Viva la Coldplay! Brit Crew Dominates Charts
Apparently cold is the new hot.
A week after becoming the first British rock group in 20 years to top the Hot 100, Coldplay just took over the Billboard 200 with the biggest sales week for a rock act since, well, the band’s last album.
Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends ruled the week ended Sunday by selling 721,000 copies, per Nielsen SoundScan.
No rock group has rung up this many copies since Coldplay’s X&Y sold 737,000 first-week units in 2005. The only acts to come close are the Eagles (711,000) and Linkin Park (623,000), both last year. To find a bigger week, we gotta turn back the calendars to 2004, when U2’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb debuted with 840,000 copies.
Coldplay’s latest also set a new record by selling 288,000 digital copies, the most ever and more than double the previous record (139,000 copies) set by Jack Johnson’s Sleep Through the Static earlier this year. Not surprisingly, Viva la Vida was the biggest preorder in iTunes history.
On the other side of the pond, Viva la Vida entered its second week at No. 1 as the U.K.’s fastest-selling album of the year. The title track also reached No. 1 there. Elsewhere, the album has registered chart-topping bows in Japan, Australia, Canada, France and Germany.
Coldplay, set to perform on tonight’s Daily Show with Jon Stewart, launches its North American tour July 14 in Los Angeles.
After last week’s million-copy debut, Lil Wayne slipped to No. 2, selling another 309,000 copies of Tha Carter III. Prior to last week, only three albums this year sold more copies in their first weeks.
In a year of slumping sales, Weezy and Coldplay just delivered one of the biggest one-two punches in music history. There’s only been one other instance in which albums debuted with 700,000-plus copies in back-to-back weeks: Britney Spears’ Oops!…I Did It Again (1.3 million) and Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP (1.8 million) on May 24 and 31, 2000.
This week’s chart also chalked up more cheese for the Mouse. The Jonas Brothers-led Camp Rock soundtrack sold 188,000 copies at No. 3 following the telefilm’s weekend debut on the Disney Channel. The cable movie drew nearly 9 million viewers, trailing only High School Musical 2 as the most-watched original production in the channel’s history. A sequel is already in the works.
Madonna fave Katy Perry smooched her way to No. 9 as One of the Boys sold 47,000 copies. Getting her start as Christian popster Katy Hudson, she has broken through by belting out tunes like “Ur So Gay,” “Waking Up in Vegas” and the Digital Tracks chart-topper “I Kissed a Girl.”
With its first new album in half a decade, the Offspring sold 46,000 copies of Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace at No. 10. The veteran O.C. punks, who benefit from the rock hit “Hammerhead,” only managed a No. 30 bow for 2003’s Splinter.
While the original was released in May 2007, a reissue of Rihanna’s Good Girl Gone Bad with three new tracks helped skyrocket the album 117 spots to No. 7, selling another 63,000 copies.
Just missing the top 10, Judas Priest sold 42,000 copies of Nostradamus at No. 11. Despite such iconic metal hits as “Breaking the Law,” “Living After Midnight” and “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’,” the Priest never before climbed this high on the Billboard 200.
Other notable debuts included Blood Raw’s My Life: The True Testimony at No. 30, 2 Pistols’ Death Before Dishonor at No. 33 and Wolf Parade’s At Mount Zoomer in the No. 46 spot. Further down, the Hold Steady managed a No. 170 bow with the digital release Stay Positive.
Despite Coldplay’s big week, overall sales were down more than 10 percent compared to last week and nearly 7 percent compared to the same sales week last year, when Bon Jovi topped the charts.
Next week, watch for Oscar-winning rappers Three 6 Mafia to see if it’s still hard out there for a pair of pimps.
To recap, the top 10 albums were as follows:
1. Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, Coldplay2. Tha Carter III, Lil Wayne3. Camp Rock soundtrack, various4. Now That’s What I Call Music! 28, various5. Definition of Real, Plies6. Here I Stand, Usher7. Good Girl Gone Bad, Rihanna8. Indestructible, Disturbed9. One of the Boys, Katy Perry10. Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace, the Offspring
Stump the King: Tim Russert
I’d like to begin this week’s offering by adding my thoughts on the untimely death of Tim Russert. I didn’t know him personally, so anything I could say about the man would pale in comparison to all the nice things his friends and co-workers have already said.
What I will say is that the irony of Russert dying on Father’s Day weekend so soon after writing his book, Big Russ and Me (which chronicled his life with his father as well as his son Luke), is so thick that twenty years from now, it will be hard to believe that it happened the way that it did.
