Keeping Up With The Music Industry

It is one thing to keep up with the hottest artists and songs. Keeping tabs on the ever-changing music industry is another animal altogether. Will increases in digital downloads make up for the drop in CD sales? Are subscription services the future of the industry? Questions like these are covered in the #1 music industry website: http://www.billboard.biz/, which is of course part of the original Billboard Magazine. This site is easily the most comprehensive, with a dedicated reporting and research staff continuously adding content. The best blogging site that we've found is Coolfer: http://www.coolfer.com/. This blog has great coverage of industry events and hot topics, with just the right touch of personal opinion mixed in. TopHitsOnline will continue to track the top songs and artists, but Billboard.biz and Coolfer are the authorities on industry happenings.

imeem you meem

There has been a huge wave of new music websites that capitalize on the social networking revolution of the internet. One of the leaders is imeem. In terms of traffic, it is the #1 social networking music website and is in the top 150 websites overall worldwide. On imeem you can create a playlist from a huge selection of songs, and listen to that playlist as much as you want at no cost (imeem makes money from advertising). Of course you can also view others' profiles, playlists, and send them messages. You can also upload your own music, videos, and pictures to the site. For sharing and discovering new music, imeem is definitely worth checking out.

- www.imeem.com

THO 100 Update for the week ending July 26, 2008

It's a pretty quiet chart this week, with very little movement inside the top 10. Coldplay hangs on for a fourth week at #1 with "Viva La Vida," while Madonna and Katy Perry still sit at #2 and #3. One of the hottest songs on the chart is Kid Rock's "All Summer Long." It has been pushing up several international charts, including the US and UK. This might become Kid Rock's first THO number one hit. But he might have to eventually fight off this week's highest debut: Mariah Carey's "I'll Be Lovin' U Long Time." It joins five other new songs onto the chart this week.

- Current chart
- Chart archive
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New Album Releases for July 29, 2008

Sugarland - Love On The Inside
Kidz Bop Kids - Kidz Bop 14
Third Day - Revelation
Scars On Broadway - Scars On Broadway
Rick Springfield - Venus In Overdrive
DJ Laz - Catagory 6
Coolio - Steal Hear
Alice Cooper - Along Came A Spider
Soulfly - Conquer
Eddie Floyd - Eddie Loves You So
Walls Of Jericho - The American Dream
Cephas & Wiggins - Richmond Blues

- Full list of new and future album releases
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Personal Charts

Music fans have been keeping lists of their favorite songs ever since Elvis and The Beatles. For many people, it was something they did in private and didn't share with others. But with the rise of the Internet, people began to realize they weren't the only ones who kept these lists. Now with the ease of sharing information via social networking on the web, there is a huge community of people sharing their "personal charts" on a weekly basis. The THO 100 is based entirely on these personal charts. There are several websites that claim to have the largest community of personal chartkeepers, but our partner website, www.AlaskaJim.com, has the largest compiled list of personal chart web pages. If you have a weekly personal chart on the web that isn't on that list, let us know!

Song Lyrics on the Web

There are hundreds websites where you can find lyrics for just about any hit song. Are any of them legal? Sadly, most are not. But the publishing companies turn their back to those sites because they know that the sites help to promote their own artists. (Plus they haven't figured out a good way to monetize lyrics yet themselves.) Most lyrics sites allow you to search by song title, artist, or words within the lyrics themselves. As long as you know at least a few words of a song, you should be able to find out who it is and where you can buy it. While we'd like you to help TopHitsOnline by using our own lyrics database (http://www.tophitsonline.com/archive.php), here are two of our other favorite lyrics sites:
- www.lyricsdemon.com
- www.azlyrics.com

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Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

We've decided to take make some changes to this blog/subscription that we hope everyone will enjoy. First of all, we're going to try to post every day (no guarantees there). Second, when we aren't talking about the THO 100 chart, we are going to start highlighting some of the best music websites around the web. While you might not find all of the websites we mention useful or fun, we're sure that you'll be thanking us at least once in a while...

The first website we want to mention is one we have had bookmarked for a long time. Have you ever wondered where you can find full historical chart information for the Billboard Hot 100 and the Official UK Chart? It's not easy to find... usually you'll have to pay for it because Billboard keeps their chart information under wraps so that you WILL pay for it. However, there is one website that displays historical chart information by artist: MusicVF.com

http://www.musicvf.com/

We're fairly certain the website is breaking copyrights, but it is there nonetheless. At the top of the site you can search by artist to see every song that they have charted in both the US and UK, as well as the US dance, modern rock, and r&b charts (with occasional comments). This website is sure to settle some arguments!
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