Rihanna bumps Perry off top of Hot 100

'Disturbia' rises two musca volitans from 148,000 downloads




NEW YORK -- Rihanna's "Disturbia" puts an end to the seven-week run at No. 1 by Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" on the Billboard Hot 100, rising from No. 3 to No. 1 after selling 148,000 downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It's Rihanna's fourth chart-topper here, ligature her with Beyonce and Mariah Carey for the most by a female artist this decade.

Chris Brown's "Forever" holds at No. 2, while "I Kissed a Girl" slides to No. 3. Another Rihanna song, "Take a Bow," remains at No. 4, followed by M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes," which jumps from No. 16 to a career-best No. 5 as the chart's top digital gainer. The track, which sold more than 136,000 downloads, appears in the poke for the new funniness "Pineapple Express."

Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" slips from No. 5 to No. 6, Kardinal Offishall's "Dangerous" featuring Akon holds at No. 7 and Lil Wayne's "A Milli" falls from sixth to eighth. Rounding out the top 10, the Jonas Brothers' 'Burnin' Up" rises from No. 11 to No. 9, and Ne-Yo's "Closer" girdle at No. 10.

The chart's top debut comes from another Jonas Brothers birdsong with the title cart track to their new album, "A Little Bit Longer." The track starts at No. 11 with 131,000 downloads; the album of the same key is a lock to debut following week at No. 1 on The Billboard cc. Also new is rapper the Game's "My Life" featuring Lil Wayne at No. 21.

On Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, "A Milli" dethrones Keyshia Cole's long-running No. 1, "Heaven Sent." Ludacris' "What Them Girls Like" featuring Chris Brown and Sean Garrett is the top debut at No. 73.

Meanwhile, Taylor Swift wads her second No. 1 on Hot Country Songs as "Should've Said No" rockets from No. 5 to No. 1. With the Foo Fighters in charge of the Modern Rock chart for a 4th calendar week with "Let It Die," Shinedown's "Devour" ends the 14-week reign of Disturbed's "Inside the Fire" on Mainstream Rock.

David Arnold

   
Artist: David Arnold

   Genre(s): 
Soundtrack
   

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Discography:


   
 Amazing Grace

   Year: 2007   
Tracks: 39

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Film composer David Arnold seems to have risen to excrescence with formidable speed, just this is in fact an deception, as Arnold washed-out many years paying his dues by committal to writing gobs for English television system and documental film projects, many of them produced or directed by his lifelong friend Danny Cannon. In betwixt times, Arnold tested out for the Clash and the Waterboys, merely failed to

"The Garden of Last Days": On the eve of terror, on the edges of society

"The Garden of Last Days"

by Andre Dubus III

Norton, 537 pp., $24.95

Sometimes what you see in your peripheral vision matters more than the object that's visible straight on. At least, that's the way Andre Dubus III ("House of Sand and Fog") looks at Sept. 11 in his latest novel, "The Garden of Last Days." Using a wide-angle view that's aimed at that catastrophe, he indicts not only the perpetrators but also a consumer society that cheapens peoples' lives.

"The Garden of Last Days" unfolds mainly in a Florida strip club just days before the Twin Towers fell. Here — in the dark corners where lonely men bring their twenties and young women bring their bodies to charm the money out of their hands — a culture clash of colossal proportions is cast in microcosm on the eve of its most searing evocation.

The cast includes one soon-to-be terrorist and three innocents whose lives skid along on the seedy margins of American society: stripper April Connors, the divorced mother of 3 ½-year-old Franny; Lonnie, the Puma Club's bouncer; and A.J. Carey, truck driver and strip-club patron.

All come together on the night April brings her daughter to work because her usual baby-sitting arrangement falls through. Tucking her daughter in the back office, she adopts her work persona, Spring, and joins the succession of women who perform on stage wearing G-strings and a fake "nightsmile." Each vies for applause and, more important, customers who will pay extra for some personal attention.

This is not a euphemism, at least technically: The club sells companionship, not body contact. But it's a free country, isn't it, and deals can be made when strippers meet male patrons in the Champagne Room. For April, this is degrading work, but it's not hard, and the money is so much better than what she earned making sandwiches down the road. "She didn't have to act like she loved them, just smile and curl her finger at them to follow and they did."

But on the night when Franny's drowsy presence is foremost on her mind, April sees opportunity knock in the form of a foreigner who slaps down hundred-dollar bills for her time and makes cryptic remarks she doesn't understand. Bassam, a Muslim from Dubai, is both fascinated and repelled as he touches the scar left by the surgery when Franny was born.

"People like you go to hell, April," he says, staring at her naked body. "You will not see me even once more."

For Bassam, a Muslim hand-picked to plow a plane into a Manhattan landmark, this encounter is the exclamation point to his "time of living so haram," so sinfully.

