Backstage Pass

“Dreamgirls” becomes the first soundtrack since “O Brother Where Art Thou” in 2002 to top the charts, but it does with a mere 66,000 in sales, the lowest total for a No. 1 since the Soundscan era started in 1991.

Full Billboard report
Newsday's Top Albums and Singles (compiled by Billboard) on the jump

Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, "The Message"

Hip-hop is finally in the house.

Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five(Kid Creole, Cowboy, Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel, Mr. Ness, Raheim), best known for the groundbreaking rap "The Message," will become the first hip-hop act inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, organizers announced this morning.

Also set for induction at the Waldorf-Astoria in March: alt-rock pioneers R.E.M. (Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Michael Stipe) in its first year of eligibility; girl group The Ronettes (Estelle Bennett, Ronnie Spector, Nedra Talley); punk poet Patti Smith; and rockers Van Halen (Michael Anthony, Alex Van Halen, Eddie Van Halen, David Lee Roth and Roth's replacement Sammy Hagar).

So much of being a music critic is solitary. You listen to the music alone. You write about the music alone. And, once your opinions are released, you defend them all by yourself.

That's what made the Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop poll so important to me. It was about consensus, about hundreds of critics getting together and, through their votes, deciding on what was best about the previous year's music. It was about being part of something larger.

Despite the Voice's unceremonious booting last year of Robert Christgau, the dean of music critics and longtime caretaker of the poll, Pazz & Jop is scheduled to come out in a month or so. But the poll has been damaged, with many critics opting out, as a protest of the treatment of Christgau.

That's where Idolator's Jackin' Pop Critics Poll comes in, a new, protest-free option to create a consensus. This year, nearly 500 critics voted to crown TV on the Radio's "Return to Cookie Mountain" the top album and Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" the top single of 2006.

Idolator's Jackin' Pop Critics Poll [Idolator]
'Voice' Music Poll Undermined by Internet [NPR]
My Jackin' Pop ballot

PHOTO: TV on the Radio by Roman Barrett/Interscope

And how do we know Adam Lazzara is still alive? Well word came out today that he and the rest of Taking Back Sunday will, oddly enough, appear on The N's "Degrassi: The Next Generation" on Jan. 12 at 8 p.m. Alert your tweens.

On the jump, see TBS' combine New Year's greeting with My Chemical Romance, where Lazzara discusses possible death "in a big fluffy cloud of ow!"

Most acts who get dropped by a major label before their debut album is released don't want to talk about the experience. Luckily, rapper Akira the Don is not like most musicians.

The earlier, uberpop songs they heard, like Oh! (What A Glorious Thing), were met by the label with great joy. But when they heard my Live8, legalised genocide and loony Christian right-dissing "Thanks For All The Aids," things went a bit Simon Bates.

Read his personal tale on The Guardian's blogs here

Listen to "Oh!" here

Photo of Akira the Don by Carter Smith/Akirathedon.com