1. Katy Perry "Teenage Dream"

Sales this week: 192,122
Debut

She’s got no fans.  People want to bump their asses to her hits, want to download and delete them, but they don’t care about this two-dimensional icon playing by rules that comport not a whit with reality.

Put her on tour.  See how many tickets she can sell.  Bupkes.

Do not equate media coverage with fandom.  And today, only fandom counts, there’s not enough money in record sales, and without fans, you’ve got no longevity, and the big revenue comes from longevity.

This is hardly different from "The Jersey Shore".  No-talents surrounded by professionals creating a sleek product wherein you laugh and have contempt for the players.

If Katy Perry wanted to gain our trust, she’d make a video of herself at the piano, or playing an acoustic guitar, warbling her composition sans backup.  This is what cemented GaGa’s cred and career, that video that illustrated she truly had talent, when she played alone at the keyboard.

We’re still waiting for Katy to prove she’s talented.

Many people trade on their sexuality.  That doesn’t mean they’re musically talented!

2. Fantasia "Back To Me"

Sales this week: 116,768
Debut

I wouldn’t have known this came out if she hadn’t attempted suicide.

But that doesn’t mean I’m going to listen to it.

But the success of this compared to Katy Perry’s "Teenage Dream" indicates to me that J’s got a much better team than EMI.

3. Eminem "Recovery"

Sales this week: 98,483
Percentage change: -15
Weeks on: 11
Cume: 2,327,840

Compare this to ten years ago, when Marshall was driving the discourse.

I listened to this album once.  Not because it’s bad, but because I prefer other stuff.  I’ve got the choice.  And so does the public.

The story here is the silo.  In a narrow world, this album has impact.  But it’s surprisingly narrow, despite the protestations of the label and those in the industry trumpeting its success.

5. Little Big Town  "The Reason Why"

Sales this week: 41,939
Debut.

Good to know they’ve got some fans.  But continued success of this package will depend on radio hits.

I find the album lacking the woodsy warmth and edge of "The Road To Here".  But that doesn’t mean a great team cannot pluck a track and run it up the radio chart, selling albums, which people still buy in the country world.  But radio and albums mean less and less in the country sphere.  As Jackson Browne would say, they’re just a couple of years and a couple of changes behind the mainstream.  Everybody’s got a computer today. And access to a high speed connection too!  (And iPhones and Androids and BlackBerrys…)

8. Randy Rogers Band  "Burning The Day"

Sales this week: 28,602
Debut

Think about this.  Randy Rogers, an act almost everybody in America has never heard of, has a significant quantity of hard core fans who’ll go out and buy his album the first week out.  There was no hair and makeup, no big PR cost, no schlepping to TV studios to shuck and jive with patronizing hosts who don’t care.  It’s all about the music.

This is the future.  A band in it for the long haul that’s developed a fan base which will come see the act live.

9. Ray LaMontagne & the Pariah Dogs "God Willin’ & The Creek Don’t Rise"

Sales this week: 27,908
Percentage change: -57
Weeks on: 2
Cume: 92,414

Four albums.  Playing at historically cheap prices to adoring fans…

Ray’s creating albums not for hits, but to explore his creativity.  His audience members are fans of him, not a specific hit track.  He and his followers are on an adventure, outside the mainstream paradigm.  This is closer to the future than Katy Perry.

21. Mumford & Sons "Sigh No More"

Sales this week: 17,918
Percentage change: +5
Weeks on: 28
Cume: 174,709

It’s no longer about letting everybody know what you’re doing the first week out.  Hell, you can get press, but most people are not paying attention! It’s about focusing on the music more than the sell.  Releasing great stuff that percolates in the marketplace and grows in audience sphere.

No one goes to see Mumford & Sons for the outfits.

This is on an indie label.  It’s organic.  It’s not based on a hit but the complete oeuvre. This is today much more than Katy Perry. Study Mumford, forget about EMI.

