JACKING FOR CALVIN

On April 12th 2009 "I'm Not Alone" peaked at #1 on the UK Singles Chart becoming Calvin Harris' first #1 single...

Now in case you've been living under a rock for the past 18 mths, there is an epidemic taking place in contemporary R&B/Pop music. I like to call it Jacking Calvin Harris.

Here are some examples:

Taio Cruz - Dynamite

Rihanna & David Guetta - Who's That Chick

Usher ft Pitbull - DJ Got Us Falling In Love

Kesha - Tik Tok

Chris Brown - Yeah 3x

JLS - Eyes Wide Shut

Rihanna - Only Girl In The World

Flo Rida ft Akon - Who Dat Girl?

Kesha - We R Who We R

... and majority of these records were some of the biggest songs of 2010.

DR LUKE HAS PLENTY MONEY

From Hits Daily Double:

TIK TOK HITS THE TOP: Ke$ha appeared to be the big winner of all those iTunes gift cards as her single, "TiK ToK," sold 610k downloads this week, the largest seven-day total for a female ever and the second-largest in history, next to Flo Rida's "Right Round," on which she also guested., bringing its cumulative tally to more than 2 million. The RCA Records pop phenom's debut album, Animal, hits stores on Tuesday (1/5).

Now if you're wondering what this has to do with the title of this post, I shall explain:

Lukasz "Dr. Luke" Gottwald is the songwriter/producer responsible for the two aforementioned record breaking songs, with assistance from his understudy/co-producer Benny Blanco on "Tik Tok".

I should also mention that prior to "Right Round" and "Tik Tok", Luke produced Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl" and "Hold N Cold". Both of which went #1 in almost every country in the world last year.

His royalty cheques would be unfathomable. All from playing guitar on Saturday Night Life. Whoa.

FLO RIDA SETS NEW RECORD

Don't you just love being right? Month's ago I predicted Flo Rida's flip of Dead Or Alive's "You Spin Me Round" would be one of the biggest songs in the US and tomorrow we will see it top the Billboard 100.

The Dr. Luke produced "Right Round" sold 636,000 digital units, smashing the previous record of 468,000 set by Flo Rida's previous single "Low" in January 2008.

Below is an outlook of Dr. Luke's past 12 months:

Katy Perry - I Kissed A Girl - World Wide #1 - Billboard #1
Katy Perry - Hot N Cold #1 - World Wide #1 - Billboard #3
Kelly Clarkson - My Life Would Suck Without You - Billboard #1
Britney Spears - Circus - Billboard #3
Flo Rida - Right Round - Billboard #1

Honorable mention goes out to Claude Kelly, who was a virtually unknown songwriter a year ago, now responsible for 2 of the songs above and an array of other shit including Lloyd's "I Can Change Your Life" and Leona Lewis' "Forgive Me".

FLO RIDA HAS JUST STARTED A TREND

In my original post for Flo-Rida's new single "Right Round" with Katy Perry, I predicted that it would be a bigger hit than the original hit (Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round") it was borrowed from.

Sounds ridiculous right? Well if that appeared to be somewhat unfounded then this weeks Mainstream Top 40 Radio report should offer some early hope for my prediction.

"Right Round" has entered the Top 40 chart with 701 more spins than last week. It becomes available for airplay at Rhythmic radio on Jan 27th. Expect another Top 10 notch on Mr. Tramar Dillard's belt.

What else did you expect from the producer who smashed 2008 with "I Kissed A Girl" & "Hot & Cold"? I'm not sure if PoeBoy/Atlantic realize the possible trend they've conceived with this song, as bad as it may be for 'Hip-Hop'.

FLO-RIDA - ROUND ROUND

Flo-Rida's remake of Dead or Alive's 1985 hit "You Spin Me Round". The original song only ever reached #11 on the Billboard 100, but peaked on the UK chart at #1 in 1985 and #5 in 2006 when it was re-released thanks to Celebrity Big Brother. Just a hunch, I think Flo-Rida's version will be bigger.

