1. Fall Out Boy "Infinity On High"

Sales this week: 259,674
Debut

Don’t be impressed, despite this seemingly high number, and the 235,687 albums Norah Jones moved last week, sales were STILL off from the previous year.  A whopping 22.4% from a year earlier’s totals.  Yes, you see we had hit albums in 2006 too.

As for Fall Out Boy itself, the band has built an audience.  By going positively mainstream.  I wouldn’t quite call it selling out, but it’s not like they’re absent from the media circus.  And said circus resulted in this total.  But in a few years (months?) the circus will move on to a new act, and Fall Out Boy’s sales will tank, the band will be irrelevant.

In other words, Fall Out Boy is flavor of the month.  Just marginally better than Panic At The Disco!  It’s kind of like hula-hoops, but worse.  At least everybody knew what a hula-hoop WAS, most Americans are still clueless as to the music of Fall Out Boy, and many have never even heard of the band.  As for identifying a member of the act?  Impossible except for those truly diehard.

Part of it’s the marketplace.  It’s hard to get traction.

But part is a rejection of this stylized music by the mainstream.  People have seen so many acts come and go that they stopped paying attention.

2. Norah Jones "Not Too Late"

Sales this week: 235,687
Cume: 641,982

Well, it is too late for EMI, which issued a profit warning and saw its stock tank 12%.

I like Eric Nicoli, but he’s WAY over his head here.  There’s no saving this company, it’s just about shepherding it to a home under a new corporate umbrella.

Oh, let me make this worse.  Edgar and Nicoli got into a spat about the value of EMI, who was going to buy whom.  And no deal was done.  And now both companies are in the shitter.  But at least Warner has got stable management.  Let’s see, you fire lifelong music employees and become CEO YOURSELF?  Even if you can do the job, it’s not going to do ANYTHING for your stock.

You NEVER play for the last dollar.  You watch the movie and…know when to fold.  Yes, EMI has amazing assets, but they won’t be worth a ton until sometime after…the company goes out of business?  Or at least stops functioning in the new music sphere?

Richard Parsons fucked up.  He should have held on to Warner Music, played for the long haul, seen the synergy between tunes and cable, and AOL.  There was almost no debt.  He should have turned the company lean and mean (which Edgar did, supposedly according to Ames’ plan), and held on.  But EMI??  Music is the ONLY business they’re in.  The short term matters!

By blowing out Levy and Munns Nicoli instantly devalued EMI by a billion dollars.  And by phasing out Capitol in the U.S., he’s only making the company LESS appealing.  You don’t succeed by constantly shrinking.  Nicoli should have made a deal with Warner or private equity THEN let the remaining players duke it out.  Now Nicoli has insured that Warner will take over EMI or private equity will do the same thing.  When he could have gone behind the scenes and cut the best deal he could and been done with it.  And STILL retired with tons of dough.

I mean I knew EMI was going to have to issue a profit warning, didn’t NICOLI?  I mean you can’t ship catalog FOREVER to make your numbers.

Utter, gross mismanagement.

The only thing that could save this company would be if the Beatles regrouped, and THAT ain’t gonna happen.

3. Daughtry

Sales this week: 75,868
Cume: 1,525,628

So fucking what.  Utterly meaningless.  Solely about the cash/billing.

Guy with incredible exposure on TV’s biggest show releases a hit single and sells records.  WHOOPEE!  Like this guy’s gonna have a career, like he’s the new Paul Simon, a great songwriter bursting upon the scene.

This CD ain’t even gonna be worth a nickel two years from now, SOONER!

5. Ashley Tisdale "Headstrong"

Sales this week: 63,827
Debut

What a concept.  Bang someone on TV and you sell albums.  If only we could REPLICATE THAT!

Oh fuck, we INVENTED IT!

We started off with Ricky Nelson, featured at the end of "Ozzie and Harriet".  And THEN, we had MTV.  Yup, create a show/channel that everybody tunes into and then build stars.  So SIMPLE!

But MTV no longer airs music.  And its digital channels are backwaters.

Well, maybe if the original MTV, the big one, had an INTEREST in album sales, they might actually AIR music.  But seeing as how that’s not their business, they just show lowest common denominator crap, attracting eyeballs today.  Credibility?  Which show are you speaking of on MTV?  I can’t think of ONE!

Oh, Ashley Tisdale’s not about credibility either, but at least you can see her on TV, you can get to know her.  And wanting a token, a totem of their devotion, tens of thousands of kids begged their parents to buy them this album, and they DID!

