Pop Sweep: October 20, 2012...


It's time to kick off this week's five-part "chart sweeps" of the newest songs making their way on to the weekly music charts at Billboard magazine. They've done quite a revamp of a bunch of charts which I'll cover later on, but for now I'll start with the latest in the pop realm...

On the big chart, the Hot 100, which monitors airplay, sales, and streaming hits from all genres of music combined, Maroon 5 hang on to #1 for a fourth week with "One More Night".

For only the second time in chart history (both times this year), three songs make their debut all the way in the top-10. The big winner due to their fanatical fanbase grabbing up the song is British X Factor losers boyband superstars One Direction, with their latest single, "Live While We're Young", which previews their upcoming album Take Me Home. It actually comes in one notch higher than their breakthrough hit "What Makes You Beautiful" (which this new song resembles quite a bit), but still has a lot of airplay ground to cover to have the former hit's staying power (right now it's at #14 on iTunes). And are they paying royalties to the Clash for the opening to this song?


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The next entry is another Red preview single from Taylor Swift, and this time it's the title track, which comes in at #6 due to its phenomenal sales, ranking second to One Direction above, and shifting over 300,000 "copies" this week, putting it in a tie for sixth place for her highest-charting song on the Hot 100, and the biggest so far that wasn't released as a radio single (yet). You can judge her popularity by the fact that her official pop single "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" is still going strong one notch above "Red", and right now the song is still #10 in iTunes. Now I'll be returning to music's "Jennifer Aniston" when I run through the country charts, but for now she's a bonafide pop star at this point. And this song is definitely in her pop-rock wheelhouse, with the requisite banjo inserted to "make it country". This is a good pop/rock song (though she hasn't really got the live voice down yet on the fast numbers), but country? Possibly, but as much as Rihanna is classic R&B...



The third big song coming on the Hot 100 is the theme to the upcoming new James Bond movie Skyfall performed by the woman who was the music business this year, Adele. It looks like she pretty much has a lock to be the first artist on almost 30 years to have the same album be the top-seller of the year for two consecutive years (the last? Thriller of course). She's sold almost four times as much this year as the next one down (One Direction's Up All Night), and that's after being out for about a year as it is. "Skyfall" comes in at #8, becoming her biggest hit besides the three that hit #1 here, "Rolling In The Deep", "Someone Like You", and "Set Fire To The Rain". Written by Adele and producer Paul Epworth and backed by an full orchestra complete with Bond theme undertones, this is a welcome "adult" contribution to the pop chart, and by far the best Bond song in at least 30 years. And since the film isn't being released until the end of the month, this can only get bigger...



If this week didn't have such big players, Bruno Mars' debut at #34 would have been a bigger story. His second full-length album Unorthodox Jukebox will be released in December, and the first single from the set is "Locked Out Of Heaven". In the two years and change since his first appearance on rapper B.o.B.'s #1 hit "Nothing On You", the man born Peter Hernandez has hit the top-10 four times as a lead artist, and four more as a featured artist. And while his debut album is awesome, at first listen I couldn't get the "this is 'Message In A Bottle'" vibe out of my mind...


Jumping in at #73 is Brad Paisley, who is set to co-host the CMA awards for the fifth time, with the first single from his upcoming ninth studio album, "Southern Comfort Zone". On the Hot 100, Brad has made the top-40 seventeen times so far, with "Remind Me", his duet with CMA co-host Carrie Underwood, going all the way to #17 last year.  As for the song itself, it starts out with all the cliched soundbites from what's perceived at the "true" South and expands into an exposition on the tolerance and embrace of other peoples' lifestyles and customs. To start with the line "Not everybody drives a truck..." would be blasphemy for any country artist other than the overaffable Paisley, who gives a case that he can still love his home but expand his horizons to a better, more fulfilling life. And does this with an epic barnburner lasting more than 5 minutes (another Nash Vegas sin). And everyone could learn from this.


Cleveland-born alternative rapper Kid Cudi came on the scene in a big way in 2008 with the #3 hit "Day N Nite", which boomed from radios and clubs before the trip-hop/dubstep movement got really going, and even though so far this is his only top-10 hit, both his albums have peaked in the top-5 and gone Gold. The first single from his upcoming set Indicud is "Just What I Am" featuring newcomer King Chip (from Cleveland as well). It's very trippy and alt-rock based and seems to be all about the chronic, so this probably is more of a promo track than something meant for radio, but it does set the bar higher for this type of track, as compared to say, Wiz Khalifa's more pop-influence doping...


Country singer Gary Allan (his last name is Herzberg) is the able successor to Dwight Yoakam's California-style country bred more on rock and blues than the Southern gospel and pop influences in Nashville. It also has 99% less reliance on the typical country tropes that show up again and again (i.e. beer, trucks, girls, God in that order). On the big chart, Gary has racked up four top-40 hits, with "Man To Man" peaking at #25 in 2002. Ten years later, the first single from his upcoming Set You Free album is "Every Storm (Runs Out Of Rain)", and it's pensive, mature lyrics is a welcome drizzle at country radio, and he sure knows his way around hurt and redemption...