Flo-Rida - Round Round

Sounds to me like Katy Perry on the hook and quite possibly Dr. Luke on production. Don't quote me though, I'm only about 50% sure.

Fun fact: Beat Kamp, the producers of Savage's hit "Swing", released a single mid last year that also borrowed the hook from "You Spin Me Round". You can check that out here.

I'll update this when I found out more information.

AND THE BIGGEST SONG OF THE YEAR IS ...

Flo Rida feat. T-Pain, “Low” (Poe Boy/Atlantic)

The biggest album of the year, Carter III right? essentially, but technically wrong! The Billboard year-end chart runs from Dec-Nov, so Weezy misses out to Alicia Keys by technicality.

Alicia Keys - As I Am (As I Am has been certified triple platinum by the RIAA) ... The album was also ranked #4 on Billboard's 2007 end of year list. Carter III has sold 2.4 million so far in the US.

Here's a portion of the end of year Billboard facts courtesy of the always on point Idolator:

Chris Brown owned '08 with four appearances in the Top 20 songs of the year.

6. “No Air” (Jordin Sparks with Chris Brown)
9. “With You”
10. “Forever”
19. “Kiss Kiss” (Chris Brown feat. T-Pain)

Rihanna also had a massive year with three songs appearing in the Top 20.

12. “Take a Bow”
16. “Disturbia”
17. “Don't Stop the Music”

Lil Wayne only had one song ("Lollipop") in the Top 20 but a dominant TWELVE appearances in the Top 100 Hip-Hop/R&B songs of the year. As Idolator point out, it sure seemed like Weezy owned '08 but on a pop level the year belonged to Chris Brown and Rihanna.

Read the Idolator run-down

I'm gonna go one step further than Idolator and provide you with the Producers and Songwriters who dominated the Billboard year-end chart.

Stargate & Ne-Yo (-2) had an insanely successful year with 7 songs in the Top 100 year-end chart:

9. "With You", 12. "Take A Bow", 17. "Don't Stop The Music" (Note: Written by Frankie Storm), 20. "Closer", 30. "Tattoo" (Note: Written by Amanda Ghost/Ian Dench), 57. "Miss Independent", 62. "Hate That I Love You"

Christopher 'Tricky' Stewart and The-Dream managed a surprising 5 in the Top 100:

22. "Touch My Body", 28. "Leavin", 64. "Suffocate", 75. "I Love Your Girl", 82. "Just Fine"

T-Pain had yet another great year lending hooks to 8 songs on the list, Nathan Chapman (Taylor Swift, Gavin Degraw) produced 4, Will.I.Am wrote/produced 3, Ryan Tedder wrote/produced 3, Timbaland produced 3, J.R. produced 3, Max Martin/Dr Luke wrote/produced 3, John Fields (Miley Cyrus, Jonas Brothers) produced 3 and Polow Da Don & Jim Jonsin both had 2 of the years biggest songs.

Its crazy to me that once you add up all the songs by the 15 songwriters/producers above, it amounts to around 50% of the entire Top 100 year-end chart.

You can read Billboard's list of 2008's hottest producers here and the rest of their 2008 year-end charts here

VIDEO: JESSICA MAUBOY FEAT FLO RIDA - RUNNING BACK

Courtesy of Victoria in the comments section. Not bad. Anything with a decent Melbourne skyline shot is okay with me. Although I'm not quite sure why Jessica gets the high-rise Docklands apartment whilst Flo Rida is reduced to a seedy motel room with a TV from 1964. I'm just sayin...

HEY! MAJOR LABEL AUSTRALIAN R&B THAT ISN'T STRAIGHT UP ASS! REJOICE!

So, in a rare move of credibility, Sony BMG Australia will be releasing Idol alum Jessica Mauboy's new single Running Back featuring Flo-Rida in the next month. The best part of this story is that the record isn't terrible. And Flo-Rida is apparently even in the video. Who would've thought?

Running Back is streaming at Jessica's MySpace here.