You can either be a "the charts are half empty or half full" kind of chart watcher, and today I'm going to try to look at the positive. Sure Ludacris' "
Battle of the Sexes", and by extension rap in general, only had one week at the number one slot (it got knocked down to number three this week), but a numero uno's nothing to scoff at. Props to Luda for giving rap it's moment in the spotlight. And now we can all turn our attention to Usher's "Raymond vs. Raymond', set to drop next week, and which I'm predicting will flop like a European soccer player. F**k, there goes that optimisms thing .
And now onto the tracks:
Top 10 Songs with units sold
1. Taio Cruz ft. Ludacris - Break Your Heart 175,770
2. B.o.B. ft. Bruno Mars - Nothin' On You 166,430
3. Rihanna - Rude Boy 162,555
4. Lady Gaga ft. Beyonce - Telephone 149,164
5. Train - Hey, Soul Sister 144,065
6. Justin Bieber ft. Ludacris - Baby 129,500
7. Black Eyed Peas - Imma Be 121,651
8. Lady Antebellum - Need You Now 119,868
9. Timbaland ft. Justin Timberlake - Carry Out 103,729
10. Ke$ha ft. 30H!3 - Blah Blah Blah 101,117
The Refined Take:
1) Goddamn, could we be looking at B.o.B. at the number one slot next week? "Nothing on You" is blowing up like a...reference to something that blows up that doesn't involved terrorism. Balloon at a kid's birthday party? No, too weak. Anyway, it's a hell of a song and Bobby Ray's a hell of an artist. It's good to see the nice guys win.
2) What's even more notable than who's in the top ten is who's off it. Drake's new single "
Over" just barely missed the cut and is currently sitting at number 11. I wouldn't read too much into that though, singles like this often take a little bit of time to build. Hell, it took more than a month for Rihanna's "
Rude Boy" to really smash.
3) For all of you who don't know who Taio Cruz is, he's kind of like an English version of a young Usher, only without the abs, and much more electronic. So basically not like Usher at all. Those interested can check the track out
here.
4) Regular readers probably remember Chris Brown complaining how poorly his music's doing. How bad is it? His "Graffiti" album isn't even in the top 200, and the only single he has on the chart is "Transform Ya" (#138). In other words, Chris Brown and General Larry Platt, of "Pants on the Ground" fame, have the exact same number of top 200 tracks, and "Pants on the Ground" isn't that far behind at #175! Ouch.
5) This week's Mr. Irrelevant Award, given to the song that sits at the absolute bottom of the charts (the number 200 spot), goes to...Lil Wayne's "Lollipop". You know what's really crazy? Just today I
learned from Jim Jonsin, the guy who wrote the song, that it was originally intended for the Pussycat Dolls before Wayne picked it up. If Weezy doesn't get that song he doesn't have a smash hit single and "Carter III" may not have done as well as it did. Craziness.
