The Pain Of Practicing

Every musician wants to become better, and every musician knows that the best way to become better is by practicing.  Still, sitting down to practice can be the most difficult thing for a musician to do.

When I was a kid, practice was drudgery, a chore I avoided at all costs.  I remember like it was yesterday - George Stone’s classic rudiment book, Stick Control For The Snare Drummer, glaring at me from the music stand, my teacher’s detailed directions scrawled in the margin.  Classic or not, I detested that book, and I know others did, too.

To get us to practice, our parents bribed us, or they punished us, or both.  It’s not that our parents didn’t understand what we were feeling, they did: their parents had to force them to practice, too.  That’s the one thing we all agreed on – practicing bites.  And unfortunately, our childhood resistance to practicing often doesn’t fade when we become adults.

But why, if we love drumming so much, should we dislike spending hours behind the kit trying to get better?  The most common reason we give is that “practicing is boring.”  Repeating rudiments ad nauseam may sometimes be boring, but boredom can’t account for our serious resistance to practicing. No, the real reason we don’t like to practice is that every time we sit down with our exercise book we come face to face with our technical limitations, and that’s a really hard thing to do.

The essence of practicing is confronting weaknesses in our playing in order to overcome them through repetition.  But this confrontation often makes us very uncomfortable.  With every pass at an unfamiliar pattern we’re reminded, “this is something I can’t do.”  Afraid to acknowledge a limitation, we rebel in the form of denial.  We adjust the metronome to a more comfortable tempo.  Or we lead only with our dominant hand (because in the real world we never lead with our weak hand, right?).  Or we simply move on to an easier exercise - such as watching reruns of the Simpsons.

Other times our fear leads us to self-loathing.  We convince ourselves that we’ll never master a new technique.  Worse, in a single practice our fear can grow to be so acute and so irrational that we generalize our insecurity, convincing ourselves that we’re “a horrible drummer.”  Depressed and angry, we close our exercise book more resistant to return to it the next day, if we return to it at all.

Fear isn’t the only thing that discourages us from practicing.  Another is the frustration we feel when we don’t see our practice paying off in a predictable way.  Even with the best practice regimen, mastery happens on it’s own clock.  Sometimes we acquire new skills easily, other times only after years of work.  Plateaus - those annoying periods when it seems we can do nothing to improve our playing – can last months or years, then be overcome in a single practice.

Progress is also maddeningly mysterious. I’ve spent months trying and failing to master, say, a hi-hat technique, only to find my left foot performing it perfectly during a show a year later.

With so much to discourage us from practicing, it’s easy to understand why we shirk it.  Yet when our commitment to drumming is serious, and when we want to improve in marked ways, a dedication to disciplined practicing is unavoidable.

I myself realized this when, finally, after college, I decided to make music my full time job. For me, this meant establishing an entirely new relationship with practicing, one that required me to be honest about my limitations, and one that encouraged me to sustain a practice schedule for a long time.

Letting Ego Go

I never consciously tried to create a new mindset toward practicing.  Rather, my new perspective toward practicing was the natural result of a new perspective toward my own playing.

My first teacher after college was a great jazz drummer named Phil Hey.  I knew that there was no use in studying with a teacher like Phil if I continued to fear my imperfection.  So, in my first lesson I asked him to assume that in spite of my twelve years of playing and performing, I knew nothing.  The request surprised Phil, but he agreed, and we started that day at page one: how to hold the sticks.

Phil deduced my actual skill level within our first few meetings, but that first lesson was a turning point in my relationship with practicing.  By inviting my teacher to assume nothing about my abilities, I was really inviting myself to do the same thing.  Suddenly I felt equally free to make mistakes and to play brilliantly, which is the foundation of any healthy approach to practicing.

Sacred Space, Sacred Time

My new ability to be egoless in my lessons quickly transferred to my practices and the effect was immediate and profound.  For the first time in my life, I was relishing my daily practice sessions, which soon grew to be five or six hours long (and because of my day-job, often didn’t start until nine at night).  I made a plan for every practice, and I kept journal of my progress – coordination exercises I’d grown comfortable with, patterns I’d learned, tempos I’d conquered.  I’m not particularly religious, but there was something undeniably sacred about my practices - the daily ceremony of throwing myself into the fire.  And soon enough, the windowless, rundown practice room I rented came to feel something like a sanctuary.

