elvis like an eight-year-old at a rock and roll bee. Dear lord, David, you really need to go on some sort of season-long European vacation.

8:58 p.m. I really can't stand how all of his vocal arrangements have that "breaking" high note on verses. Understatement is not a bad thing, child. Perhaps when you grow up you'll figure this out.

8:59 p.m. His voice gave out, then recovered and went flat. And that was his big finish. And Randy called it "another great performance." Yep, that about sums up this season of American Idol.

9:01 p.m. Let's see if they bring up Jason's lyrical spaz during the recap! That'll give us a big hint as to the producers' intent.

9:02 p.m. No replay of the senior moment, but Ryan did remind the audience that this week has been all about the Shock Eliminations in the past. So get voting! I'm going to watch Hell's Kitchen and try and figure out if I can reverse-engineer any of the recipes.

9:13 p.m. I'll have a longer postmortem for this unbelievably disappointing show in the morning, but in a nutshell, what we have learned tonight is this: David Cook should have never watched that Old Spice ad with Bruce Campbell singing "Hungry Like The Wolf." Syesha Mercado probably does believe that her dead-cat bounce from one reality show to another is exactly like the civil rights movement. Jason Castro really doesn't give a shit about winning Idol, although I bet you he's freaking out at the possibility of ever meeting Bob Dylan. And it's OK when David Archuleta forgets words, because he can do no wrong, even if what he does involves ruining some of the most understated songs of the early rock era with his constant runs and oversinging.

06-20 London, England - The Roundhouse
06-21 London, England - The Roundhouse
06-22 London, England - The Roundhouse
06-23 London, England - The Roundhouse
06-24 London, England - The Roundhouse
06-28 Manchester, England - Apollo
06-29 Manchester, England - Apollo
07-02 Glasgow, Scotland - Barrowland
07-03 Glasgow, Scotland - Barrowland
07-03-06 Roskilde, Denmark - Roskilde Festival
07-09 Paris, France - Zenith
07-17-20 Benicàssim, Spain - Festival Internacional de Benicàssim
07-25 Naeba, Japan - Fuji Rock Festival
08-08 Oslo, Norway - Øya Festival
09-05 Isle of Wight, England - Bestival
09-19-21 Monticello, NY - Kutshers Country Club (ATP New York)
09-22 New York, NY - Roseland
09-23 New York, NY - Roseland
09-25 Toronto, Ontario - Ricoh
09-27 Chicago, IL - Aragon Ballroom
09-30 San Francisco, CA - The Concourse
10-01 Los Angeles, CA - Santa Monica Civic
10-02 Los Angeles, CA - Santa Monica Civic

My Bloody Valentine Announce North American Tour! [Pitchfork]

Eh, OK. I'm midway through Waiting For The Sun at the moment, and the experience hasn't been quite the aural horrorfest that I would have imagined. But I'm still having a hard time understanding the overall appeal for anyone without a nostalgic attachment to the Whiskey-A-Go-Go. The band does have a decent touch when they can keep the track lengths down to tidy singles, although the appeal of Jim's habit of repeating the song title over and over with various inflections wears off very, very quickly over the course of these early albums. I think I might feel better about the whole thing if tracks like "Horse Latitudes" showed the band with some sense of humor, instead of some bizarro 'shroom fueled poetic bravado, but it's not the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, I suppose.

I'll give you people this much: "Moonlight Drive" is a pretty good song.

The Doors might edge ahead of the Eagles in my book by the end of the day, but there's still Morrison Hotel to go, so anything's possible.

Earlier:
You Know Who Really Sucks? The Doors
You Know Who Doesn't Suck That Much? The Doors.

