7/27/08 Hot AC Chart: Tight race for #1, David Cook inches up, Kid Rock goes top 10

At the top of the chart, Leona Lewis holds at #1 for a 10th week. However, her reign looks to be nearing the end, as only a little over 200 spins separates #4, “Viva La Vida”, from #1. In fact, less than 100 spins separates #1 from “It’s Not My Time”, #2.

The top 6 songs remain in the same places as last week. Kid Rock blasts up 4 notches to #7, giving him his 2nd top 10 on this chart. His other top 10 is “Picture”.  Elsewhere in the top 10, Idol winner David Cook inches up one more to #8. His spin increase is lowering each week, so he may be nearing his peak.

Another song moves up 4 to tie Kid Rock for the biggest mover, “Shattered” by O.A.R. This week the song moves up to #21 and leap-frogs over last week’s biggest mover, Daughtry’s “What about Now”. Daughtry holds at #22 this week, but his bullet is still in good shape.

Rhianna is still in good shape this week. “If I Never See Your Face Again”, where she is featured with Maroon 5, moves up to #15. Meanwhile, her solo effort, “Take a Bow”, climbs to #24.

Finally, the Jonas Brothers  come in at #40 with “Burnin’ Up”, their second song to make the top 40. Their previous charting song only spent 1 week in the top 40.

All chart data is © Mediabase 24/7.

7/20/08 Hot AC Chart: David Cook inches up, Daughtry, Metro Station & O.A.R.’s big moves

[Edited 7/25 to fix many errors. Sorry about that!]

The Hot AC chart is pretty stagnant in the top half of the chart this week. Leona Lewis remains at #1 again this week for a total of 9 weeks on top.

The top 8 songs remain in the same positions as last week. There is a tight race between #2-#4, with just over 100 spins separating 3 Doors Down at #2 from Coldplay at #4, all 3 songs have a bullet of over 100.

American Idol David Cook inches up 1 to #9 and looks to leapfrog over the declining Colbie Caillat and Gavin DeGraw at #s 7 and 8.  Kid Rock should go top 10 next week.

This week’s big moves are by Daughtry, Metro Station and O.A.R. “What about Now” leaps 9 notches to #22, “Shake It” jumps 6 to #24, and “Shattered” jumps 8 to #25.  “Shattered”, O.A.R.’s 4th hit on Hot AC, look like it’s going to be their biggest. “Love & Memories” is their current best at #18.

There are 2 debuts this week: Puddle of Mudd return after a 5 year absence with “We Don’t Have to Look Back Now”, and Lifehouse enters with their 9th hit, “Broken”.

All chart data © Mediabase 24/7.

Mediabase Availability Update

The daily Mediabase update websites are still unavailable as of this writing. The future still remains uncertain as to whether the charts will return as a free site.  The Wikipedia page for Mediabase has been updated a couple of times with different information (thanks to the reader who supplied the comment in a previous post).

One recent update said that the charts would be availble only to paid subscribers. The most recent update states that the charts will return in August free of charge but will require registration.  It looks like we’ll have to wait and see. There is no way to contact Mediabase via email to find out the real story.

7/13/08 HAC Chart: David Cook goes top 10, Natasha Bedingfield aims at #1

At the top of the chart, Leona Lewis remains at #1 for an 8th week.

Natasha Bedingfield climbs to #3 with “Pocketful of Sunshine”, and she has the biggest spin increase of any song within the top 40.

Coldplay also move into the top 5 at #4, with their 2nd biggest hit on the HAC chart. Only “Speed of Sound” peaked higher.

“The Time of My Life” reaches #10 this week, giving David Cook his first top 10.

Madonna update: “4 Minutes” falls to #27 in its 15th week on. If it can last 5 more weeks in the top 40, it will be removed to recurrent.

Rhianna is at #18 with Maroon 5 on “If I Never See Your Face Again” and she moves up #26 solo at #30 with “Take a Bow”.

