The release today of Billboard’s tallies for the year’s biggest U.S. singles and albums produce few jaw-dropping surprises. The top eight songs of the year, according to the Hot 100, come directly from the list of 10 songs in my predictions post last week. So what about those two songs I called wrong? I’ll get [...] Read more

In a year that’s seen the digital economy upend our notions of what a “hit” is—from songs leaping to the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 before radio has even digested them, to acts turning every damned song on their albums into a momentary chart smash—it’s appropriate that the weirdest insta-hit of all was scored by [...] Read more

When Billboard closes out 2008 next week by charting the year’s biggest hits, you can expect several songs from late 2007 to loom large on the year-end Hot 100. But I doubt any will surpass the song that made an unrecognizable Tom Cruise shake his groove thing this past summer. If there’s any chance that [...] Read more

In the annals of popular music, certain albums stand out for their sheer percentage of hit-bound material. Michael Jackson’s Thriller is the most famous, not just because it spun off seven Top 10 singles—the first album to do so—but because the whole disc had only nine tracks. That’s a stunning 78% hit ratio. Shania Twain’s [...] Read more

A band with a charismatic frontwoman attracts a passionate young following, briefly with Contemporary Christian fans and then with a mass audience bewitched by their alternative-but-accessible vibe. While the group attracts certain emo elements and the tattooed-and-pierced set, their straight-up-the-middle pop sensibilities win over radio programmers looking for some femme-friendly rock content. Finally, after a [...] Read more

In commemorating the first decade of the Now That’s What I Call Music! album series in the United States, Wednesday’s New York Times does a fine job running down the relevant stats: 29 volumes in the main series! 61 million in sales! 12 Britney Spears songs! But the piece fails to mention the core reason [...] Read more

Maybe the country has been a little too distracted to listen to the radio recently, but for whatever reason, there’s a paucity of big moves on Billboard‘s Hot 100 this week: no skyrocketing songs moving up on account of an iTunes surge, as we’ve seen continually all during the fall. Amid the stasis, the steady [...] Read more

We knew last week that Beyoncé’s “If I Were a Boy” was poised to make a big leap on Billboard‘s Hot 100. The only question was, how big? Just a year ago, a 65-space jump to No. 3 would have been enough to make our eyes pop. When Britney Spears did it in early October [...] Read more

“Okay, it’s official,” I wrote to Maura midday on Thursday, when Billboard released the new Hot 100. “I have seriously underestimated ‘Whatever You Like.’” That durable smash by Atlanta rap deity T.I. moves into the penthouse for the third time since late August. Directly behind it is T.I.’s simultaneous hit, the Rihanna duet “Live Your [...] Read more

For all you vinyl fetishists out there, here are a couple of catalog numbers to look up in your collection of vintage 45s: Atlantic 3761, and Atlantic 3787. From what classic, hit-single-producing Atlantic act could those be? Aretha Franklin, you’re thinking? Maybe Crosby, Stills and Nash? Phil Collins? Try AC/DC—those are the U.S. release numbers [...] Read more