By Staff
Audioslave's "Out of Exile" becomes the sixth straight rock album to hit No. 1 on the pop charts.
With White Stripes, Coldplay and Foo Fighters new releases waiting in the wings, it's rock's best run since Creed "Weathered" a two-month stay on top starting in December 2001.
The six-week string began with Rob Thomas in April and continued with Bruce Springsteen, Nine Inch Nails, Dave Matthews Band and System of a Down.
Rock's sales resurgence comes at a weird time, since five rock radio stations in major U.S. cities switched formats to counter ratings drops lasting six straight years.
The Killers' "Hot Fuss" spawned a radio hit, "Mr. Brightside," and sold 1.9 million copies, but until this six-week spurt, the only major rock releases since late 2004 were U2's "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" and "Seventeen Days" by 3 Doors Down.
The recent feel-good electric guitar blip aside, rock woes remain long-term because record labels have not invested resources to develop young bands over time.
Bono alluded to this in his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction speech: "There would be no U2 the way things are right now. That's a fact."
All six albums were created by veteran acts with long track records, just like "American Idiot" selling 3 1/2 million copies last year. Green Day isn't a new punk band.
The Killers: I have played "Hot Fuss" to death, even if they are "Las Vegas Eighties revivalists," and I wasn't overly fond of some of their influences.
There are also snatches of U2, David Bowie, Duran Duran and Depeche Mode.
Brandon Flowers, 24, the singer and keyboardist, grew up in Utah. Paul Anka wrote "My Way," Frank Sinatra's version of which obsessed the teenaged Flowers. "My Way" has the same chord changes as "Life on Mars?" from Bowie's great "Hunky Dory" album, so Flowers figures, "Without Paul Anka there would be no Killers."
His grandfather and father were produce men in grocery stores. In a small farm town that thrived on football, he took a lot of grief for playing golf and listening to Elton John.
Guitarist Dave Keuning came from Pella, Iowa, where his dad ran a plumbing and air-conditioning repair shop.
Ghostly tourist destination: Want a strange vacation excursion? How about a packaged tour of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, scene of the nuclear age's worst civilian disaster?
A 19-mile radius around the infamous power plant, the zone was largely closed to the world after Chernobyl's Reactor No. 4 exploded on April 26, 1986.
Now it's a destination, this deteriorating, empty city that housed the plant's 45,000 workers and family members. "So dreamlike and silent," one visitor described it.
One-day group excursions cost $200 to $400, including transportation and a meal.
Crime pays: "Runaway bride" Jennifer Wilbanks and fiance John Mason cash in to the tune of $500,000 on her fleeing her Georgia home days before her scheduled April 30 wedding and concocting a claim of abduction.
Watch their interview with NBC anchor Katie Couric for an hour-long prime-time special Tuesday and be an accessory after the fact or skip it, rent a movie and join a trend: Most Americans prefer viewing films at home than in theaters. In a poll released June 16, 73 percent of adults say they would rather watch movies at home on DVD, videotape or pay-per-view. Films are getting worse, 47 percent say.
Headline: 'Deep Throat,' 91, and his family sign deal for book, film
Elizabeth Smart, Laci Peterson, Chandra Levy and now Alabama teen Natalee Holloway in Aruba. Yet most missing adults tracked by the FBI are men.
More than one in five of those abducted or kidnapped are black. Television executives defend their coverage of a disproportionate number of attractive, upper-middle-class white damsel disappearances. Yet, of almost 47,600 active adult missing person cases, 53 percent are men and 29 percent black - a far cry from news emphasis.
Strawberry Field, the Liverpool orphanage near John Lennon's childhood home, closed May 31 after 69 years.
Downing Street Memo a 'smoking gun?': Time magazine had the story, too, in July 2002, reporting, "Sometime last spring the President ordered the Pentagon and the CIA to come up with a new plan to invade Iraq and topple its leader." Originally planned for fall, the war was put off until "at least early next year," which is when it actually started.
Sources: Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, Newsday, Rolling Stone, New York Times.