Practice For Life

My era of mad practicing lasted about three years before Spymob gigs started to take a serious bite out of my hallowed practice schedule.  Later, I got married and had children, both serious obstacles to unrestricted hours in the woodshed.  Today I still practice, even many times a week, but now it’s usually in the form of preparing for an upcoming session or performance.  Nevertheless, those years taught me lessons about practicing that I’ll use all my life.

I learned that words like forgiveness, ritual, and faith – a trio often reserved for religious contexts – are at the heart of every effective and enjoyable practicing regimen.

Technical growth requires the constancy of honest self-examination.  Honest self-examination in-turn requires a player not only to forgive himself for not being perfect, but also to embrace his limitations as opportunities for improvement.

Growth thrives on a ritual of regular, focused practices.  Five hours of paradiddles in front of the television isn’t half as effective as fifteen minutes of the same exercise, three times a week, with a metronome, in a quiet room.

And because your improvement happens in ways that are often difficult to see, growth takes faith.  There will practices when you feel like you’re flying, and practices when you feel like you can’t do a dang thing, but these impressions are unreliable indicators of your improvement.  Growth is a slow, mysterious process, and investing too much in your impressions of any one practice can cause you to disinvest in practicing long term.  Instead, a good practice is simply one you show up to, focused and happy to be there.

The Life We Hide

When musicians bump into one another at shows or parties, we like to catch up on each other’s lives:

Musician #1: “Hey mate, how’s it goin’?”

Musician #2: “Amazing!  The Jerry Rigs just sold out The Turf last Saturday. Completely bonkers!  How ‘bout you?”

Musician #1: “Great! Zippers Down just won Manchester’s best new band contest at The Roadhouse!”

Musician #2: “Fantastic!  So it’s all brilliant then?”

Musician #1: “Yeah, and for you too!”

Sound familiar?  This kind of victory volley is customary between scenesters; it’s a friendly way for us promote our bands and ourselves.  We want our peers to know that we’re in demand, and we’re careful always to make the best pitch.

But even our most truthful pitch is a highly edited version of our actual life story, and there’s one chapter in particular that we almost always leave out: our day job.    

Musicians wear their day jobs like braces on their teeth – awkward, painful things they hide by keeping their mouth shut.  Our day job reminds us that we haven’t yet “made it.”  And we worry we’ll lose credibility with our peers if they find out how much time we spend behind a cash register.  So unless we’re scheduling rehearsals or recording sessions, we don’t talk about our day job.  We’d rather let the world believe that for us, every day is a boundless creative adventure, and that music is our only livelihood.

Day Jobs Are Like Bellybuttons

But why should the topic of day jobs be taboo?  Far from disgraceful things, day jobs are life-giving umbilical cords that nourish the nascent dreams of creative risk-takers.  The Wright Brothers had day jobs – bicycle repairmen – while they worked out their design for the world’s first airplane.  The American Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, Charles Ives, was a lifelong insurance salesman, writing all his masterpieces after five and on weekends.  The great Czech writer, Franz Kafka was an insurance man too.  Kafka was known to spend entire nights writing, and returning sleepless the next morning to what he derisively referred to as his brotberuf – a German word meaning “bread job.”

Artists are notoriously conflicted about their day jobs.  We know we need them in order to do the thing we love most, but we resent them all the same.  We dream of the day when we no longer need our brotberuf, when we can spend all our time doing only what we love.

In truth, however, that day rarely, if ever, comes.  Sure, we can get to a point in our artistic careers when we no longer have to flip burgers – and that’s a happy day, indeed!  But if “day job” is defined as the work we do for cash so we can afford to follow our bliss, then even the world’s most successful artists take on day jobs, and do so throughout their careers.

Professional artists always have made creative compromises in exchange for well paying work.  For centuries, artists like Michelangelo made their livings creating art for the Roman Catholic Church, which always had the final say over how the artist’s work should be presented.  Today, famous architects often are forced to cut corners in their precious designs in order to accommodate a building’s practical requirements, and top sculptors accept tasteless assignments from wealthy patrons.  Within the music industry, recording artists routinely sign contracts that give their labels the power to reject tracks that “don’t meet minimum standards of commercial viability,” and every day, big name producers make records with flash-in-the-pan groups they know are destined for the bargain bin.

