Charty Chart Chat: More Interesting Than Live Earth Concerts

To say that the Live Earth broadcast was anything but unimpressive may be one of the major overstatements of the year. Between Melissa Etheridge's pious diatribes about the loss of American youth protest to the downright flat performances from Shakira and John Mayer, I found myself wanting to switch off the television and paint my kitchen. Did the concert raise awareness of global warming? Maybe. But I think there's greater awareness that bands shouldn't bury their hatchets and reform if the dull set by Genesis was any indication.

Outside of the #17 entry (Beastie Boys' The Mix Up), the rest of this week's top 50 artists would never be asked to play such prestigious gigs. Immaculate Machine's Fables remains at #1 for the fourth week in a row. Metric's Grow Up & Blow Away remains at #2, followed by the Stars remix album, Do You Trust Your Friends?, which rises two positions to #3. Entering the chart at #4 is Spoon's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, earning the coveted Chart Sizzler Award for this week. This album outperformed the next highest debut album, the aforementioned The Mix Up, by 13 places.

The rest of the top 10 works out this way: Wilco's Sky Blue Sky jumps two spots to #5, while last week's top debut, Carolyn Mark's Nothing Is Free, vaults nine places to #6. Joel Plaskett Emergency's Ashtray Rock drops three spots to #7, followed by Feist's The Reminder, which slips five positions to #8. The National's Boxer moves up three spots to #9 and They Shoot Horses, Don't They?'s Pick Up Sticks rounds out the top 10 after shooting up five places.

There was some substantial action at the top of a majority of the five specialty charts this week. Matthew Dear's Asa Breed finally topples Montag's Going Places, which had a stranglehold on the Electronic chart for weeks. The same thing happened on the Hip-Hop chart, as Blue Scholars' Bayani usurps the five-week dominance of Moka Only's Vermillion. The Bad Plus' Prog moves up a single place to grab the #1 position on the Jazz/Blues chart, while Spanish Harlem Orchestra's United We Swing continues to play hot potato with the #1 spot on the World/Folk chart with Balkan Beat Box's Nu Med, which drops to #2 this week. United We Swing has been #1 on three different occasions in the past six weeks, with Nu Med grabbing the top spot for the other three. Finally, remaining at #1 on the Metal/Punk chart is 3 Inches Of Blood's Fire Up The Blades.