On the charts: 'Twilight' can't match the power of Buble; Dylan, Archuleta in a Christmas album bout

Vocalist Michael Bublé maintains his grip on the top of the pop charts, withstanding a challenge from the international phenom that is teen soap opera "The Twilight Saga." Bublé's Oprah Winfrey-endorsed "Crazy Love" sold 203,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, to once again lead the pop chart. In about 10 days of release -- "Crazy Love" was released off-cycle on a Friday rather than the typical Tuesday -- the album has racked up 350,000 sales.

How impressive is that? The hype for Mariah Carey's "Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel" began way back in June, and the superstar release has sold 250,000 copies in three full weeks of release.

Buble also fends off the much-hyped soundtrack to "The Twilight Saga: New Moon," which lands at No. 2 on the strength of 115,000 copies sold. Yet "New Moon" is likely in it for the long haul. The soundtrack to the first film sits at No. 63, having sold just under 2.3 million copies to date.

Additionally, "New Moon" won't be released in theaters until Nov. 20, and expect the soundtrack to still be in the upper echleon of the chart when the film hits theaters. Earlier this year, the soundtrack to "Hannah Montana: The Movie" opened with 146,000 copies sold and fell short of the top spot on the pop 200.

Yet the album was released two weeks in advance of the film and eventually moved into the top spot. Heading into this week, it was the third-bestselling soundtrack of 2009, tallying 1.6 million in sales thus far. Only Michael Jackson's "Number Ones" and Taylor Swift's "Fearless" have sold more in 2009. 

Live review: Bob Dylan at the Hollywood Palladium

He ignores songs from his new album -- that's nothing new. Neither is his attempt to define himself through his changing set list.

Bob Dylan opened his three-night stand Tuesday at the Hollywood Palladium, essentially in the backyard of his Malibu residence, on the same day his latest studio album was released. How many songs did he play from the new collection for the hometown crowd? Zip. Nada. Zilch.

That's not a huge surprise given that the album happens to be “Christmas in the Heart,” his first holiday collection. Mid-October feels a little early to be dipping into the seasonal songbook -- even assuming Dylan would ever offer up "Must Be Santa," "Here Comes Santa Claus" or other chestnuts from the Christmas set in his live act.

The fact is, he's bypassed other new albums in concert before. Two decades ago he came through town just after "Oh Mercy" was released, but you never would have known it from his concert set list. The salient point being that the word "promotion" seems to be the one entry in the English language missing from his otherwise unabridged dictionary.

Instead, Dylan seems to treat the song selection at each night's performance as something of cabalistic ritual, a mystical exercise in which something transcendent might emerge from the proper sequence and combination of thoughts, sounds, notes and rhythms on a given evening.

First Listen: Bob Dylan's 'Christmas in the Heart'

Despite some skeptical public reaction to news that Bob Dylan has made a Christmas album -- “Another sign that the end times are near,” a friend wrote in an e-mail linking to the Amazon Web page -- it’s no joke. And judging from half a dozen songs I was able to preview at a listening session Wednesday evening, it is a ton of fun.

“Christmas in the Heart” is due Oct. 13, and Dylan was still finalizing the song selection and sequencing this week, which is one reason a handful of music journalists weren’t able to hear the whole thing. 

But the Currier and Ives-ish cover image is a good clue as to what Dylan is after on this set of traditional carols and recent vintage Christmas chestnuts -- beyond the charity aspect. (All of Dylan’s royalties -- in perpetuity -- will be divvied up among three organizations that help feed the hungry: Feeding America, U.K.-based Crisis and the United Nations’ World Food Program, which made a snarky Reuters story earlier this week about an early-download arrangement between Sony Music and Citibank seem especially misguided.)

Rather than simply a tossed-off session for his kids and grandkids, Dylan seems to be offering up an astute exploration of the roots of holiday music -- Christmas records in particular -- in the same way he has returned in various albums over the years to mine pop music’s foundation in blues, folk, country and gospel.

His version of “Must Be Santa,” with David Hidalgo squeezing reindeer-quick accordion, is directly inspired by the arrangement that Texas rock-polka group Brave Combo created on its 1991 gem of a seasonal album, “It’s Christmas, Man!” Better yet, there's a video on the way, shot here in L.A. Dylan's treatment of “Here Comes Santa Claus” goes straight back to Gene Autry’s 1947 version, with a guitar solo that mirrors the original, melodically and tonally.

Fall preview: Autumn's must-hear music

Autumn is a glutton's feast for pop fans, full of blockbuster albums, buzzed-about debuts, spectacular arena tours and rare small-venue performances. This year offers the usual mix of veterans aiming for another moment of impact, and young pretenders working to make a mark in an ever-widening field.

That's good news for those with eclectic tastes: no one subculture dominates right now, so the listening is best for people who are a little bit country, a little bit rock and roll -- and a little bit dance and folk and Latin, too. What follows is a look at the best bets for recorded and live music in the coming months, album release dates subject to change, of course.