Artists almost never get to the point where they can create whatever, however, and whenever they want.  In order to feed our families, we’re constantly balancing creative freedom with commercial compromise, and the situation is the same for professionals and non-professionals alike.

For musicians, day jobs are like belly buttons – we know everyone has one, even if we can’t see it through their trendy t-shirt.  Understanding this, it’s easier for us to feel ok about our own day job, and we can begin to appreciate the various ways our brotberuf benefits our creative life.

The Value Of A Day Job

Naturally, most of us would rather suffer the creative compromises that success brings than work the opening shift at Starbucks.  But there’s no shame in slinging coffee.  In fact, our day job, no matter how menial, enriches our creative lives in important ways.

First, our day job feeds our creative process.  Musicians are reclusive by nature, but our creative process craves real life experience to thrive.  Our day job ensures we stay connected with the living, breathing world.  We observe co-workers and customers, we see how they use language, how they dress, what’s they think is hip, what books they read, and what music they listen to.  Along the way we gain a wider perspective on life.  Our day job helps to make us a well-rounded person, which in turn helps to make us a well-rounded musician.

Our day job also injects much needed structure and discipline into our creative lives.  Musicians often complain that their day job interferes with their musical pursuits.  In fact, it usually has the opposite effect.  The regularity of our day job forces us to establish rigorous practice, rehearsal, and recording schedules. In order to work around our day job, we’re forced to learn how to focus and to manage our time, two essential skills for any player who hopes to make music their livelihood.

Finally, our day job tests our ability to persevere in a difficult industry like ours.  Fulfilling as it can be to be a full-time musician, there are days, weeks, and months when the work feels, well, a lot like a day job.  Muddling through layers and layers of record label bureaucracy, the tedium of promoting your group’s music and yourself, the endless hustle for gigs, changing tires on the tour van, coping with rejection – these are the situations in which you find yourself asking, “Is it all worth it?”  You can learn a lot about your capacity to overcome these inevitable frustrations simply by examining your attitude toward your current day job.  If you’re in the habit of showing up late to work and often have a negative attitude, you’ll bring the same defeatist approach to overcoming the challenges you face as a professional musician.  On the other hand, if you find that you’re able to sustain a positive mind-set while, say, cleaning septic tanks five days a week, you’ll probably do just fine in the this business.

Eyes On The Prize

Day jobs exist to help creative people realize their dream job.  This is a good thing to remember.  Sometimes musicians take on what they call a day job, but it’s actually a safety net, a plan-B if the music thing doesn’t work out.  If a player takes on a safety net job understanding full well that’s what it is, great.  But many times, musicians who are trying consciously to prioritize their creative career are drawn subconsciously to safety net jobs, because they’re so afraid of failing as an artist.

The problem with safety net jobs is that rather than facilitating an artist’s creative life, they compete with it.  Telltale signs that a job is a safety net are that it involves lots of responsibility, it has fixed hours, and it pays really well. These qualities don’t make for a good day job.  Musicians require flexibility in our work schedule, and the more money we make in our day job, the more likely we’ll be lured away from our long-term passion by a short-term reward.

So while the dullness of our day job embarrasses us in the eyes of other hipsters, that very quality is what makes our day job so compatible with our dream chasing.  The perfect day job is more of a life raft than a yacht – it ain’t stylish, and it may even leak a little, but it offers us all the support we need while we wait for our ship to come in.

Kelly Clarson - Winner of AI 2002

There was once a time when rock co-existed peacefully with soul and pop. Then came a series of onslaughts from techno, dance and hip-hop. Rock came through slightly wounded but on the whole largely unscathed.

Now a new voracious predator has moved in, and is devouring all the native species. Since 2002, when Kelly Clarkson won American Idol’s first season, products from reality TV have made steady inroads into the rock and pop music charts (though I must admit to a sneaking regard for Kelly, since she does co-write lots of songs, has tried to stand up for herself and also sounds kind of rocky).

Labels have long regarded solo recording artists as a lot easier to work with than a volatile four-piece band. Easier to control, easier to style,  far more compliant (ie easier to bully), and providing a good outlet for the company’s tame song-writing factory.  Compare this with an on-the-edge rock band,  riven with the angst of youth, who dress how they like, and for whom helping with promotion is akin to selling your soul to the devil. Plus there’s always one member of the band whose recreational drug use spirals out of control.