At #91 is only the second single from the Glee cast to hit the Hot 100 since the fourth season started last month. Now I've had my bit to say about the music on the show, as well as everything else about the show that I originally adored, but now it's cleared running on its last legs and I don't forsee it lasting beyond the season. I actually hunkered down and watched the new episodes I had on DVR, where I could have the leisure of stopping or going past stuff I can't bear, and I will be posting about that soon. In the meantime, the first episode placed Darren Criss' rendition of the Imagine Dragons song "It's Time" at #95 a couple weeks back, and a couple eps back they released the Britney 2.0 songs as a digital EP, which even missed the albums top-40. Now with the most hyped up episode yet, The Break-up, they manage to get one more song on, and barely. Now you can attribute some of this to the fact that now that streaming is a factor in chart points that pushes the show further, but even just on the sales charts they barely make the top-40. This time its the version of Coldplay's "The Scientist" (a little royalty kaching for Mr. Gwyneth Paltrow, maybe?), and the notable thing to consider in this age of digital tracks is that the original song never made the Hot 100 at all and still managed to sell over one and a half millions digital copies (especially since iTunes wasn't in full force until a year or two after the song was a current on the radio). As for the performance, it does nothing artistically worthwhile over the original, but is meant for the story itself, with the four couples on the show in crisis handle lines from the song interchangably. It's not really a heartbreak kind of song, and besides the epic chord changes and background voice swells, it's really detached from the plot. But hey, by now that's what I've come to expect on the show.


Last week, an amazing five track from the #1 album Babel by British folk-rockers Mumford & Sons made the Hot 100. Now another track from the set manages to squeeze on up, and it's the emotional "Lover Of The Light" at #97. And as opposed to Glee, thanks to streaming all five of last week's new entries are still on the chart, as well as the current radio single "I Will Wait", which leaps back into the top-40...


Philly hip-hop mixtape king DJ Drama had his first Hot 100 single last year with "Oh My", which peaked at #95. He scores his second this week at #99 with "My Moment", which features rappers 2 Chainz and Meek Mill and singer Jeremih, the latter sporting two #4 hits to his name, "Birthday Sex" and "Down On Me". It's another brag track of course, but it's at least melodically solid (if Auto-Tuned to hell) for that genre...


The final Hot 100 entry is by Mississippi native Randy Houser, whose big break was co-writing Trace Adkins' "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk", a top-40 Hot 100 hit in 2005. His second charting single on the pop chart, "Boots On", made it up to #53 in 2009. He's back at #100 with "How Country Feels", the first single from his upcoming third album. Now as opposed to the Brad Paisley cut, which debuts here in only its third week on the country radio chart, Houser's hit has been hanging around for 24 weeks - nearly six months! - before popping in here. But again, that's something I'll be covering on the "country sweep" later on today. Now Randy is quite the fine hunk of a man, and the song does have the punch and hooks to make it entertaining, and he's in great voice, channeling the best Brooks & Dunn impression that maybe in another time this would've been a demo for, but I guess it boils down to the standard "redneck life" advertisement that picks all the tested buzzwords like a Ford Truck clip. Come to think of it, there's not to many songs about how great it is to be in the suburbs, are there?


Meanwhile, over on the radio-monitored "Adult Top 40" chart., Pink spends a fifth week at #1 with "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)"..

The aforementioned "Locked Out Of Heaven" by Bruno Mars is the highest entry this week at #26. His debut solo single "Just The Way You Are" went to #1 on this chart in 2010...

One notch under Bruno at #27 is the return of trash-pop queen Ke$ha, with her single from her upcoming album, "Die Young". Adult-top-40 has been getting much more receptive to dance music, as hits by David Guetta, Flo Rida, and Justin Bieber currently reside on the chart.  As for the girl actually named Kesha (her mother's of Hungarian heritage), her biggest hit on this genre so far is her first, as "Tik Tok" made it to #14 back in 2010. "Die Young" starts out with the same strumming from Flo Rida's "Good Feeling", and turns into the same stomping electrodance number about partying like there's no tomorrow, completely with her off-key rapping and processed-to-oblivion choruses...


And for the polar opposite of that, Adele's aforementioned "Skyfall" comes in #32. All three of her Hot 100 #1s also topped the list here as well...

The last entry here is Mumford & Son's "I Will Wait" at #35. "Little Lion Man" peaked at #16 here last year. I'm more than stoked that this is the new go-to album of the year so far...


Finally, on the crazily static Adult Contemporary chart, which is also radio-monitored, and now sports mostly songs that have become so ingrained in mainstream radio they can be played for the "old folks" on stations like "the Breeze" or "Easy blah blah blah", Gotye and Kimbra's former #1 Hot 100 hit "Somebody That I Used To Know" enjoys a tenth week at #1.

Adele's "Skyfall" rockets in at #17 (a smash for that format's standards), and quite appropriately, given the orchestra backdrop. Just like on Adult Top-40, all three of her #1 Hot 100 hits topped the chart here as well.

The other debut this week is somebody not showing up anywhere else; it's Canadian singer Luke McMaster, who was born in southern Manitoba, but now resides in Toronto. His first chart hit, "Good Morning Beautiful" (not a remake of the country song) at #30, features pianist Jim Brickman, who is no stranger to the adult contemporary list - in fact he's had thirteen top-10 hits here, with both "Simple Things" and "Sending You A Little Christmas" topping the chart. This song is quite sunny and cheerful, perfect for workplace listening, though the subtle Autotune in the middle was a little jarring; Luke's voice is nice and soulful without that brief trick...


Well that does it for this part of the music world. Stay tuned, in 90 minutes I'll bring you the latest on rock radio...


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