All chart data © Mediabase 24/7

Daily Mediabase Not Available

For over the past 24 hours, the daily Mediabase charts that were available via the web are no longer available. The pages come up blank. There are a couple of possibilities for this:

1. Technical Issues. Mediabase could be updating their pages/software. This could cause the pages to be blank. However, over 24 hours without any notice make one wonder if this is really the issue.

2. Mediabase does not want the general public to view the daily updates and has removed access to them. Mediabase has been pushing their weekly charts via the USAToday paper/website and Clear-Channel owned radio stations. The charts are also available via allaccess.com if you are a member. Perhaps Mediabase wants these places to be the only locations to view the chart, so they have removed access to the daily updates.

#2 is what I believe has happened. Hopefully I will be proven wrong and the data will become available again. Don’t hold your breath though, and we should be glad that we still get free charts at all, even if it’s once a week.

7/6/08 Hot AC Chart: 3 Doors Down nears #1, David Cook just misses top 10

At the top of the chart, Leona Lewis holds at #1 for a seventh week.

Just below Leona at #2 is “It’s Not My Time” by 3 Doors Down. This is only the group’s 2nd hit to make the top 2.  The other is “Here without You”, which spent 14 weeks at #1.

Natasha Bedingfield scores a 2nd top 5 hit with “Pocketful of Sunshine” at #5.

“The Time of My Life” rises to #11 this week. However the song continues to have a strong bullet, so look for it to make top 10 next week.

Daughtry ties for the biggest move this week. “What about Now” climbs 5 to #33. Metro Station’s “Shake It” moves up 5 to #32.

Madonna Update: “4 Minutes” peaked in the top 20 a few weeks ago, but the song holds steady at #24 on its way down.

All chart data © Mediabase 24/7

Dees at It Again

This past weekend was part 1 of a Rick Dees Special, the top songs of the decade so far. Once again, for the Hot AC version, Rick and his staff were lazy and put together a haphazard show. Many of the songs never even charted on the Hot AC version, let alone were #1s or top songs of the decade so far. He’s done this before with similar specials.

Come on Rick and staff, you can do better than this. It’s not that hard to come up with a list of top songs so far. I, as just a fan of the charts, can do it pretty quick based on chart positions alone, so how hard would it be for someone whose job it is to create those shows. They could even just put together a show using old clips of Rick if he didn’t want to take the time to do new recordings, similar to the year-end show a few years back.

I’m only making these comments because I want the show to be done well as well as being accurate. Dees and his staff can do it, so let’s see it.

Acts with 5 Top 40 HAC hits from 1 cd

Recently, Daughtry became the latest group in an elite list of acts who have placed 5 songs from 1 cd into the Hot AC Top 40. Here’s a rundown:

Kelly Clarkson: 5 hits from Breakaway

Daughtry: 5 hits from Daughtry

Nickelback: 5 hits from All the Right Reasons

Gwen Stefani: 5 hits from Love.Angel.Music.Baby

Justin Timberlake: 5 hits from FutureSex/LoveSounds

Daughtry is the first act to get 5 hits from a debut cd (not counting American Idol work of course). Gwen Stefani did it on her first solo cd.

6/29/08 Hot AC Chart: Coldplay goes top 10, David Cook nears top 10

At the top of the chart for a 6th week this week is Leona Lewis. She’s still over 900 spins ahead of #2.

Coldplay earn a 3rd top 10 with “Viva La Vida” as the song rises 4 notches to #9. Their last top 10 was 2005’s “Speed of Sound”, and their first top 10 was “Clocks” in 2003. They reach the top 10 in only their 4th week on the chart.

David Cook climbs 3 to #13 with “Time of My Life”.  If he keeps his rate of increase, and depending on how fast songs fall this week, he could be top 10 next week.

Katy Perry has the biggest mover with “I Kissed a Girl”. The song jumps 7 spots to #26.

Daughtry have the highest debut at #38 with “What about Now”. This is their 5th hit. They join Nickelback and Kelly Clarkson as acts to have 5 top 40 hits off of one cd.