The music business heavily relies on the Christmas season to boost their bottom line.

Let’s look at this week physical sales:

Taylor Swift – ‘Fearless’ – 246,841 – Total: 1,519,010
Britney Spears – ‘Circus’ – 200,096 – Total: 705,792
Nickelback – ‘Dark Horse’ – 156,076 – Total: 793,930
AC/DC – ‘Black Ice’ – 110,098 – Total: 1,675,568
Pink – ‘Funhouse’ – 61,381 – Total: 516,700
Miley Cyrus – ‘Breakout’ – 59,565 – Total: 1,192,675
Jonas Brothers – ‘Little Bit Longer’ – 58,608 – Total: 1,270,019
Killers – ‘Day & Age’ – 52,521 – Total: 307,865
Kid Rock – ‘Rock N Roll Jesus’ – 50,420 – total: 2,543,555
Guns N’ Roses – ‘Chinese Democracy’ – 47,193 – total: 364,960
Casting Crowns – ‘Peace On Earth’ – 41,188 – Total: 76,492
Metallica – ‘Death Magnetic’ – 36,136 – Total: 1,442,636
Coldplay – ‘Viva La Vida’ – 35,391 – Total: 2,032, 974
Adele – ’19’ – 19,830 – Total: 278,491
Kings of Leon – ‘Only By The Night – 15,694 – Total: 15,694

Digital Songs (Totals):

Britney Spears ‘Circus’ – 365,050
Lady Gaga ‘Just Dance’ – 1,179,661
Kanye West ‘Heartless’ – 634,091
Britney Spears ‘Womanizer’ – 1,420,612
Katy Perry ‘Hot N Cold’ – 2,043,816
Pink ‘So What’ – 2,324,367

Surprisingly, Britney Spears has broken T.I.’s record for the “Biggest Jump in Billboard History”. Who would ever think Spears would be as meaningful as Madonna? But it looks like she did it. Taylor Swift’s ‘Fearless’ is the biggest country digital album debut in the history of Nielsen’s Soundscan, and the 4th biggest digital album debut to date, behind only Coldplay, Jack Johnson, and Kanye West.

Fox’s Roger Friedman says Rick Rubin will be slowly removed from his head post at Columbia Records.

“I’m told that Sony Music may have found a solution to their mess with Rick Rubin. They’re going to quietly offload him to a side label deal, and remove him from the main company.”

Rubin faced criticism when he took the high paying job as co-chairman of Columbia Records. In fact, The New York Times said when it comes to scouting and signing new artists, producer-run labels have a spotty history.

Unfortunately, it looks like reality is setting in:

“Sources say, and it makes sense. As I told you last week, Rubin has been a costly adventure for Sony. He’s produced a hit album for another label — Metallica, for Atlantic — and several CDs that were interesting but failed to spark sales,” says Friedman.

It’s also been said that Rubin moved the Sony Offices from Los Angeles to the more expensive Beverly Hills – a risky move in a time when labels are shrinking.

Not only that, Rubin was recording tracks for U2 only to find out the band rejected his tracks.

Looks like Rubin got himself in a turmoil, regardless, we can thank him for the fantastic Metallica album. But next time, turn down the volume!

G n’ R Leaker Pleads Guilty: The blogger pleaded guilty to a federal copyright violation for uploading nine unreleased tracks from the Guns N’ Roses album “Chinese Democracy.

Papa Roach Lawsuit: The former drummer of rock act Papa Roach, is suing the band over alleged unpaid royalties. The suit alleges that the remaining band members have borrowed $210,000 from Broadway Federal Bank against assets without Buckner’s prior knowledge, “to underwrite various undertakings of the group as well as the rock and roll lifestyle… while they toured as Papa Roach.”

The Beginning Of The End: Some analysts are claiming that the hugely popular video games “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band” will begin to experience softer sales. Guitar Hero sold over 22 million units and its rival Rock Band has sold over 5 million units, but the signs of slowdown are apparent. To illustrate Guitar Hero is down 19% from last year. “I think the entire genre is definitely reaching its peak says Jesse Divnich, lead analyst for video game market research firm EEDAR.

Fall Out Boy’s new record ‘ Folie à Deux’ is available on Amazon for $3.99. The price of music has officially dropped, will consumers now buy more music?

Next Question Please? Axl Rose finally spoke with fans via message boards. Axl responded to cranky fans by saying “Your misconceptions and fantasies along with your misguided sense of entitlement don’t dictate my actions.” Another fan asked Axl “What is stopping the fans from seeing you Slash, Duff, and Izzy back on stage together?. Axl responds with “U’ve been lied to and misled for such a long time that sorting through all that here is virtually impossible. A lot will come out over time but the truth has been out there for a long time as well but that doesn’t give you what you want so this dance just goes on and on.” Read the rest on the message board here.

Google Holds The Power: “Google this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what appears in its search results. It’s a historic statement – and nobody has yet grasped its significance said Andrew Orlowski via The Register. Of course we thought search results were explained by computer algorithm that is explained on Google News. This is very bad news guys..