Yeah, apparently that bit of cryptic prose means that Jason is going to sing "I Shot The Sheriff" (!) and "Mr. Tambourine Man," which should at the very least pair well with his dorm-room vibe. (He'll probably do the Byrds' interpretation of the song—but I'm still bummed that he won't be performing "September Gurls," ah well.) Meanwhile, murmurings about what David Cook might sing surfaced last night at the Television Without Pity boards and while the original poster's since deleted her speculative words, someone allowed them to live on via blockquoting:

I do happen to know the songs David C. is singing tomorrow (neither of them too outlandish, btw, one more than the other perhaps), and I don't think we will be getting any lackluster performances from him (and the fangirls are gonna go nuts for one in particular).

Hmm, the fangirls going nuts for one, eh? I hope that isn't code for "David grunges up Marvin Gaye," because that would be the worst thing ever. Or at least the second-worst-thing ever after David Archuleta taking on the "message" of "What's Going On."

Season 7 Top 4 Spoilers! [MJ's Big Blog]
The Grassy Knoll (SPOILERS) [TWOP]

• "Most of the songs Aiken chose present him as a lonely and longing figure, a role meant to make him even more sympathetic to a certain sect. Essentially, they're the latter-day equivalents to those who clung to The Lawrence Welk Show long after it lost its cultural resonance in the late '60s. To those folks—the last ostriches of the sexual revolution—Aiken remains an island of sanity, a final bastion of proud, neutered uncool. That, more than anything in his music, gives Aiken his dire place." [NY Daily News]

• "Aiken, who debuted on the Great White Way this year in Spamalot, sings like a theater veteran: almost too perfect, with a self-aware showmanship. But that doesn't make pop-rock nuggets like 'Ashes' any less catchy, or the ballads—on which Aiken's breathy tenor could break housewife hearts—ring any less true. With big American melodies, stock AC production and general inoffensiveness throughout, this should satisfy his army of self-dubbed Claymates." [Billboard]

• "As much as his record company would want him to be, Aiken isn't a crossover pop star. He's a male Celine Dion, a nerdier Michael Bublé, a new-millennium Barry Manilow, and there's nothing wrong with that. The sooner he embraces that, the better his albums will sound. With On the Way Here, he's not quite there." [Newsday]

• "It's amazing—forget what you've heard before, this is a grown up Clay Aiken; no longer just a 'ballad boy'. A little modern blues a-la James Morrison, a little uptempo rock/pop, a little jazz piano, a few ballads, a little country-crossover and even an inspirational song. And a beautifully sad song the man wrote with David Foster. Just goes to show ya what the guy can do when his record label lets him choose the songs instead telling him what to sing. The guy has good and very eclectic taste in music. If you remember Clay from American Idol, but have never bought any of his CD's, this is the one to get!" [Amazon Reviewer "HesGotMe"]

5. Metrotone, The Less You Have, The More You Are. A not-little-enough bit of undergraduate pretension that may inadvertently explain why I kept running into this album in used bins all over the place.

4. Sukpatch, Haulin' Grass And Smokin' Ass. Lovely album, pity about the name. Also, how has Snoop Dogg not repurposed this title for his own purposes yet?

3. Robbie Williams, The Ego Has Landed. The self-deprecation might have worked a little better if a) the title was half as witty as that bestowed upon Butch Walker's Left Of Self-Centered; b) Ego hadn't actually crash-landed on American shores.

2. Extreme, Extreme III Sides To Every Story. It's always the albums with the roman numeral for "three" in the title that trip up Gary Cherone, isn't it?

1. Electric Boys, Funk-O-Metal Carpet Ride. Try saying that album title with a straight face. I can't and I've owned the album for nineteen years. That said, any excuse to post "All Lips 'N Hips" is OK by me.

The perils of the pretentious album title [Guardian]

I've given half my life to this industry
And all I ever hear is it's him or me
Sometimes I just cant tell
If it's worth the tears

The grace of Clive
God bless the grace of Clive

There is a melody, but sadly I have no access to any of the instruments or recording equipment necessary to make this my now. Who knows, maybe I could submit it next year. Let "the other David" be more of a metaphorical thing.

