Three Rising Hits Wait For “Superman” To Fly Away From Hot 100

Ed. note: Chris “dennisobell” Molanphy, our resident chart guru, looks at the upward, downward, and lack of movement on the Billboard Hot 100 in the latest installment of “100 And Single”:

Like planes on a runway, three fast-rising singles are lined up at the bottom of the Top Five on Billboard‘s Hot 100. But they’ve got to radio the tower and get two jumbo jets to stop hogging the tarmac: Kanye West, whose still-hot “Stronger” is at No. 2 for a fourth straight week (his sixth runner-up week overall, broken by a single week at No. 1 last month); and super-soaking chart champ Soulja Boy, now in his sixth week at No. 1 with “Crank That (Soulja Boy).” With both Soulja’s and Kanye’s singles seeing slowdowns in airplay and drops in digital sales of 15-20% each, this week could mark the start of their slow decline.

Does “No One” See Keys Coming? The three challengers lined up at Nos. 3 through 5 are exactly the contenders we discussed last week: “Apologize,” Timbaland’s teamup with the Fray II… er, OneRepublic; “No One,” Alicia Keys’s comeback smash; and “Bubbly,” Colbie Caillat’s sleepy sleeper hit, finally in the Top Five after a slow-and-steady 16-week chart run.

On its face, Timba and OneRepublic’s gushy ballad remains the likeliest to take the crown. It’s growing steadily in airplay, and explosively on iTunes and other buck-a-tune sites. You’d never know it from the song’s meager Hot 100 move this week to No. 3 from No. 4 — or its move on the digital-sales chart from No. 3 to No. 2 — but “Apologize” had a stellar week, moving 133,000 downloads–a 16% increase, which garnered it Billboard‘s “Sales Gainer” prize. Another week or two like this, especially if radio catches up with sales (“Apologize” is nearing the Top 10 on Hot 100 Airplay), and OneRepublic will be popping champagne even before its debut album drops.

That is, if Keys doesn’t sneak around them. Her move to No. 4 from No. 8 is the most impressive in this week’s Top 10, moving past the slower-rising Caillat. On the radio side, “No One” has a massive built-in advantage: a double-shot of airplay from both Top 40 stations and R&B stations, something that Timbaland can’t count on from his pop/rock crossover hit. (To digress, this is one of the many reasons why the last 10 years on the charts have found hits by white people–or, in this case, a black producer remixing a very white band’s pop ballad–at a severe disadvantage.) Couple her already-Top 5 airplay with a 24% boost in digital sales (the only reason Timba won the Billboard sales award is his total increase, which was numerically bigger), and you have a formula for her return to No. 1. This could get interesting.

Corporate Rock Still Sells…and Sometimes Plays: Since the past week saw the debut of Al “GovernmentNames” Shipley’s new column on the vagaries of up-the-middle rock, I thought perhaps “100 and Single” should take a look at how rock’s doing on the big, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink pop chart. Simply put, is anything currently in the Modern Rock Top 10 doing any business on the Hot 100?

One song is, and it’s shaping up to be an honest-to-goodness pop hit: Finger Eleven’s “Paralyzer.” The song topped Modern Rock literally months ago and will probably end up in that format’s top two for all of 2007–alongside Linkin Park–thanks to its slow climb and slower fall (in its 35th week on Modern Rock, it’s still in the Top Five). On the Hot 100, the Canucks’ catchy hit is up six spots this week to No. 26, as pop fans, and the stations they listen to, finally glom onto its virtual-disco beat. That chart move doesn’t even fully indicate how strongly this old, old song is crossing over: it moves into the Top 20 in digital sales (up 16%) and into the Top 40 in airplay (now getting more radio action than T-Pain’s “Bartender”!).

