Braff Rock Re-Emerges, Thanks To The Power Of Matrimony

For a while, it seemed that between Hotel Cafe tours and the irresistible lure of Zach Braff’s personality, the sort of Triple-A singer/songwritery pop performed by artists like Cary Brothers was ready to take over the world. But then, the limited success of Braff’s film The Last Kiss and Coldplay’s increasing tendency toward writing strange epics about the overthrowing of royalty helped that hype die down rather quickly. For one shining moment yesterday, though, the dream of sensitive, guitar-strumming guys everywhere was realized.

Despite Metallica’s likely chart dominance for awhile, Joshua Radin took the top spot on the iTunes chart for a few hours yesterday, although it’s back down to No. 2 on that chart at last check. I couldn’t quite figure out why a digital prerelease (the physical album hits stores on the 30th) by an artist who only hit No. 37 on the Heatseekers chart with his last album managed to push aside Metallica, if only for a day. A few moments of Google sleuthing turned up the likely source of the sales surge: A nationally televised wedding video.

Last week’s season premiere of The Ellen DeGeneres Show featured the above video, which used Radin’s song “Today”; he’d performed it at the ceremony. Somewhat strangely, the track doesn’t appear on Radin’s new album, but maybe people were just that inspired by the montage. If Radin’s sales hold up to push him into the Billboard top ten, look for a dozen articles about the emergence of “whisper rock,” Somewhere in Florida, Sam Beam is totally psyched.

Ellen DeGeneres Debuts Wedding Video and Pics on Talk Show, the Footage [Ace Showbiz]