33. John Mellencamp "No Better Than This"

Sales this week: 10,498
Percentage change: -56%
Weeks on: 2
Cume: 34,710

You can set yourself on fire, but that doesn’t mean anybody’s going to listen to your music.

43. Train "Save Me San Francisco"

Sales this week: 9,051
Percentage change: -15
Weeks on: 44
Cume: 442,029

Band refuses to give up and has a left field hit with something unlike anything else on the radio which the public responds to and keeps the act alive long past its sell-by date.

Pretty incredible story.

Don’t give up.  Follow your instincts.  Take risks.

Still, having played the hit single game, the band has fewer fans than up and comers like LaMontagne and Mumford.  Sure, people know Train and their hits, but that’s not enough to motivate them to plunk down their cash and spend an evening seeing the band perform live.  Yes, maybe at a soft ticket show, at a fair…  But to schlepp out to a concert?

You’re better off playing to your core than going for the momentary hit.  And, if you’re lucky enough to have a hit, keep some perspective, don’t whore yourself out to the mainstream, you’ll just alienate your fans, who’ve kept you alive and will continue to do so after your radio airplay is finished, if you respect them and treat them right.

53. Brian Wilson "Reimagines Gershwin"

Sales this week: 8,150
Percentage change: -41
Weeks on: 2
Cume: 22,269

And almost no one cares.

Based on the hype, all the ink spread about this, you’d believe the audience was waiting in rapt attention, salivating, ready to buy.

But we’ve given up on Brian.  His vocals are broken/cheesy and he’s disappointed us too many times.

One summer track as good as "Fun, Fun, Fun" to knock off Katy Perry and we’d care again.  I’d like to believe Brian’s got that in him.  But projects like this are good on paper, but irrelevant in the marketplace…like Renee Fleming goes pop.

72. Mike Posner "31 Minutes To Takeoff"

Sales this week: 5,721
Percentage change: -38
Weeks on: 3
Cume: 44,144

All the kids know who he is!  He creates fabulous singles!

But you’re better off in the LaMontagne/Mumford world.

Chasing singles is expensive and pays few dividends.  Chase careers.

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There’s a lot of good music out there.

My head was changed in Telluride.  The Phishheads didn’t look like the mainstream, didn’t care about the mainstream and were passionately in love with their favorite act.  They needed no imprimatur from the mainstream media, they were happy.  They’re a microcosm of the music industry today.

For far too long, the music industry has been run by major labels in cahoots with mainstream media.  And when there was no other way to gain acquisition of music, no other way to find out about it, to hear about it, their stranglehold continued and prospered.  But once people had alternatives, the old game was handed a death sentence.

The story of the twenty first century is not P2P theft, it’s choice.

The issue isn’t that people aren’t paying for music.  It’s that they’re consuming at a vast smorgasbord, where how you look is less important than how you play.

Yes, we’re finally getting back to the garden.

You haven’t read this story, because the mainstream media can’t see it.  We are living in a new golden era.  With talented acts purveying their wares to an ever more enamored public.

You’ve got to shed the old metrics.  CD sales are secondary to ticket sales.  And ticket prices for all these burgeoning acts are cheap, because they want you to come again, because they realize acts and fans cannot have an adversary relationship.  The oldsters blame Ticketmaster…  Ain’t that a laugh, as they scalp their own tickets and offer platinum packages.  Those are the last gasps of a dying era.  Those classic rock acts triumphed forty years ago.  And the MTV wonders made it two decades ago.  Despite the nostalgia crowd going to see them play their hits, in ever-decreasing numbers, these old acts are in the rearview mirror.  They don’t drive the business, new acts do.

Interestingly, the successful new acts look a lot like their progenitors did in their heyday.  They’re testing limits musically.  Marketing takes a back seat.  They care about their fans.  And they’re in it for the long haul.

Terrestrial radio is junk.  MTV burned out.  We’re back where we started, yet with more choice and better access.  Things are good!