By comparison, nothing else in the Modern Rock Top 10 has even made the pop Top 40. Only the chart’s undisputed champion, Foo Fighters’ “The Pretender,” is making any headway on the big chart, moving a modest five spots to No. 48, and that’s even while Dave Grohl’s latest enters its third month at No. 1 on Modern Rock and second month on top of Mainstream Rock. The two lessons: the rock radio formats represent a small proportion of the Hot 100’s total points; and to cross over with a rock hit, you really have to cross over, with teeny-bopper radio giving the kind of lift only it can provide.

Carriewatch: Briefly, it’s a good week on the charts for American Idol‘s all-time most successful winner (yeah, fellow Clarkson fans, you heard me, and it gives me no joy). “So Small,” Carrie Underwood’s first single from her forthcoming album Carnival Ride, shoots 15 spaces into the Top 40 (and enters the Country chart’s Top Five). Meanwhile, her ancient single’s run for the record books keeps chugging, as “Before He Cheats” actually sneaks up a couple of spots to No. 42, in its 59th week on the Hot 100. “Cheats” is now in the all-time longevity Top Five, and if it hangs onto the chart’s top half for two more weeks, it’ll move past “Macarena.”

While we’re mentioning Idol, my long-held theory that Taylor Hicks’ win in 2006 broke the show’s business model may be gaining another data point. The show’s 2007 winner, Jordin Sparks, has another tepid week with her first “official” single, “Tattoo.” It’s now at No. 55 after debuting two weeks ago at…No. 58. And there’s nothing handicapping her: the song is up at iTunes, if selling weakly; radio airplay is building (New York’s Z100 reports strong requests) but nationwide, so far, it’s negligible.

Stuff to Watch: Soulja Boy’s lead in total chart points is probably too huge for anyone to unseat him next week, but two weeks should do it. So start placing bets now on the Timba-vs.-Alicia fight. Further down the chart, Chris “Hey, I like to sing, too” Brown is trying to make us forget his new album’s dud first single (“Wall to Wall”) never happened, and thanks to T-Pain he appears to be pulling it off. Expect “Kiss Kiss” (No. 22, up from No. 35) to make the Top 10 by the middle of November, giving T-Pain a possible featured-vocal hat trick.

The top 20, with last week’s position and total weeks charted in parentheses: 1. Soulja Boy, “Crank That (Soulja Boy), Soulja Boy Tell’em” (LW No. 1, 14 weeks) 2. Kanye West, “Stronger” (LW No. 2, 12 weeks) 3. Timbaland feat. OneRepublic, “Apologize” (LW No. 4, 11 weeks) 4. Alicia Keys, “No One” (LW No. 8, 6 weeks) 5. Colbie Caillat, “Bubbly” (LW No. 7, 16 weeks) 6. Britney Spears, “Gimme More” (LW No. 3, 6 weeks) 7. Timbaland feat. Keri Hilson & D.O.E., “The Way I Are” (LW No. 5, 20 weeks) 8. J. Holiday, “Bed” (LW No. 6, 13 weeks) 9. Fergie, “Big Girls Don’t Cry” (LW No. 9, 26 weeks) 10. Kanye West feat. T-Pain, “Good Life” (LW No. 10, 5 weeks) 11. Baby Bash feat. T-Pain, “Cyclone” (LW No. 13, 12 weeks) 12. 50 Cent feat. Justin Timberlake & Timbaland, “Ayo Technology” (LW No. 11, 10 weeks) 13. Nickelback, “Rockstar” (LW No. 12, 36 weeks) 14. Pink, “Who Knew” (LW No. 14, 19 weeks) 15. Rihanna feat. Ne-Yo, “Hate That I Love You” (LW No. 18, 7 weeks) 16. Keyshia Cole feat. Missy Elliott & Lil Kim, “Let It Go” (LW No. 16, 17 weeks) 17. matchbox twenty, “How Far We’ve Come” (LW No. 15, 7 weeks) 18. Plies feat. T-Pain, “Shawty” (LW No. 17, 18 weeks) 19. Maroon 5, “Wake Up Call” (LW No. 23, 10 weeks) 20. Plain White T’s, “Hey There Delilah” (LW No. 20, 29 weeks)