Melody Plant

Rihanna is looking hot as she waved to photographers while out shopping in West Hollywood with her family. Rumored boyfriend Chris Brown wasn’t around though. Rihanna is currently spending her second week at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart with her hit song ‘Disturbia’. Someone finally knocked off Katy Perry! David Archuleta’s ‘Crush’ made the best chart debut in over 18 months by reaching number 2 and sold 166,000 downloads in the US. It looks like Rihanna has some stiff competition. I wonder when David Cook will be releasing more of his stuff. One David is not enough for me.

‘High School Musical’ actress Ashley Tisdale has given everyone some chance to reminisce about the past by recording exclusive cover songs from the 80s for Degree Girl anti-perspirant and deodorant. Starting this month, specially marked packages of the product will include a music download card which fans can use to download the covered songs. Previews of the songs are on DegreeGirl.com. The song’s that Ashley covered are ‘Too Many Walls’ by Cathy Dennis, ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)’ by Whitney Houston, ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ by Rick Astley, ‘Time After Time’ by Cyndi Lauper and ‘Heaven is a Place on Earth’ by Belinda Carlisle.

Madonna’s new album ‘Hard Candy’ dropped in stores on Tuesday and while her first week sales are still being predicted, the Queen of Pop has already conquered a key area in the new music business machine commonly known as digital sales. Madonna’s first single off the new album ‘4 Minutes (To Save the World) has become the second ever single to have digital sales over one million units in five weeks. Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’ was the first. As of Tuesday, the digital sales for her single were at 1,004,482 units. Mariah must be really pissed at that considering she barely broke the top 10 on digital sales.

Dropping music sales are making it hard for musicians to pay for getting a record made but if you’re Jill Sobule, you can find a way around it. The musician is taking things into her own hands as the one-hit wonder is turning to fans for help with her next record. She has actually set up a website where fans can donate money to her album effort. Jill’s goal is to raise $75,000 and she’s already raised $54,000 in just a month. Contributors can choose their pledges ranging from $10 to $10,000 – each pledge getting a certain type of benefit like a free digital download of her disc to getting to be a guest singer on the album.

The Spice Girls’ newest single ‘Headlines (Friendship Never Ends) was played simultaneously by radio station across the UK yesterday morning. After the 30-second snippet that they used to tease fans a few days ago, it’s nice to hear the whole thing.

The song was written by Matt Rowe, Richard ‘Biff’ Stannard, Ginger and Baby. The pop girl group also made the video for the new single last Friday at Pinewood Studios. ‘Headlines (Friendship Never Ends) will be available digitally in the UK on November 5 and physically on November 19. It’s only a matter of time now and the world will once again be Spice World.

With record stores going on respirators with the falling record sales, it shouldn’t be a wonder why a lot of artists are going digital with their releases. And it doesn’t apply to just the new artists. Take the Spice Girls as an example.

The 90s super girl group recently announced that their new Greatest Hits album wouldn’t be sold in traditional retail outlets. Their new record will only be available at online retailers, like iTunes, and Victoria’s Secret stores. Ladies, don’t forget to buy some lingerie while you’re at it.

Maybe they’re getting money from the store too just like a lot of artists being sponsored by retail brands.