Journey's "Dont Stop Believin'" has become something of a running joke on Idolator, but today's installment suddenly made me realize something: as apparently inescapable as this song has become, I can't remember any of it, not so much as a single note. I know I've heard it, more than once, and probably recently. But I have no memory of it at all, or any of Journey's other records, for that matter. The only Journey-related memories I can stir up are Steve Perry's solo hit, "Oh, Sherry" (atrociously oversung, but I always thought the hook, which is the only part I remember, was decent), and disjointed images from a video where the band stood on a loading dock and mimed playing their instruments. For all I know, that video may very well be for "Don't Stop Believin'", but though the images linger on, the music has disappeared. I don't intend to do any research to find out, either. There are times when you need to trust the mysterious ways of the silent critic that resides in the subconscious, and this is one of them. So from now on, just keep in mind that when a critic uses the phrase "totally forgettable", they're not just engaging in cliched hyperbole. It's the literal truth, and Journey is the proof.

I use the Rhapsody service all the time, but I only keep their blog on my RSS feed for Chuck Eddy, and here's a good example of why. It's silly to accuse a blog of bad grammar, but this is a corporate promotional site, and to manage such glaring errors in only three sentences is quite an achievement (what a genius that Mozart was, writing not only music but performances, and over two hundred years in the future, to boot). Makes you wonder about Rhapsody's quality control all down the line.

Once again, no new records in the top ten this week, though Britney Spears does trade "Womanizer" for "Circus". I would probably need to do some research to make sure, but I can't help but wonder if there has ever been a down time as long and slow as the current one. Over the last eight weeks, starting at the beginning of December, only two songs have entered the top ten, and only now does there seem to be much movement toward the top from those records lower down the charts (and I expect Kelly Clarkson to take a big jump and be in the top ten next week). Part of this is the usual holiday lull, aided by the fact that most of the big artists releasing singles at the end of the year launched them in late September and October, instead of waiting until November, as is usually the case (an adjustment to the digital market as much as anything else). I'd like to think that everybody was waiting for the inauguration. Judging by the small crop of new records in the Hot 100, though, probably not. After all, what sort of greeting to a history-making president is a Katy Perry power ballad?

As much as I love a lot of Nick Drake's music, the cult that has surrounded him--or more exactly, his death--irritates the hell out of me. This is only going to make it worse. Here's hoping they don't top it off by discovering some previously unreleased cover by Jeff Buckley.

The best music at the inaugural:

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back--when brown can stick around--when yellow will be mellow--when the red man can get ahead, man--and when white will embrace what is right. Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen.

I assume I'm not the only who thought Rev. Lowery had suddenly been possessed by the spirit of James Brown.

At last! Three weeks in and we finally have our first new entry to the top ten for 2009, and it's...oh, shit, it's The All-American Rejects. Who, as it happens, were also the first entrants in the top ten in 2007, and the second in 2006 (behind Fall Out Boy). So, though their presence, not to mention their existence, irks me, I'm reassured by the fact that they can only manage to get into the top ten when there's no real competition. Nice timing, guys. Don't do it again.

Can someone please explain to me why Jazmine Sullivan's "Bust Your Windows" isn't a hit (aside from the sucky unembeddable video, that is)?

The iTunes Spain singles top ten isn't that much of a surprise--some Spanish artists I've never heard of plus Beyonce, Coldplay, the Killers, and the closest thing to an oddity, Bruce Springsteen. The album chart, however, is something else. Number one? Miles Davis's Kind of Blue. Number 2? Daniel Barenboim and the Wiener Philharmoniker's New Year's concert. A New Year's concert I can understand, but what put Kind of Blue into people's heads? Did somebody use "Flamenco Sketches" in a car commercial or something?

I wrote the following for Frank's APA, a small self-publishing empire or collective or something that Jaq and I contribute to. I had always intended to post it here, along with some MP3s, but my general shiftlessness, plus an unexplainable aversion I developed toward posting much of anything the last few months, kept me from doing so. Anyway, the true story of the odd way in which I acquired many of the the oddest records in my collection, with a few samples available to download. As I explain in the piece, most of these records were filthy when I got them, so the sound quality is not the best. Still, I think they're worth hearing through the pops and the clicks and the fuzz (needless to say, if anyone is foolish enough to claim ownership of these recordings, thereby exposing themselves to intense public ridicule, I'll be happy to take them down). [more]

Or, let's just say Miranda Lambert isn't alone:

Just when you think you've heard it all, you find out that mosquitoes sing to each other (kind of).