As a guy who rarely watches the news and gets most of my information from The Daily Show, I appreciated Russert’s informative and entertaining style of reporting.
What I want to focus on this week is the lameness of TV Guide. I have subscribed to TV Guide for years and throughout all of its changes, I have generally found it to be the best source for TV related news as well as TV listings. However, the one thing that has always bugged me about the magazine is how few of their writers have a sense of humor. While Matt Roush delivers brilliant opinions with a few witty comments, the bulk of their employees are so incredibly unfunny that I wonder how the editors can justify letting their staff fail so miserably.
Case in point is this week’s TV Guide. In the Cheers and Jeers column (which I generally enjoy), Bruce Fretts gives Jon Stewart a well-earned Cheer for his interview with Scott McClellan on The Daily Show. He points out specific elements of the interview that made it particularly entertaining, but ends the item with the challenge, “Top that, Russert!”
Now clearly, there is no way that Mr. Fretts could have known that Tim Russert would pass away before this issue went on the newsstands but it helps to serve my point. Was the slim chance that someone would actually find his comment funny worth the risk?
Not to compare the two, but after 9/11, many TV shows and movies went unproduced because they were viewed as bad taste after what happened. This is not to say the projects were no longer funny — they were just harder to watch and therefore less viable. A lame comment like “Top that, Russert” is already offensive to anyone with a sense of humor. The fact that it’s inadvertently disrespectful just makes it that much worse.
Now for this week’s question…
Tim Russert is the cousin of which fictional TV character?
Congratulations Jere! Megan Russert is correct.
Lost Finale: Did You Still Have Some Questions or Something?
OK, I get the message. A week has passed since the season-four finale of Lost, but I can see from my flooded inbox that you still have a few little questions about what went down.
Damn you, island show, and your never-ending questions!
Click in for a few Lost finale answers (warning: a smidge of it is spoilery), along with video featuring a fellow traveler from The Daily Show With Jon Stewart who totally gets us:
Funny, no? (Wyatt, I want your job!) Thanks to DocArzt.com for pointing it out. Now, on to your Q’s.
Mike in Hermosa Beach, Calif.: I have one question that I can’t seem to find an answer to. And it’s probably meant to be that we didn’t hear, but what the hell did Sawyer whisper to Kate before he jumped?
Survey says: I’ve checked with my sources, and also a rep for the show, and have been told that the writers are “saving that secret for later on.” According to one insider who works on the show, that line (what Sawyer said) wasn’t even in the script. I wouldn’t put too much stock into the gazillion daughter-in-Alabama (or possibly Albuquerque) “What Sawyer Said” videos currently playing on YouTube, some of which claim to have official and complete subtitles. Bottom line: Only Damon and Carlton know the whole truth, so I’m staying cautiously skeptical for the time being. If anyone sees them at Comic-Con next month (when they officially break their “radio silence”), tackle them and tickle them until they tell us if we can trust this YouTube business, OK?
Jen in Boston: I just noticed on the alternate endings to the Lost season finale on abc.com, the ones with Desmond or Sawyer in the coffin. What is that about?
That is about making sure people like me (evil, evil people) didn’t spill the beans on who was in the coffin before the finale aired. And about showing off how hot Sawyer and Desmond are when wearing suits (even if they are dead). Seriously, don’t give those endings a second thought, because there’s the external drama of managing the fandom and the foilers, and there’s the show itself. As Joss Whedon once said, “Trust the tale, not the teller.”
Anais in San Marino, Calif.: What did you think of the Jack’s statement at the press conference in the “extended edition” of part one of “No Place Like Home” that Boone, Libby and Charlie survived the initial crash of 815 but died later?
I thought it was great, because it opens the door for the Oceanic Six to meet with Boone, Libby or Charlie’s relatives, which in turns opens the door (IMHO) for parallel Boone, Libby and Charlie flashback scenes, hopefully from their time on the Island. And from a strictly production perspective, I think the fact that Ian Somerhalder, Cynthia Watros and Dominic Monaghan are still friends of the show, and have exhibited a willingness to do one-off guest returns, has a lot to do with them “surviving.”
Anyhoo, I think I’ve worked out the math on this cover story: Eight souls survived the crash. (Well, eight adults and fetal Aaron, who was supposedly being incubated inside Kate.) Subtract the three who died from the eight that survived, add one newborn Turniphead, and the total comes to…the Oceanic Six. Right? (I think it’s mathematically sound now, but you tell me. I majored in fuzzy stuff.)