Traction Verse First Week Numbers: Radio stations haven’t embraced Guns n’ Roses first single ‘Chinese Democracy’ but some people aren’t to concerned. “We all expected a situation with the numbers falling off,” says Bob Chiappardi, the New York City-based CEO of Concrete Marketing, has worked with Guns N’ Roses since the Live Like A Suicide EP. “First off, it’s not in every record store in the country, which doesn’t help. But I hope it’s going to follow the same kind of life of the Kid Rock record, where songs keep coming – then we’ll have really good numbers by summer.” Chiappardi claims that Chinese Democracy needs time and nurturing. “The record is like a unicorn – there’s a legend around it,” he says. “It’s hard to explain. I think once the smoke clears, it’ll rise to the top.”

Chinese Democracy has several great singles for the incredibly lame terristorial radio. Here is our song selection for radio:
Sorry, This I Love, Streets Of Dreams, and Better.

Speaking about Guns n’ Roses, the mainstream press is begging for a feud between Axl and former bandmates. In fact, bassist Duff McKagan (Velvet Revolver) in an KISW 99.9 FM. interview said this morning:

“I have, yeah (listened to Chinese Democracy). I think Axl sounds amazing. You know, I’m glad he put out the record he wanted to put out and I think it’s gonna be successful, him going out and touring. People have been talking how the record’s doing. I think it’s a longevity thing; it will do fine for him. And I wish him the best of luck.”

End of The Year Lists: Rolling Stone and their contributors have listed the Best Albums of 2008. Metallica and Guns n’ Roses makes sense, but the Jonas Brothers? See the list here.

Avril Lavigne has fired her manager and management company. Avril is said to be distraught that her latest album and tour proved less popular than her previous efforts, and blames Nettwerk mogul Terry McBride for her lack of success.” Generally speaking, artists blame everybody but themselves. A source said Avril is hoping that new management can help her new album be more successful than the last. Avril has reportedly now signed a new deal with Irving Azoff and his management company, who work with Christina Aguilera, The Eagles and Guns n’ Roses.

Van Halen’s 1982 Tour Rider: Today’s tour riders look like a high school halloween party, maybe you will get a couple of bottles of water, some beer, and some english muffins. The 80’s signified good times, especially if you were superstars called Van Halen. The Smoking Gun got their hands on the 1982 Van Halen World Tour rider, a typewritten and 53 pages long that consists of herring in sour cream,” four cases of “Schlitz Malt Liquor beer (16 ounce cans),” and a total of eight bottles of wine and liquor. The rider’s “Munchies” section was where the group made its candy-with-a-caveat request: “M & M’s (WARNING: ABSOLUTELY NO BROWN ONES).” View the rider here.

Shock: Auto-Tune is a audio processor that uses a phase vocoder to correct pitch in vocal and instrumental performances. It is used to disguise inaccuracies and mistakes and has allowed many artists to produce more precisely tuned recordings. Here is a clip of Britney Spears without lip synching and pitch correction.

Side Project? Causing a much larger buzz with his solo project, Alexisonfire guitarist and vocalist Dallas Green is teaming up with Vagrant Records to try and make an impact stateside with his solo, folk rock side project, City and Colour. The lead single, and catchiest song from Green to date, “Sleeping Sickness” could make quite the splash at Triple A radio in January when he will also be embarking on a U.S. headlining tour. Check out the video here

Success via Trailer: M.I.A. saw a great deal of success in 2008 mostly due to a widely publicized trailer for summer blockbuster, “Pineapple Express” which features a good amount of the song, however it was not on the soundtrack. Swedish singer Lisa Miskovsky has started to generate some buzz with a piece of her song, “Still Alive” which is featured in a video game trailer for a popular game called “Mirror’s Edge”. The soundtrack features only this song and remixes of it. Could strong video game sales possibly help push the song to radio?

Back to Canada: A new band making its way onto radio with their blend of indie rock is Arkells recognizable, raspy and raw vocals help drive songs like lead single, “Oh, The Boss is Coming!” and the first track on their new album, “Deadlines”. Bluesy, with hard-hitting vocals, it sounds like they may have something going on here.

Changing gears to something more mainstream friendly is a band that you may instantly relate to power pop, emo rockers Motion City Soundtrack, and that is D.C. band You, Me, and Everyone We Know who sound like they belong on next year’s Warped Tour with catchier songs than the ones most concert-going tweens have been high on. They just released their 2nd free EP this year that can be downloaded here, which is even more pop friendly than their first it features some sweet, 3 minute tracks like “Colorful Language” & “Sometimes We Have Too Much Fun”.

Quick Picks:

Tupelo Honey – “Morphine”- Strong rock band that still needs to get signed.

The Parlor Mob – “Carnival of Crows” - Zeppelin-esque, Roadrunner Records band

Cajun Dance Party – “Amylase”- London indie rockers who have probably never tried Gumbo.

Sam Roberts – “Detroit ‘67” – Another popular Canadian, new album out in the U.S, on February 17, 2009.

Soundcheck is written by Dallas Osborn who currently attends San Francisco State University and works on the Live 105 (KITS) Action Team.