I ve got some traveling to do today, so I leave you with a brief article bemoaning the in today s society. The writer is not a Nickelback fan, so presumably, if Daughtry winds up at the top of next year s list, he won t be impressed.
There are some surprises on the list of top-selling artists for 2006, though.
Not all hope is lost. Here s , and my own judgment of whether the music is good or crappy:
1. Rascal Flatts (Crappy.
Country music dumbed down for mass consumption).
2. Johnny Cash (Good.
Cash was a genius. He also, interestingly enough, didn t believe that country music was going too pop. But I still don t think he would have liked Rascal Flatts.
)
3. Nickelback (Crappy despite the fact that I do practice harmony to the chorus of Photograph. What?
It s perfect for practicing your thirds!)
4. Carrie Underwood (Undecided.
I haven t heard enough of her stuff.)
5. The Beatles (Objectively good, although I was never much of a fan.
)
7. Andrea Bocelli (Right now, crappy. I really liked him when he first came out, but then he went the David Foster route and it all went to hell.
)
8. Mary J. Blige (Alternately good and crappy.
And she gave us the word hateration, which is cool.)
10. Justin Timberlake (CRA-PPY.
Crappy crappy crappy. Overrated as hell. And obnoxius.
And punchable. Which means he ll probably go home with at least four Grammys.)
Also, High School Musical was the top-selling album, followed by Me and My Gang by Rascal Flatts (seriously, that sounds like a Sesame Street episode), Carrie Underwood s Some Hearts, Nickelback s All the Right Reasons, Timberlake s FutureSex/LoveSounds (one day he ll fade into obscurity I just know it), James Blunt s Back to Bedlam (Reeeeally?
I thought his single did well but his album tanked. Or maybe that was Daniel Powter), Beyonce s B-Day (good luck going up against that, Kat), the Hannah Montana soundtrack, The Dixie Chick s Taking the Long Way (yeah, I know they got death threats and all, and Bush hasn t been on my list of favorite people for a while now, and Adrian Pasdar s pretty hot, but will they shut up now?), and finally, Hinder s Extreme Behavior.
I had never heard of Hinder before reviewers started calling DAUGHTRY a Nickelback/Hinder rip-off, so I doubt I m missing much.
Thoughts? Chris is well on his way to making next year s list; does that say more about his individual talent, or (given this years list) the popularity of his genre of music?
And what of McPhee? Will she replace Beyonce next year, or is she more of a Cassie, with a hot single, a video in heavy rotation, but only 270K in sales under her belt? Will we ever see Taylor on this list?
Do we care? Does it matter?
7.
Hinder, Lips of an Angel
10. Nickelback, Far Away
John Mayer has a hit at #17 with Waiting on the World to Change. JoJo, Daughtry, Ludacris, Christina Aguilera and Rihanna help round out the top 20.
The is essentially a reproduction of the MediaBase chart, although Jim Jones We Fly High and The All-American Rejects It Ends Tonight are in the Top 10.
The contains much of the same, though Snow Patrol s Chasing Cars, KT Tunstall s omnipresent Suddenly I See, and tunes by Rob Thomas and Matt Kearney also pop up in the top 10.
The is where things get a little shaken up, although there s nothing shocking.
Natasha Bedingfield s Unwritten is still clinging for dear life to the number-one spot, trailed by Bad [Friggin ] Day. Rascal Flatts, Five for Fighting, Rob Thomas, and Nick Lachey are there, as is Mayer s tune and KT s Black Horse. Gnarls Barkley s Crazy makes a noticeable appearance.
(Traditionally I do know this much songs have a much longer lifespan on AC, even if they start out on the pop charts).
But far and away, the most interesting chart is . While the Fergies and the Timberlakes cloud up the Hot Urban chart, Urban AC is comprised of almost an entirely different set of artists.
There, the number-one spot is claimed by Ruben Studdard (!!) with Change Me, followed by Mary J.
Blige, Brian McKnight, and Robin Thicke. Beyonce makes her obligatory appearance, but she s tailed by Lionel Richie, Anthony Hamilton, India.Arie and John Legend.
Hmm. It ll be interesting to see where Taylor Hicks and Katharine McPhee wind up. I don t see the likes of Over It and Each Other being embraced by Urban A/C, though she ll probably get decent pop airplay, if not at least one major hit.
Taylor, on the other hand, will probably have to settle for middling rotation of his Just To Feel That Way on the pop charts, but like other pop castoffs, it may find a semi-permanent home on Mainstream A/C.
Looks like honey-coated gravel songster Taylor Hicks will be in the spotlight right up until his single release drops and his tour kicks off in February. He ll be one of the celebrities competing in the (yeah as much as I love Taylor, I think I ll just rely on my dad to tell me how this one goes), alongside pros Mike Weir and Mark Brooks, and other celebrities including boxer Oscar De La Hoya, Jimmy Kimmel, Alice Cooper and Cheech Marin.
That sounds like an interesting mix of people, to say the least. Hey, I can always use some white noise in the background while I m editing journal papers.
And speaking of Taylor, Debs over at posted Taylor s short bio and discography from , the awesome music recommendation radio website.
Check out the similar artists section though Taylor s eponymous debut is not yet loaded (all they ve got is Do I Make You Proud and Takin It to the Streets ), he s nevertheless Eric James The New Century (they re okay; nice ethereal production, but the vocals are unremarkable), (very cool folksy artist in the vein of a Ray LaMontagne, even if he did kind of rip off Keb Mo s Every Mornin for his Bottom of the Barrel ), (a Christian pop band), Maroon 5 (I blame The Maze for that unfortunate comparison), and (a somewhat breathy-voiced R B artist whom I d never heard of before now).
Fun stuff, y all! Who do we get for some of our other favorite Season 5 cast-offs?
DAUGHTRY: (EMO! HA!), ( yep), (no shit), Paloalto ( if they say so), and (okay, but these Theory people are better, and the lead has a much better voice).
Katharine McPhee: With her Somewhere Over the Rainbow and My Destiny loaded, (well, that comparison s only going to get worse and not for JoJo), (I m not seeing that one), (yes, I can see some of the songs on Jagged Little Pill being melodically similar to My Destiny ), (not anymore, apparently snerk) and (whoever they are, they re not on iTunes, so no go).
"Sundance got lots of airtime, but he's getting the Savol Edit which is the opposite of pimping. The whole artificial Tommy vs Sundance setup is a prime example- as though the judges went through all 40 contestants and the absolute last undecided slot for the guys came down to Tommy and Sundance, and they just *had* to choose between them.
It's " "What in the world is this girl [Leslie] doing on AI? She should have already had a record deal somewhere. Love her voice!
To me she is like a and my love for Lisa knows no bounds. Leslie is the only contestant I give a crap about this season so far and that means that she'll be out before the top 12." "I'm kind of on the fence with Chris.
I like his personality, but it might wear on me after a while, especially if the judges laugh at his jokes. From what I've heard so far, I don't think his voice is particularly special, but . Also, he has a more interesting range of musical tastes than most of this year's contestants (looks like it's going to be R B week every week, regardless of the actual genre, so Chris might bring a welcome change of pace).
" "I'm not that impressed with [Antonella's] singing. When her voice sounded nice, I thought her diction was poor, eg. in her group performance.
Although she was the best of the three of them, that was in comparison to Baylie, who was a trainwreck, and Amanda, who was Not Good. She was in The Chair episode." "With the success of people like Justin Timberlake, it wouldn't surprise me at all if this year turns out to be Blake Lewis.
There's a lot of money to be earned for TPTB if an actual "pop" performer wins this time.
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