6. Robin Thicke "The Evolution Of Robin Thicke"

Sales this week: 60,796
Cume: 484,198

He evolved from a credible musician into a Justin Timberlake wannabe, with the Neptunes, Lil’ Wayne and Faith Evans dropped into the blender to come up with this meaningless concoction that all the young drinkers want to bump asses to in the clubs.

You can drive right by this train-wreck, there’s nothing interesting here.

12. Bloc Party "Weekend In The City"

Sales this week: 47,726
Debut

Doesn’t smell like a hit, does it?

Where do you get airplay/mindshare for an act like this, such that you can sell tonnage?

Nowhere I know of.

Oh, maybe you can get a song in a commercial or on a hot TV show, but then you alienate all the hard core fans and really, the newbies are only in it for the track.

If you don’t make Top Forty music and you want to make money, take to the ROAD!

15. Nickelback "All The Right Reasons"

Sales this week: 44,066
Cume: 4,876,775

They’re not buying this album because they want to fuck Chad Kroeger.  It’s because the country is ROCK STARVED!

Where was the rock on the Grammy telecast?

Everybody still believes we live in a hip-hop nation.  With a serving of pop on the side.  That’s absolutely wrong.  We live in a rock nation.  Just check what kind of music is playing in the background.  CLASSIC ROCK!

I’m here at Whistler, a VAST place, and except for the Burton store, in every other retail establishment, at multiple locations on the hill, they’re playing CLASSIC ROCK!  Not only the sixties and seventies stuff, like Seger’s "Old Time Rock and Roll" (which I heard today), but U2’s "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and Aerosmith’s "Livin’ On The Edge".

Now when I was growing up, the radio in common areas didn’t play music that was TWO YEARS old, never mind DECADES!  I mean we would have KILLED somebody if Perry Como was on the Bromley jukebox.

They’re playing this stuff for a reason.  It’s  America’s soundtrack.  And we haven’t come up with anything better yet.

Rap?  PISSES TOO MANY PEOPLE OFF!

Justin?  WHERE’S THE MELODY?

But Chad Fucking Kroeger, from north of the border, not even Toronto or Vancouver, has a handle on what people want.  ROCK!  With HOOKS!

I’d like to tell you Nickelback’s album is great.  I don’t even know if I’d call it SERVICEABLE!  I heard "Rockstar" yesterday and I almost had to plug my ears.  But in a country where rock is speed metal with too many changes, where Led Zeppelin appears akin to Donny Osmond, people default to Nickelback.

How fucking hard is this formula to follow?  Two guitars, a bass and drums.  Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge.  Hell, if the lead can actually SING, you’ve got a leg up!

But the other label execs will make fun of you, you won’t appear hip, and you want hipness with your money.  And it’s this insane mentality that’s helping drive major labels off a cliff.  You’re selling what people don’t want in a format they don’t want, yeah, THAT’S a good business model!

26. Fergie "The Dutchess"

Sales this week: 34,255
Cume: 1,388,813

What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in that grown men foist crap like this on the public, saying it’s GOOD!  Shit, Hormel doesn’t advertise that SPAM tastes great, just that it’s CHEAP!

God, the music is so bad.  I’d rather hear "They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!".

27. Gwen Stefani "Sweet Escape"

Sales this week: 30,924
Cume: 845,822

I don’t want a mea culpa from Jimmy Iovine, I want one from the MEDIA!  Complicit in marketing this crap to America.

Yup, that’s what’s wrong with America, right up to the Oval Office.  Everything’s a fucking MARKETING CAMPAIGN!  And just like the media didn’t question George Bush’s fabricated claims of WMD in Iraq, nobody at any rag, any TV show, refused to hype Gwen.  They all put her on the cover, did feature articles.  And you wonder why the public doesn’t trust the media.

Gwen’s not even that GLAMOROUS!  She was just an Orange County denizen who used her newfound fame to playact, no differently than a kid dressing up in her mother’s clothes.  But NO, Gwen’s an ICON!  We must follow her every move.

How many fucking stories were there about Gwen’s creative process, how she was ready to go back to work after birth, how her baby inspires her.

You couldn’t avoid Gwen, when it seems that MOST PEOPLE WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH HER MUSIC!

There’s no critical eye anymore, nobody crying foul, everybody’s just on the endless sales gravy train.  Get a business degree and sell shit.  That’s what America has come to.  Learn how to think, try to decide what’s good…  What, are you a HERETIC?!

