#PI: Where They Cut Off Your Ear If They Don't Like Your Face
Similar to that of the fictional city, the world of #PopIndustry turns out to be a magical land, a mystical place with a Genie inside every door... or Christina Aguilera inside every Streaming Chart, Adam Levine inside every twink or Lana Del Rey inside every challenge thread... oh wait no. Many stereotypes exist about this place and of course, all of them are true. Especially one; a fool off his guard will fall hard. And, fall hard, the 'D.U.M.B' certainly do.
Fourteen? What does it mean? Well, there's many things it relates to; the number of boyfriends Taylor Swift will run through by her next album release, the number of flops Gwen Stefani will have before the year runs out, or the amount of times Troye Sivan will ask T.O.P to pound him tonight in hope it'll make him forget about his recent traumatic experience? Yes, all of that is true. But, in addition, it's also the number of number-one singles by Capitol Queen, Katy Perry. 'A Whole New World' - Perry's collaboration with some guy who she says was added onto the song as a charitable donation - flies all the way to the number-one spot of the Hot Singles Chart. Parent record, 'Aladdin', becomes Perry's seventh number-one album (and second number-one soundtrack) to date. Dedicating this charticle to Perry's newest number-one, we obviously have to assign Princess Jasmine to Perry, but we can't help but wonder how we'd compare our other sponsored artists to fellow Disney characters.
As we move on from our recent number-one, let's talk about an artist whose still stuck in the moments when the original 'Aladdin' collaboration was number-one on the Billboard Hot 100... over twenty-five years ago. And that artist is none other than Gwen Stefani with her inappropriately-titled record, '1999' (which we suggest should have been renamed to '1324'). We compare Stefani - whose debut studio album surges to the number-two spot on the Top Albums Chart this week - to that of Maurice from 'Beauty & the Beast' - an inventor fascinated by creations of the past (like all of her single covers... and her husband). Unfortunately Stefani suffers from her own case of pneumonia this week as 'D.U.M.B' lands at the #11 spot - her third consecutive non top-10. We ask Stefani to employ some modern methods in the future... so we basically ask her not to be herself.
For once, we're going to take our own advice to Stefani and talk about one of our own modern discoveries; Normani. Ex-member of a boyband or girlband (we're not sure which), Normani has proved everyone wrong with the longevity of her debut single, 'Black Girl Magic' and the number-three debut of her self-titled album release this week. Earlier this week, we received an anonymous letter about Normani's career so far. It read: "I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS SHIT. SHE ADDED THAT FOREHEAD-LOOKING BITCH ONTO THE SINGLE REMIX INSTEAD OF ME? SHE ACTUALLY THOUGHT I LIKED HER?? THAT DUMB BITCH!". We can only wonder who that was from. Personally, we would compare new artist to Normani to Elsa from 'Frozen'... because she's the only Disney character from the last fifteen years we've actually heard of.
There's something special about double acts in the movies; from Lilo and Stitch, to Yzma and Kronk, to Flounder and Sebastian, to even the old days of Bambi's mom and the Hunter who killed her... oops. But what about Gaston and LeFou from 'Beauty & the Beast'? Well, we have our very own Beast duo in #PI: the newly established T.O.P and Atlantic-executive Troye Sivan. Originally, we assumed that T.O.P lives up to his stage-name whilst in the relationship, and we initially presumed this to be true looking at the positions of 'FAT & FAMOUS' (#8) and 'Truth or Dare' (#10) on the Hot Singles Chart. However, upon seeing that 'afterlife' (#8) remains above the debut of 'GLUTTONY.' (#9) on the Top Albums Chart, we have to take back our earlier suggestion. Perhaps, we would compare them to the flip-flop duo of Li Shang and Fa Mulan.
The payola cheques still haven't run out. Kesha paid us once again to be mentioned in this article (although considering she's signed to Ariana Grande's record label, we aren't surprised), just like she paid all six featuring artists on her new single 'Juicy' which enters at the number-two spot on the Hot Singles Chart this week. If only, she paid them to be credited on her newest album collection ('The Singles... In Orbit'), it might have made the top-five. Kesha is too much of an engima to be compared to only one character, so instead we'll compare her to every animal from 'The Jungle Book'; overflowing with hair, infested with fleas and absolutely reeking of her own sweat (and other bodily fluids).
There is one artist we couldn't finish this article without mentioning. No, not The Weeknd; who even is that? He has a top 5 EP? Well, we don't know him so we'll just slot him in the pile of irrelevant artists along with every Disney film from 1968 to 1988. No, we were talking about Christina Aguilera, of course! In a fan-vote by pop-forum, Flop of the Pops, the members placed Christina Aguilera - last week's number-one album holder - as the celebrity most alike The Little Mermaid's 'Ursula'. Like Ursula, Aguilera's domination at the top was short-lived as 'Midnight (Alice in) Wonderland' slips 1-4 this week. We can only wonder which beautiful young female (completely opposite to Aguilera in every single way), Aguilera will target next in her plot to become the greatest vocalist imaginable. Like everything else in her career, it'll probably fail. Oh well.