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Yeah I think The Wanted are doing well on the strength of the song, whereas One Direction are doing well on the cult of the group/personalities. This positions One Direction to sell more albums and better sustain their success... but the risks of this approach are huge (overexposure chief among them).

Or Pitbull!!! Ugh.

I love the Canadian chart. Like Australia and NZ, it's often several weeks ahead of the Hot 100 given Canada is a much smaller country so songs can blow up faster. I first noticed this back in 2008 when Lady GaGa was all over the Canadian charts but still completely unknown down here. Fast forward a few months... With a handful of rare exceptions (e.g. Nikki Yanofsky's 2010 Vancouver Olympics song I Believe), if a song makes it big in Canada it will make it big in the US eventually. Is this similar to the Irish charts vis-a-vis UK charts?

It's SOOO cringe!!! Levine's voice sounds like a screeching, inhuman auto-tuned mess... the lyrics are stupid as hell, trying to appeal to some ill-conceived and nonexistent nostalgia for pay phones (really??) and the cursing is beyond awkward... "one more f***ing love song, i'll be sick" indeed... utter TRASH. Why is this #1???????????

Agreed. And Train + Jason Mraz are huge album sellers because their demographic (women in their 30s/40s) is the only one that still buys albums :lol:

Well I was referring more to the period of 1998-2002. Led by Timberland, Dark Child, Dr. Dre, The Neptunes, etc., US R&B and hip/hop were really breaking new musical ground at the time. I agree that by the mid-2000's it was becoming dull and boring. I do have to point out that early two-step/garage out of the UK was also very fresh and always deserved more recognition and popularity in the US. Besides, Garth Brooks may have been the biggest album seller in the US but Billboard declared Mariah Carey the top artist of the 90s. She certainly sold well globally... garnering 22 top 40 hits in the UK that decade...

I agree with your overall point but must disagree that late 90s/early 2000s were a peak for music from the UK. 1999-2002 was dominated by S Club 7, Ronan Keating, B-Witched, Atomic Kitten... then came all the reality TV no-names and bad pop-punk boybands. Of course I liked many of these acts back in the day but I don't think any of them will be remembered into the future. I think at that time, the music scene in the UK was stagnated with bubble gum boy/girlbands. And the US music scene was really innovating with hip/hop and R&B. Britney, Destiny's Child, Eminem, etc. were miles ahead of UK pop acts. BUT, we all know within a few years it was the UK that was innovating and the US scene that had stagnated... dominated by increasingly dull and insipid hip/hop and "crunk." From 2005 onward, the UK scene has had a HUGE effect on improving and adapting US charts, pop radio, and the scene overall. Music out of the UK/Ireland is leading the world right now and FAR improved from 10 years ago.

Lately Glee has been picking up on songs after they've already achieved significant popularity (Glad You Came, Somebody That I Used to Know) and merely helped them rise faster. The big exception is We Are Young I guess. I actually wish Glee would lift more unique songs out of obscurity vs. piggybacking on the already established success of a song.

Yeah I don't understand the strategy of releasing Heart Vacancy next. Sappy, insipid... it's like an N Sync song straight out of 1999 (and sorry but Timberlake would be able handle the falsetto much better). I can't imagine pop radio will play it. Their other ballads (All Time Low, Lightning, Gold Forever) are all much better lyrically, far more modern sounding, and better position The Wanted as a hipper, edgier One Direction.

Thanks for the clarification! There is something about the song -- it's been stuck in my head for days. Finally decided to stop fighting and enjoy it.

I am so f***ing sick of Pitbull.

Can someone please explain to me why this song is so huge in Europe? I'm not being facetious... genuinely curious...

How did I miss this??? What a strange song to cross over. Maybe it's getting super heavy Latin radio play? I have a hard enough time understanding why this is popular in Europe...

The biggest victim of Billboard's airplay rules isn't One Direction but Carly Rae Jepsen. That Call Me Maybe has remained in the top 10 iTunes chart for weeks and weeks despite virtually ZERO airplay is astounding. It's currently RISING and is up to #6 even as the song is still outside the top 40 on airplay. I don't know how people are hearing the song enough to buy it in the numbers they are, but I'm happy about it.

Candidly, I think this is very unlikely... BUT... wouldn't it be great if The Wanted's album also debuted at #1?

I imagine it will also help the tween/Disney Channel pop stars. Acts like Justin Bieber who can rack up hundreds of millions of youtube views in a few months but never really have hit singles because radio generally ignores them and the fans may be too young to buy tracks en masse.

Wow, DIAMOND certification -- that takes me back! I don't think there's been a diamond album since Usher's Confessions in 2004. History in the making. I'm really starting to believe 21 will someday be in the same class as Thriller, Back in Black, The Wall, Rumours, etc. And I really didn't think that was possible anymore, now that the internet has broadened availability of music so widely (in the 60's you listened to what was on the radio station in your town; today almost all recorded music is at the click of a button). Astonishing.

It's so people get the album version. It will recover in a day or two. But this kind of thing does have an effect on the charts... Deleting Flo Rida's Right Round midweek in 2009 gave Poker Face its 1 week at #1 :)

Flo Rida - Good Feeling

It actually annoys the hell out of me how Skrillex HAS to have his name on a dubstep song for it to gain any popularity here. Case in point, his awful remix of Promises is charting on iTunes... even though the original/album version of the song is far superior and way more radio/crossover friendly.

Yeah, if we're including the 80s, don't forget Erasure, Duran Duran, A Flock of Seagulls, Yaz(oo), The Police, Kojagoogoo, Go West, Tears for Fears, Simply Red, Modern English, The Cure, Katrina and the Waves ... there must be many more...

I think you're right. I went through all the UK boyband hits I could remember and according to Wikipedia, Take That's Back for Good made #7, Five's When the Lights Go Out made #10, BBMak's Back Here made #13, Westlife's Swear It Again made #20... all of which probably should have charted higher but the Billboard Hot 100 was such a miserable chart for so many years... EDIT: Or I could have just looked at your post from tonight!!!!! Just noticed that :P

The Wanted did Chelsea Lately, too. I agree that One Direction has more potential behind them in terms of promotion but let's not forget that pop radio isn't too keen on the pre-teen/Disney set. You'd never know Bieber was popular by looking at the Hot 100, and while Salena Gomez and Miley Cyrus have had a couple radio hits, the Jonas Brothers, Lovato and scores of others have gone nowhere on pop radio. It's entirely possible that WMYB and One Direction as an act goes nowhere on radio and never crosses over beyond the Disney Channel audience.

PS: Horrible tattoos, ugh. Oh, the song? It's cute!

It's been done a million times (Olivia?) but I still burst out laughing at the ending.