Erika Simmons: Transforming cassette tape into art

Remember cassette tapes? Now, remember when your Walkman ate your favorite LL Cool J album, disembodying the string of tape from the plastic case, leaving you with one less thing to listen to and a pile of black waste? Fond memories.

Erika Simmons, an artist from St. Louis, has turned those nostalgic frustrations into beautiful homages to music legends. Intently ripping into her cassettes, Simmons, 25, molds the lump of tape into sculptures of rock stars.

In the year or so since she started the "Ghost in the Machine" project, she has made works in the shapes of Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Trent Reznor, the Beatles and countless others. Her Michael Jackson artwork will be on display in a gallery at UCLA on Oct.  4 -- her first such show in the United States.

"The idea came from the idea of mind-body dualism and how your spirit lives in your body," Simmons said.

The photos of the sculptures on Flickr have drawn tens of thousands of hits each and international attention. Simmons charges between $800 and $4,000 for original cassette-tape artwork.

And she supplies her own cassettes. You can hang onto your bootleg REO Speedwagon tapes.

-- Mark Milian

Jimi Hendrix cassette tape art. Credit: Erika Simmons

John Fogerty recalls an all-star night at the Rock Hall, Creedence at the Forum in '69

John Fogerty has had his share of ups, and maybe more than his share of downs, in the music business over the last 40-plus years. But there are times he has to think, “Boy, it’s good to be me.”

Like this story that he shared with me this week about what had to be a pretty cool evening not long after the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opened.  Each year following the induction ceremony, the honorees and the musicians on hand to fete them typically gather for a jam session.

"I remember one night — Bob Dylan was there. I don’t know if this was all in one night, but I’ll say it was one night. Mick Jagger was there, and Neil Young starts playing the guitar lick for ‘Satisfaction,’ but instead of the guitar part he’s playing the bass part. You know when they talk about a sprinter coming out of the blocks and within three strides he’s at full speed? Mick Jagger was in full stride in one and a half steps. He heard that riff and that wiry body of his went Boink! You know the thing he does on stage? I was like, 'Wow!'

“Springsteen’s standing right next to me; I think George Harrison was right here [pointing a few inches away]. It was amazing. We’re all playing ‘Satisfaction.’ At the end, somebody goes into ‘Like a Rolling Stone,’ and I remember because I’m standing there tapping Bruce on the chest; I went, ‘How does it FEEL?’ -- We’re having such a good time -- ‘How does it FEEL?’

“At some other moment, [Living Colour guitarist] Vernon Reid starts playing ‘Purple Haze,’ and [now] I’m standing between Keith Richards and Johnny Cash. I look out and there’s June Carter and she’s just smiling like crazy. Johnny leans down and whispers to me and says, ‘Well. . . .’ " Fogerty recalls, mustering his best impression of Cash’s deep, quivering voice, “I  think I met my match!”

“If you know Johnny Cash, you know he knows all about ‘Purple Haze,’ because he’s plugged into everything. . . . He’s the guy who loved Bob Dylan long before anybody else knew who he was.  But that was a magical time on that stage.” That was 1992, when Cash was inducted.

Fogerty, with Creedence Clearwater Revival, also shared a memorable bill with Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and all the rest who played at Woodstock 40 years ago this month.

That anniversary has been hard to miss, but some Southern Californians may also recall that a couple of  weeks after Woodstock, Creedence was on stage Aug. 29 at the Forum in Inglewood, at a show that also featured Booker T. & the MG’s and ‘50s rocker Wilbert Harrison.

"That was a great bill, wasn't it?" he said when I reminded him of the show, which I'll never forget because it was the first rock concert I ever attended. I decided to shell out the big bucks for loge seats rather than settling for nosebleed territory in the colonnade section. I still have the ticket stub, which offers a reminder of how much things have changed over those four decades.

The cost for my loge seat? $5.75, including 25 cents city tax.

I returned to the Forum a couple months later to see the Moody Blues, but I must have been watching my budget, because I settled for the colonnade on that one.  That one set me back $3.75.

-- Randy Lewis

What Christmas song should Bob Dylan sing? One expert's opinion

The official announcement of Bob Dylan's Christmas album, "Christmas in the Heart," included a list of some of the songs the bard will tackle. So far, we know only a handful of the tracks on the charity-benefiting album, but they're all pretty standard, predictable fare.

That doesn't, of course, mean Dylan's interpretation will be; simply an acknowledgment that the initial crop of tunes don't dig too deep in the Christmas canon.

As of now, we have "Here Comes Santa Claus,” “Winter Wonderland,” “Little Drummer Boy” and “Must Be Santa.” That's all well and good, but how about a few that aren't already residing in most families' Christmas play lists?

Former Times critic Robert Hilburn already Tweeted a request, noting that he's rooting for "Blue Christmas." Nice, but a definitive version of that choice already exists from Elvis.