Simon Cowell defends Paula Abdul, mocks 'American Idol' songwriting competition [EW]

Look, we're not saying this song isn't a perfectly pleasant '60s homage. But how can you play these guys off as babes in the woods when a simple Google search reveals that they make their bread helping bring snakes on a plane alongside Gabe Saporta and whoever the lady keytarist is at the moment? These aren't just touring members. Cobra Starship actually has a song named "Pleasure Ryland." Here's Gabe, Alex and Ry-Ry dropping that bomb on the acoustic tip.

So just say it, OK? "Featuring members of Cobra Starship." It's not that hard, trust me. It's actually kind of fun to type the words "Cobra Starship" in a post. Anyone who wouldn't listen to their anonymous little Rutle of a number just because they're in Cobra Starship isn't a fan they'd want anyway.

[The Forkcast post has been edited to note that the band's press release didn't mention they were members of Cobra Starship, and really, how could they know something that wasn't in the press release? We sympathize.]

Cobra Starship - Pleasure Ryland acoustic [YouTube]
New Music: This Is Ivy League: "The Richest Kids" [MP3/Stream] [Forkcast]

1. Call Pitchfork a music blog. Never mind that it's been around, as you point out in your article, since 1995—two years before the term "weblog" was invented, and four before Peter Merholz coined the shorter version; never mind that the only aspects of the site that vaguely resembles a music blog are the Forkcast and the News section, neither of which have the coronation power of a "Best New Music" from its reviewers. Who aren't bloggers (well, at least not for Pitchfork, anyway).

2. Use as your new media "expert" a futurist whose recent forays into the digital-music world ended in failure. Remember the guy who coined the term BlogJ? Yeah, his "blogs will be the next record labels" spiel is quoted here, although left out of the piece is the fact that his recent experiment in Web 2.0 widgetry went tits-up last week.

3. Fill your story with data-free anecdotes, because they make lovely window dressing. Music blogs apparently have "young readers." How is Sandoval aware of this? We don't know, because there aren't any actual numbers in the story at all aside from the number of unique readers Pitchfork gets a month (1.5 million) and the number of words Rolling Stone's Nathan Brackett thinks that the average Man Man blurb has (50).

4. On that note, never, ever press for details. Would you be interested to know that eMusic's Yancey Strickler (who, it should be known, is a friend), who's given space to pontificate on music blogging, writes a music blog for his employer, which could make for some interesting discussion of blogging-for-dollars in a story that mentions corporate influence? Want to know how BrooklynVegan "developed a reputation for being the must-read blog for concert information"? Like to know what, exactly, was inaccurate in the reporting about Stereogum's sale, as Scott Lapatine claims? Too bad, because Sandoval isn't interested in making those details known. (At least not yet! Maybe there's a sequel to this piece coming—Music Blogs II: Return To WordPress!)

5. Get an old-media type to comment on how the blog kids should get off his fact-checked lawn—and then fail to fact-check his comments. "The blogs do the really quick 50-word update on what a band's doing," Brackett tells Sandoval. "They'll write about (singer) Lilly [sic!!!] Allen releasing a new EP or (the band) Man Man is preparing an album. The way Rolling Stone competes is we pick up the phone and bring original reporting. We take advantage of our access. Most blogs don't have the staffs to pick up the phone." Well, most blogs also aren't subsidiaries of huge magazines that can be sources for repurposed content. And really, does recapping a reality TV show count as "original reporting" these days? I guess it's a good thing that I got cable in my office after all.

Music blogs: The new wall of sound [CNet]

• The album's available in MP3, FLAC, Apple lossless, and WAV format.
• The FLAC, Apple lossless, and WAV versions of the album are being distributed via BitTorrent because of the huge file sizes, while the MP3 version is a plain old download.
• Downloading the MP3 version was pretty easy—no server crashes or endless "Please wait..." messages.
• The album's protected by a Creative Commons license that allows remixers to remix, bloggers to blog, or people who troll arena bathrooms to leave it on USB drives in stalls.
• CD and vinyl versions of the album will be out in July, with "details to come." Is it too much to hope for a 3-inch CD box set that's free with a street address? Probably.
• The first person to comment on Reznor's blog post announcing the album did, in fact, say "FIRST." Ah, Internet.

the slip [dl.nin.com]

You can't kill Leona Lewis, you can only make her stronger. For the first time in 30 years, a song returns to the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Hot 100 after being evicted twice. Love her or hate her, Ol' Dead Eyes is back.

