Pop Sweep: October 27, 2012...

Hey gang, it's time to kick off this week's "chart sweeps" of the newest songs making their way on to the weekly music charts at Billboard magazine. This first part samples the "pop" side of the house, as well as the big chart, the Hot 100.

On the Hot 100, which combines airplay stats, sales, and internet streaming, Maroon 5 stay on top for a band best of five weeks with "One More Night"...

The top debut this week is by Taylor Swift, who has her third top-10 debut in a row (and fourth overall this year) with her next preview track from her upcoming album Red which is coming out on Monday. It's the song "I Knew You Were Trouble" aka "that dubstep song", which Billboard seemed to pat themselves on the back for pointing out that they decided it wouldn't be eligible for the Country Songs chart (oh, thanks for such small favors, guys). See, it's co-written by the same Swedish pop hitmakers that did the same for her "country-topping" "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", and used the same gimmicks, albeit with the faux-dubstep breakdown in the chorus. It's enjoyable if you didn't have to realize there's a bunch of music hacks in a room pretending to decide what "type" of music it is. But whatever my opinion on this is, the record is the biggest-selling single in the US this week, selling over 400,000 copies and rocketing onto the Hot 100 at #3.

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Entering at #75 this week is British singer Ellie Goulding, who came so close to topping the Hot 100 this summer with "Lights", a song that didn't even reach the top-40 in her native country. She's back with the first single from her new album, Halcyon, which enters the album chart in the top-10 this week. I admit I didn't quite get "Anything Could Happen" at first, but it has grown on me fast and furiously, and its epic scope yet sweet vocal undertones are a refreshing break from the robotic dance-pop that's prevailing now...

Country A-lister Kenny Chesney returns with the third single from his latest album Welcome To The Fishbowl, "El Cerrito Place" at #92. Chesney has had a lot of success on the Hot 100, reaching the top-40 twenty-three times, due to great timing as his first hits coincided with the chart including all airplay and eventually digital sales. In fact two singles, "Out Last Night" and "The Boys Of Fall", reached the top-20. This new song is very understated for Chesney, who can produce a tender ballad every now and then, but even this isn't as overly sappy as some of his love songs can be.

The final entry on the Hot 100 this week is the new ballad by the Zac Brown Band, "Goodbye In Her Eyes" at #97. Like Chesney, they've made the Hot 100 top-20 twice, with "Chicken Fried" and "Knee Deep"; and like Chesney, this is a followup from an album whose first single was one of those over-hyped tracks done up by ClearChannel to rocket it on the charts to sputter out quickly. In this case, it was "The Wind", their first to miss the top-10 (actually the first to miss the top-2), proving that force-feeding something no matter what the value is never good. As for the new song, it's a plaintive, subdued track that spotlights their awesome talent for harmonies...

Meanwhile, over on the radio-monitored Adult-Top 40 chart, Maroon 5 takes over the top spot with "One More Night", making their second this year...

The higher of the two debuts is Rihanna's cross-genre hit "Diamonds", which comes in at #35. "We Found Love" with Calvin Harris made it to #5 in February of this year...

Showing the growing acceptance of dance in this format, the other entry is PSY's novelty dance smash "Gangnam Style" at #36. When the chart changes happened at the trade mag, this song became the top "rap" song, igniting music fan furor. And I agree with them, not on the fact that PSY is Korean but the makeup of the song is a dance track, which would make LMFAO's work "rap music".

Finally, on the Adult-Contemporary (soft-rock) chart, Gotye and Kimbra's "Somebody That I Used To Know" hangs on to #1 for an amazing 11th week, and there are no new track in its top-30.

That does it for the pop side of the house, I'll be back in 90 minutes with the latest on rock radio.