Top Of The Charts 5/14

1) Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know

2) Fun. - We Are Young

3) Maroon 5 - Payphone

4) Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe

5) Flo Rida - Wild Ones

6) The Wanted - Glad You Came

7) Nicki Minaj - Starships

8) Justin Bieber - Boyfriend

9) One Direction - What Makes You Beautiful

10) Kelly Clarkson - Stronger

Well, I mentioned last week that the top 10 is even more stagnant than ever. Well, you outdid me Billboard Hot 100. This is just getting silly at this point. I guess I should mention that I have warmed up considerably to "Call Me Maybe". It's typical pretty white lady pop ephemera, but it's pleasant enough and catchy as all hell. Better at least than recent pretty white ladies. I'm looking at you Colbie Callait.

Last week I realized that it's hard to say who's to blame for the fact that the Hot 100 has barely changed in the past 2 months. It'd be easy to blame the record companies. They've been the de facto bad guy in the music industry for over a decade and there's really no reason to stop that now. They're over the hump of the "Sue every pirate!" tact they took after Napster nearly destroyed them and have settled in pretty nicely into the digital age. It took them far too long and they took lots of really terrible missteps along the way, but the outlook is strong. The problem with them now is infrastructure. They're still set up the same basic way as when they were making money out the wazoo in the golden age before Napster. Now they're becoming more and more obsolete because artists, once the make a name for themselves, no longer need them at all. They can just release albums on their websites and circumvent the entire process. Though we've really yet to see that from a major act, you can feel it coming. The moment Lady Gaga puts out a pure digital release, it's over for them and they know it.

There's another problem though. The record companies are figuring out how to move forward, but the erstwhile radio industry really isn't. For a growing contingency of people, radio isn't necessary. Everyone has an MP3 player. Every new car comes with a jack that you can hook your MP3 player into, some even come with a hookup to Pandora. Even people who like hearing what the DJs have to say or enjoy listening to the local morning show, they have podcasts. Radio is still making tons of money for now, but who knows for how long. Being as worried as the radio industry has to be means there's no way they're taking risks on unproven acts. What was the last one hit wonder that you remember? Gotye, fun. and Carly Rae Jepsen might be on their first hit right now, but you know that's not the last you'll hear of them. 

Well, maybe next week.