As unusual as Leona's threepeat is, the more interesting moves this week are made below the No. 1 spot, in part because it looks like the songs we may be hearing during car-radio season are hitting the charts now. That includes big debuts by the unsinkable Chris Brown and heartthrob Jesse McCartney, a first-time appearance by new British "It" girl Duffy, and a huge move on Modern Rock by a certain gang of veteran geek-rockers trying to regain their cred.

First, Leona's unusual feat: In general, it's not uncommon for songs to return to No. 1 after falling out for a week or two; just last year, two songs (Maroon 5's "Makes Me Wonder" and Soulja Boy's "Crank That") pulled it off. But "Bleeding Love" is the first song on the Hot 100 to go to No. 1, drop out, return, drop out again, and then come back a third time since the immortal "Le Freak" by Chic in 1978.

Back then, Chic's competition for the top slot came from Barbra Streisand's and Neil Diamond's "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" and the Bee Gees' "Too Much Heaven"—a classic disco song outlasting two sappy ballads. This year, it's the sappy ballad beating back the more uptempo material: Lewis first evicted Mariah Carey's "Touch My Body" and now ousts Lil Wayne's "Lollipop," which falls to No. 2.

Each time "Bleeding" has hit No. 1, there's been a sales-related deus ex machina assisting it. The first time, it was Oprah (now that's a deus!); the second time, the release of Lewis' album and the attendant hype surrounding it. This time, it's Lewis' performance of the song on last week's American Idol results show, which boosts sales of "Bleeding" to a new peak of 233,000 downloads.

However, as I've said here before, Lewis' ballad is becoming legitimately huge with the public and will likely hang around the upper reaches of the charts for a while. At this writing, more than a week removed from her Idol performance, "Bleeding" is still the top seller on iTunes. Any of this week's top four songs could be No. 1 next week, but for once, plain old inertia might keep Lewis there two weeks in a row.

Clear The Way: The number of debuts on the Hot 100 this week, 10, isn't unusual, but the bona fides of the songs debuting is, kinda. At least half of them, out of the gate, stand a legitimate chance of reaching the winners' circle. (One of them is already there!) It all depends on how soon they catch on with radio audiences. Let's review a half-dozen of them.

Chris Brown, "Forever" - Debuting all the way up at No. 9, it matches Yael Naïm's fluke hit "New Soul" as the highest debut of the year so far. Actually, this is a fluke hit too, as improbable as that seems. "Forever" isn't the "official" fourth single from Brown's sophomore album Exclusive. That would be the vaguely lewd slow-jam "Take You Down," which debuted on the Hot 100 last week (way down at No. 99) and on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart more than a month ago (it's just outside that chart's Top 20 now). "Forever," on the other hand, is a bonus track on the forthcoming "special edition" rerelease of Exclusive. As a kind gesture, the Zomba label released the song early on iTunes for those who already bought Brown's album. Those loyal fans snapped up 113,000 copies of the song, which entirely explains its high placement on the chart this week; it's receiving no measurable airplay so far. You can expect "Forever" to drop next week, which ironically makes it the only one of this week's debuts to have likely already peaked.

Jesse McCartney, "Leavin'" - Another huge debut, at No. 14, the leadoff single from McCartney's forthcoming Depature boasts production assistance from a dream team (no pun intended) of Terius "The-Dream" Nash, Tricky Stewart, and the Neptunes. As with Brown's latest single, McCartney's high debut masks a bit of weakness: it's been available to radio programmers for nearly two months, but only its recent digital release (95,000 downloads, the ninth-biggest seller of the week) got it onto the chart. So it'll probably have a couple of bad weeks on the list until radio catches on. But with no similar singles competing with it—and a solid hook and thumping beat—"Leavin'" could solidify into a genuine hit by summer.

Lil Wayne, "Milli" - A fairly impressive debut at No. 60, "Milli" is a less obvious pop crossover than "Lollipop," with plenty of Wayne's conversational spew. The fall of Weezy's first No. 1 hit isn't fazing him much; he's already unleashed the followup on iTunes, with Tha Carter III still weeks away from release. (Theoretically—I wouldn't bet the farm on this—the album comes out June 10.) As is typical for the world's most prolific recording artist, "Milli" has been out for a couple of months already on mixtapes under the name "A Milli" (sometimes "A Millie"). We've grown accustomed by now to Weezy dropping singles regularly; the difference is, he's now enough of a pop presence that his singles actually perform on the Hot 100.

Usher feat. Beyonce & Lil Wayne, "Love in This Club, Part II" - Debuting at No. 79 on the Hot 100 and a stunning No. 14 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Chart, this looks like a booming-jeep smash already. As reviewed last week by Maura, the rethink of Usher's No. 1 smash is a revelatory transformation of an already-established hit into something breezier and groovier. R&B radio is already signaling its preference: the same week "Part II" makes that massive debut, its "part I" predecessor falls out of the R&B/Hip-Hop chart's No. 1 slot (giving way to Lil Wayne's "Lollipop").

Weezer, "Pork and Beans" - A Hot 100 debut at No. 84, but that's not the big news: on the Modern Rock chart, Rivers Cuomo's bid for post-"Beverly Hills" acceptance vaults 16 notches to No. 3, suggesting it could top the chart in near-record time. That rock format is probably the song's only source of airplay so far, but then, with the exception of the fluke "Hills," it's been a long time since Weezer was a regular Top 40 radio presence. The main cause of "Pork's" Hot 100 debut is its 17,000 downloads sold—a fairly light total that suggests fans are a bit wary. Or maybe the old-school Cuomo-heads are holding out for the Red Album.

Duffy, "Mercy" - Debuting at No. 87, the 21st-century Lulu (I'm with Ken Barnes: these Dusty Springfield comparisons are bullshit) actually sold more downloads last week (nearly 18,000) than Weezer. Radio airplay is still light, so Duffy's strong sales are probably attributable to "Mercy" getting played during a recent episode of ER. Still, the helium-voiced British gal's irresistible hit has that summer vibe all over it, and MTV is starting to play the hell out of the video (at, um, three in the morning). So theoretically the hype will turn real pretty soon.

...And One More Thing: If you're an iTunes user who's nostalgic for the middle of the aughts, be sure to check out the special section Apple posted to commemorate the iTunes Music Store's fifth anniversary this past Monday (careful, autoloads iTunes).

Included in the package are lists of all of Apple's biggest sellers, year by year, from 2003 through 2007. The lists for the first two years, 2003 and 2004, are the most interesting to me. Digital sales have only been used to compile the Billboard charts since early 2005, so this is the first time I've seen all-encompassing lists of Apple's biggest buck-a-song sellers from the Store's early days.

The top download of 2003: OutKast's "Hey Ya!"—which sounds obvious, until you consider that André 3000's megasmash was released about two months before the end of that year. The likely explanation for its end-of-year dominance is that Apple added Windows compatibility for iTunes in October 2003, which exponentially increased the Store's userbase just as OutKast released its biggest single ever.

The top seller for 2004 was Maroon 5's annoyingly inescapable "This Love." Actually, the whole 2004 list is a parade of minivan-friendly adult pop, with Hoobastank, U2, the Black Eyed Peas, and Counting Crows taking the rest of Apple's top five, and a second Maroon 5 track, "She Will Be Loved," making the year-end top 10, too. That brings up another theme of Apple's Store: its evolution from a yuppie-friendly, Starbucksish place for early iPod adopters into the biggest teen gathering place on earth. You really see it on the singles side: by 2007, the list of top-selling albums continues to house soccer-mom-friendly fare like Maroon 5, John Mayer and Amy Winehouse, but the top-selling single is the no-adults-allowed smash "Crank That" by Soulja Boy.

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

Hot 100
1. Leona Lewis, "Bleeding Love" (LW No. 2, 11 weeks)
2. Lil Wayne feat. Static Major, "Lollipop" (LW No. 1, 7 weeks)
3. Jordin Sparks with Chris Brown, "No Air" (LW No. 3, 17 weeks)
4. Madonna feat. Justin Timberlake, "4 Minutes" (LW No. 6, 6 weeks)
5. Usher feat. Young Jeezy, "Love in This Club" (LW No. 4, 11 weeks)
6. Ray J & Yung Berg, "Sexy Can I" (LW No. 7, 13 weeks)
7. Mariah Carey, "Touch My Body" (LW No. 5, 11 weeks)
8. Sara Bareilles, "Love Song" (LW No. 8, 26 weeks)
9. Chris Brown, "Forever" (CHART DEBUT, 1 week)
10. Chris Brown, "With You" (LW No. 9, 22 weeks)

Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
1. Lil Wayne feat. Static Major, "Lollipop" (LW No. 3, 7 weeks)
2. Mariah Carey, "Touch My Body" (LW No. 2, 12 weeks)
3. Usher feat. Young Jeezy, "Love in This Club" (LW No. 1, 12 weeks)
4. Ashanti, "The Way That I Love You" (LW No. 6, 11 weeks)
5. Rick Ross feat. T-Pain, "The Boss" (LW No. 7, 16 weeks)
6. Ray J & Yung Berg, "Sexy Can I" (LW No. 4, 16 weeks)
7. Jordin Sparks with Chris Brown, "No Air" (LW No. 8, 8 weeks)
8. Keyshia Cole, "I Remember" (LW No. 5, 26 weeks)
9. 2 Pistols feat. T-Pain and Tay Dizm, "She Got It" (LW No. 13, 16 weeks)
10. Plies feat. Ne-Yo, "Bust It Baby (Part 2)" (LW No. 17, 9 weeks)

Hot Country Songs
1. George Strait, "I Saw God Today" (LW No. 1, 12 weeks)
2. James Otto, "Just Got Started Lovin' You" (LW No. 3, 28 weeks)
3. Trace Adkins, "You're Gonna Miss This" (LW No. 2, 21 weeks)
4. Taylor Swift, "Picture to Burn" (LW No. 4, 16 weeks)
5. Phil Vassar, "Love Is A Beautiful Thing" (LW No. 5, 26 weeks)
6. Brad Paisley, "I'm Still a Guy" (LW No. 6, 10 weeks)
7. Rascal Flatts, "Every Day" (LW No. 7, 10 weeks)
8. Lady Antebellum, "Love Don't Live Here" (LW No. 9, 30 weeks)
9. Carrie Underwood, "Last Name" (LW No. 10, 7 weeks)
10. Kenny Chesney, "Better as a Memory" (LW No. 11, 6 weeks)

Hot Modern Rock Tracks
1. Seether, "Rise Above This" (LW No. 1, 10 weeks)
2. Puddle of Mudd, "Psycho" (LW No. 2, 26 weeks)
3. Weezer, "Pork & Beans" (LW No. 19, 2 weeks)
4. Atreyu, "Falling Down" (LW No. 3, 14 weeks)
5. Flobots, "Handlebars" (LW No. 7, 4 weeks)
6. The Raconteurs, "Salute Your Solution" (LW No. 4, 5 weeks)
7. 3 Doors Down, "It's Not My Time" (LW No. 5, 10 weeks)
8. Linkin Park, "Given Up" (LW No. 8, 8 weeks)
9. Death Cab for Cutie, "I Will Possess Your Heart" (LW No. 9, 6 weeks)
10. The Bravery, "Believe" (LW No. 6, 30 weeks)