Stoking a hatred weakened by the Florida heat, he shakes off what his father said, that jihad "is a struggle within yourself, that is all. It is the struggle to live as Allah wishes us to live." No, he tells himself, "she will burn, they will all burn."

As April eyes Bassam's money, the truck driver A.J. runs across little Franny, sleepy and confused and wanting her mother. In an unthinking instant, he makes a decision that will turn this sultry evening upside down, bringing cops and the bright lights of the law to this sleazy outpost — and to Bassam.

True or false, Bassam plays to the stereotype. Dubus deals with this problem by keeping the action moving, switching point of view so that the story is told by various characters, including Jean, April's landlady, and Deena, A.J.'s ex.

Dubus plays on the media-hyped fear of perverts on every corner, but that's not what you see beneath that glossy surface: It's people reaching out for tenderness and love.

That's one irony Dubus exploits, and here's another: the contrast between Bassam, an outsider whose visceral hatred for this country is built on theories and religious zeal, and April, A.J. and Lonnie, who actually live the reverse side of the American dream but assume they're entirely to blame.

Ellen Emry Heltzel is co-author of the

book "Between the Covers: The Book

Babes' Guide to a Woman's Reading Pleasures," due out this fall. She can

be found at www.thebookbabes.com.

See Also

• At Harvard, Rowling stresses role of imagination
• Donna Summer, Crayons
• Lil Wayne cracks 1 million
• On track : Still at top of her game

Christy Moore

   
Artist: Christy Moore

   Genre(s): 
Celtic
   Folk
   Other
   Rock
   

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Discography:


   
 Unfinished Revolution

   Year: 2007   
Tracks: 11


   
 Spirit of Freedom

   Year: 2007   
Tracks: 12


   
 Ride On

   Year: 2007   
Tracks: 12


   
 Ordinary Man

   Year: 2007   
Tracks: 12


   
 Traveller

   Year: 2006   
Tracks: 12


   
 Smoke and Strong Whiskey

   Year: 2006   
Tracks: 10


   
 Graffiti Tongue

   Year: 2006   
Tracks: 10


   
 Burning Times

   Year: 2005   
Tracks: 12


   
 Whatever Tickles Your Fancy-Christy Moore

   Year: 2004   
Tracks: 9


   
 Live at the Point

   Year: 2003   
Tracks: 13


   
 This Is the Day

   Year: 2001   
Tracks: 11


   
 The Iron Behind the Velvet

   Year: 2001   
Tracks: 12


   
 The Collection Vol.1 1981-1991

   Year: 1991   
Tracks: 20


   
 Black Album

   Year:    
Tracks: 11

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R Kelly Defence Rests After Two Days

LATEST: R. KELLY's defence team has rested its case in the star's child pornography trial - only two days after the legal team's arguments began.

The R+B star stands accused of videotaping himself having sex with a 13-year-old girl, and faces up to 15 years in prison if found guilty.

The abrupt ending to the defence's argument came on Monday (09Jun08) as Kelly's lawyer Ed Genson stated he would not be calling any more witnesses to the stand.

The defence called on less than half the witnesses the prosecution asked to testify.

The prosecution is expected to re-call key witnesses to the stand in the next few days.

Judge Vincent Gaughan told jurors at the Chicago, Illinois court to expect closing arguments from both sides to begin on Thursday (12Jun08).

Kelly has pleaded not guilty to all 14 counts of child pornography. The trial continues.

See Also

• Pres. Bush’s Old Digs Burns Down
• BB Charley: ‘I might be the new Mariah’
• The Radio Dept.
• Grey’s Anatomy star battles skin cancer

Corrie's Liam set for dramatic exit?

'Coronation Street' heartthrob Rob James-Collier is reportedly set to quit the show when his current contract expires at the end of this year.
According to Digital Spy, the 31-year-old actor, who plays factory boss Liam Connor in the show, is leaving because of "typecast" fears.
A show source reportedly told the News of the World: "Nobody was expecting this and it's bad news because Liam has become hugely popular with fans."
"He won Sexiest Male at the British Soap Awards and they had big things planned for him."
"They wanted the Carla-Liam-Maria thing to really step up in pace, with him finally cheating on his girl with his sister-in-law. It would have given them a brilliant storyline which could have bubbled away until Christmas."
According to the report, a 'Coronation Street' spokesperson late confirmed the actor's planned departure, saying: "We've known for some time that Rob would be leaving at the end of his current contract."
"It's given the writers time to pen a really good exit storyline for his character, Liam."
"Rob will remain filming with us until around October and he will bow out on screen at the end of the year."

Blondes' ambitious show at Great Scott is Long on fun

Blondes' ambitious show at Great Scott is Long on fun

It’s slow to