23. Lily Allen "Alright Still"

Sales this week: 36,129
Cume: 70,596

Can you say Arctic Monkeys?

Another overhyped English act that’s not in the LEAGUE of what is said about them.

Really, listen to the whisper campaign and then this record.  This ain’t no Beatles, it’s not even Elvis Costello.  You don’t stop in your tracks, you just feel sorry for automatons selling this crap.  Just about all of them who just LOST their jobs because they were purveying crap.

48. Eminem Presents: The Re-Up

Sales this week: 18,896
Cume: 854,507

He can’t even go platinum.

He’s the new Jay-Z, nobody really cares, he’s so 2003.

Oh, fuck the movie, this guy is a curio, an artifact that only baby boomer parents who believe they’re cool are still into, are interested in a new album from.

66. Madonna "Confessions Tour"

Sales this week: 13,827
Cume: 54,484

This is a DVD, not a CD!  Madonna, you can’t SING!  And it’s about the live show, the spectacle, not the music.

Rather than continue to try and ride the cutting edge, Madonna played it safe.  Did a dance music album and then went on a victory lap tour.  She sent herself right into irrelevance.  Madonna sold records because she tested limits.  With the most happening people in music.  Who cares if she makes dance music.  Isn’t that what Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado do?  What’s so special about THAT??

Couldn’t happen to a nicer broad.

Not.

Terry McBride was right.  The major label paradigm is over.  If you want to survive, you’ve got to scramble for your piece of the pie.

The major label won’t sign you unless you’ve got something going, have sold CDs and have a fan base.  If you’ve got THOSE, why in hell do you want to give up all your action to desperate men who’ll take all your money, control your life for years, and probably won’t deliver any significant success?

Or, you could be my friend Dave Koz.  Stayed off the road for a year, made himself scarce so he could make a big splash, and THEN his record label went out of business!  How do you make up for lost time, how do you REGROUP?  Hell, ask Neil Diamond, whose best album in DECADES got caught up in the rootkit debacle.  It lost all momentum when the old discs were returned to Sony and there were no new discs to SELL, in the FOURTH QUARTER!

Fuck the media.  They’re truly whores who don’t give a shit about you.  They just care about the execs, who wine and dine them, who invite them to parties.  Your only concern is your FAN!

Like you need a big SoundScan number to impress.  WHOM?  The other label fucks?  God, any real music fan, who’ll keep you in business, FOR YEARS, doesn’t care about the Top Ten replicated in the media.  That would be like cool kids in high school caring about a top ten of goody-goodies.  Who gives a FUCK?

Figure out who your audience is and deliver for them.  They’re not impressed with jewelry and your night out with Paris Hilton, but whether you answered their e-mail, whether you’re giving them enough music, artwork and information to IM to their buddies.  You don’t SPEAK DOWN to your audience, you’re in it WITH THEM!

Hit single?  What will that buy you?  Maybe an invite to Clive Davis’ Grammy party, but that will only be for one year, because by the next YOU’LL ALREADY BE FORGOTTEN!

The majors are putting themselves out of business.  They relied on the CD too long.  They sued their customers.  They worried about gatekeepers rather than fans.

It’s too late for the big boys, now it’s the time of the entrepreneur.

Hell, it’s great Clap Your Hands Say Yeah has all that traction.  But imagine if the music were GOOD!  Were BETTER!  Appealed to more people!  Wasn’t "indie rock" and instead was more MAINSTREAM!  THEN think of the records they could sell!

It’s every man for himself out there.  It’s about credibility and trust.  If you play by THEIR rules you’ll end up Clay Aiken, famous for less than a year.  Or a hip-hopper in need of a day job.

Sting ain’t working a day job.  Bono either.  Certainly not Steven Tyler.  But their music, their ETHIC, doesn’t resemble that of almost ANYBODY in the upper reaches of the SoundScan chart!

Who do you wanna be?  A worthless fuck known for being famous for a minute?

Or a respected musician with fans who can tour ’til his DEATH?

It’s a no-brainer.  Unless, of course, you’re one of those manufactured auto-tuned assholes who never had any talent to begin with.

If you’ve got no talent, play the major label game.  Hell, SOMEONE’S got to win the lottery, for a while anyway.

But if you’ve got talent, find a manager who believes in you, who’s in it for the long haul, who wants to BUILD something based on your MUSIC!