By the way, if you haven’t seen the extended version of the press conference scene yet, it’s embedded above, and Jack starts talking about the other three survivors at the 0:45 mark.
Chris in Henderson, Nev.: If next season of Lost is about the Oceanic Six trying to get back, wouldn’t it be more than just Emilie de Ravin who would need a holding contract? What about Josh Holloway, Terry O’Quinn, etc.?
They don’t need holding contracts because we’re going to see them on the Island next season, sillypants. I have no idea how they’re going weave together the stories from back in the world with the stories from the Island, but Sawyer, Jin, Locke and company will be present and accounted for. I think a lot of season five will be a great ironic contrast between what the O6 think is happening on the Island, and what the Islanders think is happening in the world (all while the Widmore-Linus war rages around them).
Wallace in Nebraska: Kristin, if Emilie de Ravin (Claire) is not on Lost next year, where will she be?
Emilie de Ravin will be getting mani/pedis on Melrose and, I’m sure, booking other jobs (besides the ones we already told you about), while Claire, according to an inside source, “Is off with Christian.” Whatever that means! By the way, we may still see Claire next year. It’s just that EDR is not being used as a series regular, so we shouldn’t expect to see much of her.
Eli in New York City: Kristin, I was curious to hear what you personally are looking forward to in season five? I’m hoping for more Ben-Charles scenes!
All I want for Christmas is a big reunion of the escapees with the still-stuck survivors. I can taste the tears of Jin and Sun’s reunion now (she doesn’t even know he’s alive! the horror!), and they are sweet. The question, of course, is when it will happen.
So what are your thoughts? Can you stand a season of separation? Could you survive it if they filled it in with heretofore unseen Island flashbacks, dream sequences and ghostly visitations? Post your thoughts in the comments, because I can’t be the only one worried about this big split.
Jesse in Orlando: Hey Kristin, love your site. OK, quick question, but in the opening title sequence of my, well, our, favorite show, Lost, there is a part where the logo pixelates. I’m not sure if that makes sense, but it’s as if the “O” and some of the “S” aren’t fully rendered with whatever graphics program they were using. If you ever get a chance to ask Carlton or Damon, please do. It’s a very simple title sequence, and the fact that it has a glitch must mean something.
If I recall correctly, that cheap hack J.J. Abrams actually created the Lost title sequence on his home computer as a placeholder while they were working on the pilot, and lo and behold, it stuck! I know. That dude never does anything right.
—Additional reporting by Jennifer Godwin
Gwyneth and Mario sued over food/travel book
Book? What book? That would seem to be the bone of contention, if you will. Ben Karlin, former headwriter for The Daily Show, has filed a lawsuit against TV chef Mario Batali and actress Gwyneth Paltrow claiming they did not pay him for work he did for a book on which they were collaborating. Karlin, who shared authorship of America (The Book) with Jon Stewart, says he was assigned to “conceptualize and oversee” a book to compliment a PBS series starring Mario and Gwyneth in which the stars take a cultural and gastronomic tour of Spain. The series, which may be called Spain…on the Road Again, will premiere this fall.
According to Karlin’s mouthpiece — er, lawyer — the production company, Frappe Inc. is also joined in the suit. In 2007, Frappe’s prez, Charles Pinsky, made the deal with him. Based on the deal, Karlin traveled to Spain twice on his own dime. When he pressed Pinsky for a signed contract and, presumably, his advance, neither were forthcoming. Karlin was then dismissed without pay. (Of course, if the deal had never been agreed upon, how could Ben have been dismissed?)
Now, Pinsky’s mouthpiece — er, lawyer — is talking. Leslie Ben-Zvi said Karlin was misrepresenting the facts. “We will vigorously defend this lawsuit, including the good name of Pinsky and Batali.” Perhaps Ben-Zvi doesn’t know about Paltrow’s good name, even with number one box office hit Iron Man still in theaters and that Best Actress Oscar for Shakespeare in Love.
Apparently, there were problems between Ben and Mario. Karlin clashed with Batali over who was directing the project. Batali thought Karlin was only a writer. Meanwhile, according to Karlin’s suit, “Batali, claiming preoccupation with other ventures, also refused to contribute substantial material to the book, despite Pinsky’s assurances otherwise, and there was no indication that any contribution from Paltrow was forthcoming.” The lawsuit was filed in New York state court for around $500,000 in damages and compensation. Nothing says yummy Spanish cuisine like a lawsuit, right?