1. Vampire Weekend "Contra"

Sales this week: 123,597
Debut

And next week?

Now we all know the album’s coming out, all the fans anyway.  We even read about it in the "New Yorker"!  (Shitty article, by the way…)  So, the graduates of elite universities are elated.  They all bought this the first week out.  Next week?

Not that I want to make this about Vampire Weekend itself.  The records can be pretty good, but live they can be pretty flat.

But they’re just another hipster band that’s caught fire with the…Brooklyn hipsters.  Selling 123,597 copies in a week…  Unknowns’ tweets fly further in an hour.

You’ve got to take this for what it is.  A pitiful number in a nation of 300 million.  As for further growth?  Without Top Forty, no.  And alternative radio means less and less…

2. Susan Boyle "I Dreamed A Dream"

Sales this week: 76,601
Percentage change: -18
Weeks on: 8
Cume: 3,272,309

This is a great sales story, but it’s got almost nothing to do with music.

Read Richard Rushfield’s story: "Secret Rituals of American Idol Exposed"

3. Ke$ha "Animal"

Sales this week: 66,783
Percentage change: -56
Weeks on: 2
Cume: 218,782

Top Forty radio needs shit like this.

Don’t get your knickers in a twist.  She’s just part of the endless sideshow, she’ll be gone soon.

4. Lady GaGa "Fame"

Sales this week: 63,688
Percentage change: -3
Weeks on: 64
Cume: 2,517,117

Unlike Madonna, GaGa has musical talent.

She’d do better to focus on this.

Madonna’s talent was testing limits, making people uncomfortable.  Can you still really do this when high school students are sexting nude pictures to each other?

Take the high road GaGa. And remember the Beatles released an album with NOTHING on the cover.  After ditching their matching outfits. Lead, don’t follow.

5. Alicia Keys "Element Of Freedom"

Sales this week: 47,566
Percentage change: -23
Weeks on: 5
Cume: 888,521

Very impressive number.  Helped by the Jay-Z track.

But for all the accolades, Alicia is a pedestrian writer.  That’s what we oldsters can’t understand.  How something so mediocre is sold to us as phenomenal.

Want to make your bones Alicia?  Call up Quincy and tell him that "We Are The World" sucks and supply your own Haiti relief number.  Hell, I dare any of the new acts to do this.  Deliver a hit song that’s ALSO about Haiti relief.

8. Taylor Swift "Fearless"

Sales this week: 33,431
Percentage change: -12
Weeks on: 62
Cume: 5,400,648

Shades of Peter Frampton?  Touring too long playing the songs from the same hit album?

Yup, she’s doing stadiums.  She deserves it.  Her numbers chronicle teen angst better than anyone’s.  But now what?  The bonus tracks on the Xmas re-release were boring.

Sure, Taylor’s done it twice, but now it’s time to beak the mold.  How about a steady stream of new material, one hit song at a time.  If you’re twenty years old, shouldn’t you be doing it the new way instead of the old?

9. Alvin & the Chipmunks "The Squeakquel"

Sales this week: 32,732
Percentage change: -25
Weeks on: 7
Cume: 350,761

You know they started on an independent, Razor & Tie, like all the cool acts.

Did they lose a bit of cred going to Warner Brothers?

Once you go mainstream, it’s hard to be taken seriously.  Especially when you’re seen hottubbing it with Kim Kardashian and Perez Hilton.

As for the rumor of a sex tape…there’s been no confirmation.

But it’s time to get out of the blogs and back in the studio.  Maybe the next album can be produced by Steve Albini?  Or maybe Alvin can guest with Thom Yorke?

21. John Mayer "Battle Studies"

Sales this week: 18,427
Percentage change: -12
Weeks on: 9
Cume: 737,517

You might think he went too far in the "Rolling Stone" interview…  But when was the last time a "Rolling Stone" story got traction on the Web (other than a political story by Matt Taibbi)?

His music might be bland, but Mayer’s got a cutting edge career.

I will never hate him.  For one damn thing.  He admits that this album, the current one, still on the chart, is not his best.  That’s "Continuum".

Why do I hate late night TV talk shows?  Because everybody’s shilling their new product when we know it’s shit.  If you admit it’s shit, wow, I’ve got no comeback.

32. Norah Jones "Fall"

Sales this week: 13,212
Percentage change: -1
Weeks on: 9
Cume: 656,006

What’s her game?  Is she pulling a Neil Young?  Who famously released "Time Fades Away", a noisy live album, right after his monster hit "Harvest"?

That was almost forty years ago.  Norah has to take a page from John Mayer’s book.  Give the people what they want in order to stay in the public eye, then do what you want on your own time, in between album cycles.  How long do you think we’re going to continue to pay attention?