I find this post on Freaky Trigger, about the apparent collapse of the British pop charts, fascinating for a couple of reasons. First, because all this chart stuff fascinates me anyway, and I've never really taken a close look at the British charts. Second, because the situation is almost exactly the opposite of what's happening in the states.

In the UK, chart evidence suggests that downloading is actually causing a decrease in the number of records that make the chart each year, but in the US, it looks to be increasing them. The two charts below provide a good comparison.*

The difference in the last two years is obvious (since Anatol Merklich, who created the chart, chose to include the first week of 2009, the British chart drops more precipitously than it might, making it look as if the number of new records has fallen nearly to zero; my chart includes only complete years through 2008, and only after the Billboard chart rose to 100--which is why it starts in 1956 instead of earlier). While the UK has seen a dramatic drop in chart entries since they started counting downloads, in the US the number has risen.

A large part of this difference is due not only to the way records are charted in the two countries, but also how they're sold. In the US, singles as physical product started to disappear in the late 80s, and essentially ceased to exist about a decade later when Billboard changed their chart rules and allowed airplay-only singles onto the chart. The result is the precipitous drop you see in new records starting in 1998, from over 400 one year to barely over 300 the next. It stayed at that level, even dipping below 300 a couple of years, until 2005, when Billboard began counting download sales. Since then, the number of new records has slowly risen, finishing 2008 at slightly over 400, roughly the same level as before 1998.

In the UK, however, singles never went away, and until recently the chartmakers insisted on the release of physical product as a qualification to enter the charts. In 2007, however, they changed the rules, allowing downloads to be counted without accompanying physical product. Tom Ewing's theory that the longer, virtual shelf life of downloads contributes to the drop in new records entering the chart may be true, but since the number was already dropping at a steady clip before downloads were counted, I have my doubts. Since I don't know much about the British charts, though, I'm willing to take his word for it.

What definitely seems to be happening is an increasing similarity between the two markets. For years now, compared to the US, the number of songs entering the UK pop charts has been astronomical. The UK's peak years (that is, most of the 90s), when over a thousand new singles hit the charts each year, far outstripped even the biggest years on the US charts (1964-1968), which fell just short of 750. This last year, though, the numbers were the closest they've been since the mid-70s, with UK entries somewhere under 500, and US entries just over 400. This sudden parity is most likely due to the growing similarity between the two markets, with downloads widely available and growing in market share, the amount of physical product decreasing, and LP sales cratering. The only major difference affecting the two charts in the future will be the fact that the UK chart doesn't consider airplay in their rankings, an element that may well be balanced out in this aspect by Billboard's rules for dropping older records off the chart when they fall below a certain threshold. Since most new records make the US chart based on sales, that may not make much of a difference anyway.

So, despite Tom Ewing's hyperbolic headline, I don't think downloading portends the death of the British pop charts. It just makes them a little more American while the American charts become a little more British. Which, I'll admit, if you're British, may seem worse than death. But from here it doesn't look quite so bad.

*It should be noted that the rapid increase in the number of records in the early years of the British charts has a lot to do with the increasing size of the chart itself, which started with only twelve positions in 1952, and slowly grew until it reached the current 75 in 1978 (see this Wikipedia entry for a full history). But since after 1978 the number of new records continues to grow at almost the same pace, that's a minor quibble.

Sometimes I think Larry Flynt is the country's best satirist (though the idea of asking congress to "rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America" is a bit icky).

I fully understand the concept of seasonal lulls, and it was nice to have a break from reviewing over the holidays, but the current situation is ridiculous. We've now gone four weeks with nothing new in the top ten (unless you count the reappearance of people like Jason Mraz and Kevin Rudolf, which I don't) and this week not a single record debuted in the Hot 100. Nothing is moving up the chart, either. All but two of the records in spots 11 through 20 have already made top ten, and the two that haven't--The All American Rejects' "Gives You Hell" and The Pussycat Dolls' "I Hate This Part"--both near the bottom at 18 and 20, are stagnant. I'm still working on a summation for the year past, but it's going to require some more number crunching, so it may be a few days. In the meantime, we do have our first number one of 2009. It's Lady Gaga. And people thought 2008 was bad.