2009年 02月 25日 水曜日 15:19
Once again, the #1 artist on the 9513 charts is a duo where the lead vocals are mainly handled by the one person with a superior, perfect-for-radio voice, and the other half is relegated to guitar duty. Nope, not Sugarland, though they're in the Top 3. Brooks & Dunn hold the top spot this week with 21 listeners. Actually, we've got a few new faces near the upper end of the chart, with Johnny Cash in 3rd place with 18 listeners and Gary Allan in 6th place with 16 listeners. I really hope that awful Remix reason isn't the reason that Cash is so popular this week.
(long aside begins here)
While he's never been a chart-topper around here, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Cash is the most popular country singer on LastFM. He's got more than a million listeners and 33 million plays. For reference, The Beatles and Radiohead are nearing 150 million plays, and Coldplay just passed the 100 million mark. However, Johnny is right up there with people like Modest Mouse and U2 (45+ million) and The Decemberists (26 million). Why? Because more than anyone else, Johnny Cash is X in the statement "I hate country music, but I really love X."
Johnny Cash is cool in a way few other country acts will ever be. George Strait is arguably one of the most renowned country singers of the last 30 years. He's got 1.5 million plays here. Kenny Chesney, who's one of the top modern-day country acts, is at 2.1 million plays. Taylor Swift, with more than 5 million plays now, is probably the top modern country act on LastFM. I'd love to know what the LastFM demographics are, but I'm guessing that listeners in their teens and 20s are the majority of the listeners here, and Taylor Swift is their favorite country artist. What does that mean for country music's future?
Oh, and guess Johnny Cash's most popular track. Folsom Prison Blues? Ring Of Fire? Those two songs have more than 72 million plays each. But they're dwarfed (by 25 million plays, in fact) by Hurt, a Nine Inch Nails cover that Cash released in 2002, when he was 70.
(end of long aside)
In the Top Albums, Enjoy The Ride is tied with Ashton Shepherd and her Sounds So Good release, with 12 listeners each. Sugarland's Twice The Speed Of Life is next with 11. The aforementioned-in-aside George Strait's Troubador is among the group with 10 listeners, and 9 awesome people enjoyed Rattlin' Bones, which was in a 7-way tie for 8th place.
On the singles chart, Sugarland and Shepherd tied again, with 9 people checking out Want To and Sounds So Good, respectively. Famous In A Small Town by Miranda Lambert had 8 listeners, and 7 people dug way back in their music collection to listen to Reba McEntire's Whoever's In New England. I forgot who posted this on the 9513 forum, but The Bees by Lee Ann Womack is one of the coolest songs around, and the 6 people who listened to it this week would likely back me up.
At the risk of making this journal even wordier, I'll add that people who haven't listened to Justin Townes Earle have no excuse, because he's got two free songs available on LastFM. Check out Hard Livin' for his honky-tonk, retrobilly side and Who Am I To Say for his sensitive, songwritery side. And then buy his new CD when it comes out in March. Thanks for wading through all this, and we'll see you next week.