35. Nickelback "Dark Horse"

Sales this week: 11,857
Percentage change: -7
Weeks on: 61
Cume: 2,558,288

Just imagine if Mutt Lange worked with a good band!  Or a band so faceless that he could mold their sound.  Shit, maybe Mutt should make the record himself and then hire Milli or Vanilli, which ever one is still alive, to front it, you know Mutt doesn’t need a band to work his magic.

I heard Def Leppard’s "Animal" on the radio today.  Pure magic.

You want to sell albums? Release shit as good as "Hysteria", stuff you can play over and over and over again.

56. Ringo Starr "Y Not"

Sales this week: 7,965
Debut

Bad strategy.  He needs one single, written by Paul McCartney, just for him.  That’d have much more impact.  Hell, we’d all give a single a chance!

66. 50 Cent "Before I Self-Destruct"

Sales this week: 7,329
Percentage change: -17
Weeks on: 9
Cume: 365,266

So what now?  He self-destructs?

I don’t know.

But I do know one thing.  Fitty should write off this stiff and pull a Jay-Z, immediately.  A duet with GaGa.  Jimmy can make it happen.

75. Foo Fighters "Greatest Hits"

Sales this week: 6,640
Percentage change: -7
Weeks on: 11
Cume: 213,911

The dirty little secret?  Physical retail won’t stock the complete catalog, so labels release unnecessary compilations like this, because they know they’ll be stocked and they can book some revenue.

Just buy the ones you want on iTunes.

Or steal ’em.

80. Mariah Carey "Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel"

Sales this week: 6,143
Percentage change: -11
Weeks on: 16
Cume: 409,603

Here we have the modern paradigm in action.  The media thinks Mariah’s a star, but she’s toast.

Sure, she was drunk at that awards show, but really, everybody’s moved on.

But the media is stuck in the nineties.  If no one rises above the fray, if there are no big stars, just Net niches…let’s just continue to build up the old stars!  Huh?

84. Colbie Caillat "Breakthrough"

Sales this week: 5,972
Percentage change: -11
Weeks on: 21
Cume: 391,636

There’s no stinkin’ breakthrough, just mindless fluff.

Didn’t that girl from the "Wonder Years" go on to be a math whiz?  Didn’t Winnie Cooper graduate from UCLA?

Why can’t Colbie give up now and do something worthwhile in her life.  Because she’s just not talented enough musically.

97. Jimmy Buffett "Buffett Hotel"

Sales this week: 5,224
Percentage change: -12
Weeks on: 6
Cume: 166,729

He couldn’t sell out concerts anymore and now he can’t even sell his usual 300,000 albums?  What, did every Parrot Head finally wake up and realize they’ve seen the same show with the same classic material too many times?

Jimmy!  How about one new "Come Monday"!  Or another "Pirate Looks At Forty"!  You’ve got enough money, how about one new classic. Or don’t you have it in you…

117. Avett Brothers  "I And Love And You"

Sales this week: 4,299
Percentage change: -11
Weeks on: 16
Cume: 139,773

Give Vampire Weekend credit, at least they’re not the Avett Brothers.  Critical darlings of the intelligentsia who can’t sell a record despite monster hype.

If I’ve got to listen to your record a zillion times to get it, you’d better be rewriting music history, and the Avett Brothers are not.

And you wonder why people have tuned out music.  When shit like this is hyped as being great, who can you trust?

139. Leona Lewis "Echo"

Sales this week: 3,567
Percentage change: -13
Weeks on: 9
Cume: 165,179

What, Simon Cowell’s all over TV telling every act they suck and he can’t come up with hit material for his "X Factor" winner?

She plays the Olympics.

Then she’s forgotten.

And there, in a nutshell, you have the modern era.

185. Dashboard Confessional "Alter The Ending"

Sales this week: 2,362
Percentage change: -11
Weeks on: 3
Cume: 76,581

Remember when emo was the rage, when "Screaming Infidelities" ruled MTV?

Well, that audience grew up, got jobs and got married.  Maybe Chris Carrabba needs to too.

Not on chart:
Heidi Montag "Superficial"

Sales this week: 658
Debut

Heidi engineered a media blitz even Tommy Mottola and Clive Davis would be envious of.  But the public looked at the before and after pictures and did not buy the album.

In other words, publicity isn’t everything, music is.  And no one wants to hear Heidi’s music, why would they?

The public knows what’s real.  And they know the Top Forty dreck isn’t real, don’t worry.

And all this boils down to a sick music business.  Because if you don’t have the hearts and minds of the public, you’re screwed.

As for all you weenies bitching that your music hasn’t been properly recognized…let me say it one more time, since your parents and friends won’t…you suck.  Just because you can catch a ball doesn’t mean you can play in the major leagues, just because you made a record, that doesn’t mean we should care.  We know it when we hear it, and we don’t.

You can market it, but that doesn’t mean we have to buy it.  Isn’t that what Heidi Montag proved here?