Zac Brown Band Beat Out Maroon 5 for Number One

[Don]

http://new.music.yahoo.com/zac-brown-ba ... VZy_KxxCUv



Zac Brown Band can add to this year's Best New Artist Grammy the distinction of beating a tough field of competitors for the Number One spot on the Billboard 200: Their second album, You Get What You Give, sold 153,000 copies in its debut week. Maroon 5, who won the same Grammy in 2005, had to settle for second place; the new Hands All Over, moved 142,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That's a major drop for Maroon 5 compared to the opening week sales (429,000) of It Won't Be Soon Before Long which debuted at number one in 2007. Linkin Park, who topped the chart last week, came in at number three as sales of A Thousand Suns declined 71 percent.
Two more debuts made their way into the Top Five this week: Selena Gomez and the Scene took number four with 66,000 copies of A Year Without Rain sold, while Santana's guest-heavy Guitar Heaven came in at number five. The John Legend and the Roots collaboration Wake Up! debuted at Number Eight and 63,000 copies. Overall, total album sales were down six percent from last week and down 13 percent when stacked up to the same week last year.

[SF-Dano]

I heard the Zac Brown band for the first time a couple weeks back. I like it. Took me back to the days of Outlaw Country.

[Jeremey]

"Hands All Over" is the best CD I've heard in YEARS, and this is including the other M5 CDs. At first I felt sonically like Mutt had put somewhat of his personality on this disc, and he has, but through repeated listens I realize he really helped the band achieve their best on this CD. It's got so much goodness in it, it reminds me of a giant Kit Kat bar or a slice of pumpkin pie.

[S2M]

"Hands All Over" is the best CD I've heard in YEARS, and this is including the other M5 CDs. At first I felt sonically like Mutt had put somewhat of his personality on this disc, and he has, but through repeated listens I realize he really helped the band achieve their best on this CD. It's got so much goodness in it, it reminds me of a giant Kit Kat bar or a slice of pumpkin pie.

Dude, enough's enough....step away from the Rose-colored Glasses.....

[Jeremey]

"Hands All Over" is the best CD I've heard in YEARS, and this is including the other M5 CDs. At first I felt sonically like Mutt had put somewhat of his personality on this disc, and he has, but through repeated listens I realize he really helped the band achieve their best on this CD. It's got so much goodness in it, it reminds me of a giant Kit Kat bar or a slice of pumpkin pie.

Dude, enough's enough....step away from the Rose-colored Glasses.....

I will not. I NEVER listen to anything more than a couple times through, and this record hasn't left my ears in 8 days. I know what I like, YMMV.

[slucero]

I love Mutts production style.. but I've come to realize over the years that his real skill is songwriting.. every interview I hear with the groups/artists he works with is always the same.. they come away amazed at how he approaches songwriting... nothing is sacred...

Bryan Adams

"With Mutt (Lange), I always like to say working with him was like going to the university of rock. I learned as much working and becoming friends with Mutt as I did with Jim. He is an absolutely incredible musician and a very accomplished singer, with a sense of rhythm that I presume he got from growing up in South Africa, but more likely it's just him and his way. His songwriting with me was different in the sense that we would sometimes put two or three ideas from different songs together in one song, and then sometimes I would drop a title on him like "the only thing that looks good on me is you" and he'd be off on some sort of riff. Even today when we get together, it's a veritable kitchen sink of ideas until we hone it down to the right thing. I remember once we had written a song called “Not Guilty” and the verse wasn't working, so he put the multi-track recorder in record mode and simply erased the entire verse, guitars, vocals - everything but the drums and looked at me and said, ok, "let's write a new verse.” He taught me not to be precious about an idea, that it was changeable, and you had to be flexible if you want to be unique. He's a musical genius."

Adam Levine

"Mutt, he’s a songwriter. The dude writes hit after hit after hit. But I said to him, “Listen, man—in order for this to really be Maroon 5, it has to be written by us.” And he was respectful of that. He could easily help us [with the writing]. There’s no doubt. And it took a lot to be able to admit that he probably could help us a lot, but that we probably shouldn’t take the help because we really needed to do this on our own. He really did respect it. That’s why he pushed me even harder, because he had one of his creative hands tied behind his back, basically. So in a weird way, I’m glad he was taking it out on me and forcing me to come up with it."