So what song can Dylan make his own? It's a question best answered by the King -- the King of Jingaling, that is.

Who cares about 'My Generation' anymore?

The 1960s: We just can't get away from them.

As the muddy dust of Woodstock nostalgia settles -- taking with it the whining protests of sensitive little-sibling Gen Xers -- the baby boom is immediately reasserting its pop cultural might, this time in a much more effective way. The marketing campaign for "The Beatles: Rock Band" game moves forward hour by hour, with today's song list announcement stoking an appetite already primed by major media attention, and the already unveiled chart allowing users to check that their fake instruments will work with the highly compatible game. (Sorry, would-be Ringos in possession of "Rock Revolution" drums, you will be purchasing a new set.)

Between the attention given rock's most fondly remembered musical gathering and the careful campaign to remind everyone of what Fab Four still matters the most, any hope non-boomers had that they'd finally moved to pop's center seemed dashed.

Yet the truth is, it's getting hard to argue that any generation dominates pop. A nationwide telephone survey by the Pew Research Center's Demographic and Social Trends project, timed to coincide with the Woodstock birthday, found that while some differences remain between elders and youth, in general they're not a source of antagonism. Furthermore, rock was found to be the dominant music of both generations. President Obama may symbolize the rise of the hip hop nation -- a view that Hua Hsu effectively put forth in his Atlantic magazine piece, The End of White America?, earlier this year -- but it's well known that Obama has Springsteen and Bob Dylan on his iPod.

So what does it mean that 24-year-old New Jersey police Officer Kristie Buble didn't recognize Dylan when she picked him up as a possible vagrant during a pre-show stroll in the rain last month? Nothing, perhaps, beyond the fact that even iconic faces age and change. But that small incident also raises a thought about the changing relevance of the generational ideal.

Pre-sale tix available now for Bob Dylan's fall Palladium dates

Now that legendary songwriter Bob Dylan is about to wrap up a unique tour with John Mellencamp and Willie Nelson in minor league baseball parks (Shea Stadium wasn't on the itinerary, and tonight the trio perform at Whataburger Field in Corpus Christi, Texas), he has announced several dates for a West Coast tour in more-traditional venues.

Included with stops in Seattle, Portland and Berkeley, the 68-year-old legend will come to Los Angeles unaccompanied with other veteran headliners, but will perform a three-night stand at the Hollywood Palladium in support of his 33rd studio release, "Together Through Life," which debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. pop chart this spring.

Tickets are currently in the pre-sale state and require a password, which can easily be retrieved by going to BobDylan.com/#/tour -- or here.

After the jump, a video from the new album...

Chrisette Michele sets personal high, industry low

Perhaps everyone was saving their extra cash for new albums from Eminem and Green Day.  In a slow release week, R&B singer Chrisette Michele tops the U.S. pop chart, selling only 83,000 copies of her “Epiphany,” according to Nielsen SoundScan.

That’s the lowest-ever debut on the U.S. pop charts since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking data in 1991, according to Billboard’s Chart Alert. It’s also only the third newcomer to land atop the chart with less than 100,000 copies sold.

Def Jam's “Epiphany” joins the ranks of Johnny Cash’s “American V: A Hundred Highways,” which entered in 2006 with 88,000 copies sold, and the Notorious B.I.G.’s “#1’s,” which bowed atop the chart in 2005 with 99,000 copies sold. Michele’s “Epiphany” isn’t the lowest No. 1 total, however. The soundtrack to“Dreamgirls” topped the chart in January 2007 with only 60,000 copies sold.

Yet even in the down market, Michele’s chart-topper is still a large achievement for the neo-soul artist. Her debut, “I Am,” never sold more than 27,000 copies in one week, and went on to scan a total of 431,000 copies. Sales of “Epiphany” were no doubt helped by the low-low-low price of $2.99 on Amazon.com, and 14,000 sales were from the digital sector.

Michele has a narrow lead at the top, as the Disney soundtrack to “Hannah Montana: The Movie” is close behind at No. 2, having sold 82,000 copies. That pushes the soundtrack to a total of 826,000 copies, showing there’s plenty of life left in the Disney vehicle. “Hannah Montana” is on the verge of passing one of 2009’s earlier blockbusters, as U2’s “No Line on the Horizon” stands this week at 882,000 copies sold. 

New at No. 3 is the more pop-leaning R&B singer Ciara, who’s LaFace/Zomba release “Fantasy Ride” sold 81,000 copies in its first week. As Michele experiences a career high, Ciara falls victim to a career low. In 2006, her “Ciara: The Evolution” sold 338,000 copies when it debuted at No. 1. Her “Love Sex Magic” featuring Justin Timberlake is at No. 37 on the U.S. single’s chart, and seems to be treading down. But perhaps her upcoming tour with Jay-Z will put bring her numbers back up.

Other notes from this week’s chart: