In years past, New York top 40 powerhouse Z100 turned over its Christmas programming to a commercial-free all-seasonal-music block, but they've abandoned that practice in recent years, no doubt because other stations had hopped on that bandwagon back in late November. (Although I would like to register a complaint about not hearing Bruce Springsteen's version of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" at all this year until approximately 11:05 a.m. yesterday. In the NYC metro area, no less! What the hell?) In its place, the station is running its Top 100 of 2007 countdown on what seems to be endless loop, and given that I spent a lot of time in cars these past two days and this chart deviates just enough from the year-end Hot 100 to be kinda interesting, I figured I'd share it. Timbaland took the top two spots, with the "The Way I Are" placing at No. 1 and the still-not-very-good Scott Storch dis track "Give It To Me" somehow landing at No. 2.
THE GOOD: Two Pink tracks—"Who Knew and the oft-censored "U & Ur Hand"—placed in the top 10, as did Nelly Furtado's "Say It Right." Also, Elliott Yamin wound up being the highest-charting American Idol alum of the year who wasn't Daughtry*, with "Wait For You" (No. 19) just nosing out "Before He Cheats" (No. 20).
THE BAD: In a year that was pretty lackluster for rock-on-pop-radio to begin with, the highest-charting representative of the genre is... the limp, sub-CW-theme "The Great Escape" by Boys Like Girls, which landed at No. 8. Is it because they played the Jingle Ball? I'm seriously curious.
THE WHAAAA? At approximately 7 p.m. Monday, the Best New Artist voting (part of some listener polls that are running in conjunction with this list's airing/trying to pad the station's web stats before the year ends) was led by the moptopped Jonas Brothers, with Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana in second place. In third place? Timbaland. Hey, if he keeps it up in the polls, maybe he could get a Disney Channel show of his own!
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Idolator
Back in December, Jess and I ventured into the depths of New York's Madison Square Garden to cover Z100's annual Jingle Ball, a megaconcert where the screams of Jonas Brothers fans drowned out everything else. Ticket sales for that show must have been great, because the spring installment of the pop megastation's Now That's What I Call A Concert Series—Zootopia 2008, set for May 17 at the Meadowlands—is not only bringing back the JBs and throwing in a Miley Cyrus performance, it's also hosting the first show by a certain reunited boy band. I guess that's their way of making the moms interested in buying tickets of their own, and not just getting smashed at a TGI Friday's nearby. Full lineup after the jump.
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