Carrie Underwood - Winner of AI 2005

Today the labels’  life has been made even easier.  The participants of American Idol and similar shows are beholden to the system from day 1.  Any contestant that shows a spark of individuality, originality or character never makes it to the finals, voted out by a public easily manipulated by the svengali-like judges. 

The finalists emerge from the show with an overwhelming ‘debt of thanks’  to the hierachy.  Plus they’ve had a bucket-load of publicity, which a good record company can easily capitalize on.

Taking a leaf out of these sing-along, hyped-up karaoke TV shows, the record industry at large has redoubled its efforts to find solo performers.  A&R guys are given remit to seek out new single artists, ripe for manipulation and promotion.

So let’s see if the figures match these observations.  Taking the Year End Top 50 charts from 1969 to 2008 at 5 year intervals, it’s straight-forward to count the number of slots occupied by rock bands (see the raw data appended).  And sure enough, these figures show an ominous downward trend.  Letting the computer find the line of best fit and linearly extrapolating the data, it’s possible to see that, by 2026, the year-end top 50 will be totally devoid of rock groups.    An appalling conclusion, sure to send shudders down any rock fan’s spine.

Linkin Park

The picture may look bleak, but there is some light brightening the landscape. 

Solo artists suck big time when it comes to outdoor festivals.  How often do you see the fans yawning and chatting as the thin weak voice of the solo performer rises from the stage only to disappear unheard presumably into some big hole in the ground.  Yes, the fans are all patiently waiting for the decent rock group headlining act. 

Kings Of Leon

So rock  bands are an endangered species soon to be confined to the wildlife-park equivalent of festivals and college gigs.   And of course inane Guitar Hero tracks!

Data (from year end charts at www.popculturemadness.com)

2008 8 in top 50 Metro Station – Shake It, One Republic – Stop & Stare, Coldplay – Viva La Vida, Buckcherry – Sorry, Secondhand Serenade – Fall for You, Linkin Park – Shadow of the Day, Paramore – Misery Business, Three Days Grace – Never Too Late

2004  11 out of 50 Bowling For Soup – 1985, Jet – Are You Gonna Be My Girl, The Killers – Somebody Told Me, Linkin Park – Numb, No Doubt – It’s My Life, The Darkness – I Believe In A Thing Called Love, Counting Crows – Accidentally In Love, Maroon 5 – She Will Be Loved, Green Day – American Idiot, Limp Bizkit – Behind Blue Eyes, Evanescence – My Immortal,

1999 10 out of 50  Santana – Smooth, Jamiroquai – Canned Heat, Dave Matthews Band – Crush, Pearl Jam – Last Kiss, Blink 182 – What’s My Age Again?, Blink 182 – All The Small Things, The Offspring – Why Don’t You Get A Job?, The Offspring – Pretty Fly For A White Guy, Savage Garden – I Knew I Loved You

1994 18 out of 50 Bon Jovi – Always, Aerosmith – Crazy, Culture Beat – Mr Vain, Counting Crows – Mr Jones, Nivana – All Apologies, Bryan Adams – All For Love, U2 – All I Want Is You, Aerosmith – Amazing, James – Laid, John Melloncamp – Wild Night, Wet Wet Wet – Love Is All Around, Rod Stewart – Having A Party, Green Day – Basket Case, Prince – The Most Beautiful Girl In The World, Beck – Loser, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – Mary Jane’s Last Dance, Meatloaf – Rock And Roll Dreams Come True,The Offspring – Self Esteem

1989 18 out of 50  B52s – Love Shack, U2 – All I Want Is You, Guns N Roses – Patience, Fine Young Cannibals – She Drives Me Crazy, Bon Jovi – Lay Your Hands On Me,  U2 – Angel of Harlem, Guns N Roses – Paradise City, Bon Jovi – I’ll Be There For You, Aerosmith – Love In An Elevator, The Cure – Love Song,  Love and Rockets – So Alive, Roxette – Listen To Her Heart, Bad English – When I See You Smile, Roxette The Look,  Motley Crew – Dr Feed Good,  Warrant Heaven,  Great White – Once Bitten Twice Shy, Tom Petty – I Won’t Back Down