THE 25 BEST HAIR METAL BANDS
25) Winger
24) L.A. Guns
23) Queensryche
22) Enuff Z'Nuff
21) Hanoi Rocks
20) Angel
19) Loverboy
18) Faster Pussycat
17) Bon Jovi
16) RATT
15) Quiet Riot
14) Kix
13) Vixen
12) Scorpions
11) Cinderella
10) Twisted Sister
9) Spinal Tap
8) Motley Crue
7) Ozzy Osbourne
6) Kiss
5) Aerosmith
4) Def Leppard
3) New York Dolls
2) Van Halen
1) Guns n' Roses

THE 25 WORST HAIR METAL BANDS
25) Mr. Big
24) Y&T
23) Bang Tango
22) Shotgun Messiah
21) Lizzy Borden
20) Trixter
19) Danger Danger
18) Autograph
17) Dokken
16) Bulletboys
15) Lita Ford
14) Stryper
13) Great White
12) Slaughter
11) Giuffria
10) White Lion
9) Damn Yankees
8) Warrant
7) Bad English
6) Europe
5) Whitesnake
4) W.A.S.P.
3) Extreme
2) Skid Row
1) Poison

And now, a song better than anything ever put out by the freaking Scorpions. (I'd say "And Ratt, too," but "Round And Round" owns.)

Yahoo! Names 25 Worst Hair Metal Bands [Sleaze Roxx]
Yahoo! Names 25 Best Hair Metal Bands [Sleaze Roxx]

The Wonky Pop artists are unmanufactured but unashamedly melodic and capable of playing live without recourse to lashings of dry ice, troupes of dancers and an interlude during which they fly around the stage on wires. As well as Alphabeat, it features the vaguely psychedelic pop-soul of Leon Jean-Marie, a dreadlock-sporting refugee from a Damage-style boyband who once toured with Steps, and Vincent Frank, a wiry 23-year-old who plies an intense brand of self-produced electro-pop under the name Frankmusic.

All three hark back to an 80s they're too young to remember, not just because of specific references in their music - Alphabeat's sound is not unlike a Dayglo take on Let's Dance-era Bowie, Leon Jean-Marie is audibly in love with Prince, Frankmusic vaguely resembles Soft Cell had they been produced by Daft Punk - but because they seem to embody the kind of pop star that held sway in the era before Stock, Aitken and Waterman's legion of interchangeable poppets took over the charts.

On the page—what with the harkening back to the '80s and use of the term electro-pop—it sounds as if Wonky Pop is just another watered-down nostalgia movement, but upon review of the music it's apparent that there's at least some undefinable quality to these bands that, in a perfect world, could potentially breathe some life into the bloated corpse of modern pop, or at least reanimate the dormant genre of smart chart pop that appeals to people over the age of 16. Of the three bands featured in the article, Alphabeat—already a huge success in their native Denmark and widely known in the UK—seems to be the most promising on first listen. Their latest single "Fascination" is like a long-lost number from Footloose, and it's delivered with an appropriately bubbly Broadway gusto.

At the same time, it's not completely enslaved to its heritage—there's definitely something fresh in the sound; it hits you like a load of laundry just out of the dryer. And while the band's look is indie-precious, the sound of the music is decidedly more populist. You get the feeling that "Fascination" should be playing on a radio in a suburban garage as someone washes a car on a Saturday afternoon. Their song "10,000 Nights" is perhaps even more indebted to the giants of '80s pop:

The first thing I thought when I heard this song was "Hall & Oates." The second was how happy I'd be if I were driving and it came on the radio.

Another thing Wonky Pop has going for it is variety. Leon Jean-Marie is, as The Guardian so tidily put it, "vaguely psychedelic pop-soul." His song "Scratch" sounds like it walked straight