1984 19 out of 50  U2 – Pride (In The Name Of Love), Bruce Springsteen – Dancing In The Dark, ZZ Top – Legs,  Culture Club – Karma Chameleon, Prince – Purple Rain, U2 – I Will Follow, Culture Club – Miss Me Blind, Huey Lewis and the News – Heart Of Rock and Roll, Twisted Sister – We’re No Gonna Take It, Prince – Let’s Go Crazy, Bruce Springsteen – Cover Me, Bon Jovi – Runaway, Scorpions – Rock You Like A Hurricane, Van Halen – Jump, Huey Lewis and The News – I Want A New Drug, Twisted Sister, Quiet Riot – Bang Your Head (Mental Health), Laid Back – White Horse, Quiet Riot – Mama We’re All Crazee Now, Twisted Sister – I Wanna Rock

1979 20 out of 50  Bob Seger – Old Time Rock and Roll, Earth, Wind and Fire – September, Blondie – Heart Of Glass, Earth, Wind and Fire – After The Love Has Gone, Journey – Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’, Blondie – One Way or Another, Earth Wind and Fire – Boogie Wonderland, Supertramp – Take The Long Way Home, Supertramp – Take The Long Way Home, Styx – Babe, Dire Straits – Sultans of Swing, Eagles – Heartache Tonight, Toto – Hold The Line, Allman Brothers Band – Crazy Love, AC/DC – Highway To Hell, ELO – Don’t Bring Me Down, Meatloaf – You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth, Police – Roxanne, The Knack - Heartbeat

1974 14 out of 50 Lynyrd Skynrd – Sweet Home Alabama, Bachman Turner Overdrive – Takin Care Of Business, Redbone – Come and Get Your Love, Chicago – Wishing You Were Here, Eric Clapton – I Shot the Sheriff, The Hollies – The Air That I Breathe, Rolling Stones – It’s Only Rock and Roll, Golden Earring – Radar Love, Bachman Turner Overdrive – Let It Ride, The Carpenters – I Won’t Last A Day Without You, Brownsville Station – Smokin In The Boys Room, David Bowie – Rebel Rebel, Steve Miller Band – Living in the USA, Bachman Turner Overdrive – You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet

1969 21 out of 50 Foundations – Build Me Up Buttercup,  Steam - Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye, Spiral Staircase – More Today Than Yesterday, Credence Clearwater Revival – Proud Mary, The Beatles – Something, Archies – Sugar Sugar, Doors – Touch Me, Rolling Stones – Honky Tonk Women, Creedence Clearwater Revival – Bad Moon Rising, The Beatles – Come Together, The Ventures – Hawaii 5-0, Zombies – Time Of The Season, Clear Clearwater Revival – Down On The Corner, Crazy Elephant – Gimme Gimme Good Lovin, Blood, Sweat and Tears – You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,  The Beatles – Get Back, Arlo Guthrie – Alice’s Rock and Roll Restaurant, Credence Clearwater Revival – Green River, The Guess Who – These Eyes, Santana – Jingo, Beach Boys – I Can Hear Music

Ryan Ross (vocals/guitar) and Spencer Smith (drums) attended the same High School in Las Vegas. With a friend Brent Wilson (bass, ex-member) they started jamming together in the evenings. The informal practice sessions soon morphed the group into a rock band, christened Summer League. After a few gigs, the friends reckoned their band’s sound was a bit on the ‘thin’ side, so a search started for an extra guitar player. Brent met Brendon Urie, inviting him along to audition to play guitar. But when it was realised that Brendon’s singing voice was the best of the group, he was persuaded to take over lead vocals. To celebrate their new line-up, a new name was called for. The foursome settled on Panic! at the Disco (the ! was later discarded).

Pete Wentz (see Fall Out Boy Songs) saw PATD performing, and suggested to the band that they approach the Fueled by Ramen label. Pete’s intincts proved correct as the record company offered PATD a contract. The band’s first album A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out came out late in 2005. Their first single - I Write Sins Not Tragedies - was released from the album. The single’s video included a mock circus wedding – the circus idea is a constant theme of the band’s tours. To raise their image, the band embarked on a protracted US tour, as a support act. By the end of the tour their popularity had increased to such an extent that they became the headline act. A second single from the album, But It’s Better If You Do was released early in spring 2006, rising to number 26 in the charts. This single is many people’s favorite of all Panic At The Disco songs.

On tour though, the internal squabbling in the band turned from playful to resentful. Eventually Brent Wilson made the decision to quit. This left the group short of a bass for the UK and European leg of their tour. Fortunately Jon Walker, who was a friend from school days, stepped up to fill the role.

The band’s sophomore album, Pretty. Odd came out early in 2008. It reached #2 in both the US and UK albums chart. Key tracks off the album include Nine in the Afternoon and That Green Gentleman.

Best Band’s (from 100BestEverything) ratings for PATD: Music 5 stars out of 5. Character 4 stars out of 5. Live Performance 3 out of 5.

The Fray

Isaac Slade and Joe King were pupils at the  Faith Christian Academy, Denver.  Three years after school a happy meeting at a local record shop resulted in them arranging to meet up to discuss and play music.  One thing led to another, and soon they’d put together a band.  They persuaded Ben Wysocki (drums) and Dave Welsh (guitar) to join them.

The boys all had a common interested: piano, and this perhaps explains why their unique brand of piano rock works so well.  Isaac Slade and Joe King both discovered an early passion for music playing the piano.  King even competed in several piano competitions before dropping it in favor of the guitar, considered amongst his peer group to be a ‘way cooler instrument’. Wysocki and Welsh had also played piano at a young age, but after enduring being sent to piano lessons for a few years, swapped to the drums and guitar respectively.

All four grew up in strongly religious families, and have strong spiritual values. Thanks to their church connections, the group got their first taste of playing gigs at local Church halls.  To begin with, Isaac’s song lyrics were Christian based.  Then one day, when working at Starbucks, he had the sudden realisation that he could sing about the wider world within the contect of his faith.   Armed with a set of new worldly-wise songs, the band started playing local club venues.  Isaac’s brother, Caleb, joined the group to play bass guitar. However sibling tensions obviously ran high, and soon he left citing ‘musical differences’.  Later on Isaac was to say that Caleb’s leaving was his inspiration behind the words for ‘Over My Head’ (a song first titled ‘Cable Car’). 

The band’s name, The Fray, came about after a intelligent decision-making process after a gig at Caleb’s high school graduation dance.  The audience were asked for possible names for the band - several were volunteered, written on a piece of paper, and put in a bowl.  The band members removed all the slips of paper apart from one, which remained at the bottom of the bowl.  On the last slip of paper was written ‘The Fray’.  The name stuck - the boys liked it because that’s the way songwriting often felt!

Two EPs were the first releases from the band. ‘Movement’, which sold well after gigs, then ‘Reason’ which was more successful, with the song Cable Car getting a lot of radio time of the local station KTCL.  A talent scout from Epic Records spotted the potential in the band, and in 2004 the boys signed to the record label.

The group’s first album How to Save a Life came out in September 2005.  Soon after the band embarked on a nationwide tour, supporting Weezer.  Two tracks from the album made it big, Over My Head  and How to Save a Live (which featured on the soundtrack for Grey’s Anatomy). 

January 2009 saw the release of The Fray’s second album,  self-titled The Fray.  The first single to be released from the album, You Found Me went on to phenomenal chart success.

Best Band’s (from 100BestEverything) ratings for The Fray: Music 4 stars out of 5. Character 4 stars out of 5. Live Performance 3 out of 5.

Lady Gaga's Third Single "Eh Eh"

Just a quick post, as previously reported on Just Add Water - Modern Music the third single on Lady Gaga’s debut album “The Fame” is officially confirmed to be “Eh Eh (There’s Nothing Else I Can Say)” which will be released digitally in Australia on the 31st of January and Physically on the 2nd of February.

However as Just Dance is only just peaking in the United States, and Poker Face has not even been officially released there, the third single is likely to be something different in the United States, more suited to the American market, but only time will tell.

Poker Face has been Number one in Australia for 8 consecutive weeks, an impressive feat in the Australian market, considering the amount of cheap lifeless cliched songs that debut highly and the next week fall off the charts into oblivion, I guaruntee that “Poker Face” will not only eventually become double platinum in Australia ( Which is a very, very rare achievement for a single, “Just Dance” was one of the only two that achieved it last year) but it will take the United States by storm.

“Poker Face” has already spent 7 weeks at number one in ,Canada 10 weeks at number one in New Zealand, and peaked at number one in Norway and Sweden.