Who Charted?

San Diego musicians did not have a major impact on the national album charts in 2007.

Angels & Airwaves' second Geffen album, I-Empire, debuted at number 9 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart when it was released November 6. Seven weeks later, the disc was at 172. (Former blink singer/guitarist Tom DeLonge fronts Angels & Airwaves.)

DeLonge's former bandmates, Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker, released a debut CD with their new band +44 in November 2006. When Your Heart Stops Beating entered Billboard's 200 chart at 10, but four weeks later it had slipped to 153. The disc lasted ten weeks on the chart and fell off in February.

Switchfoot's third CD, Oh! Gravity, charted in January 2007 at number 18. The following week it slipped to 41 and never went higher; it spent ten weeks on Billboard's 200 Chart. Last month, Switchfoot.com announced that Nielsen Soundscan showed that Oh! Gravity had sold 135,000 units (not including sales at Christian bookstores); the first Switchfoot release, The Beautiful Letdown, sold 2.6 million copies.

As I Lay Dying's An Ocean Between Us debuted at number 8 when it was released this summer; the disc lasted eight weeks on Billboard's 200 Chart.

The San Diego rocker who had the most commercial success in 2007 may be North County native Josh Steely. He auditioned with 40 other guitarists in the fall of 2006 to join Chris Daughtry's band. (Daughtry became famous after performing on American Idol.)

"We played 280 shows this year, and they all sold out," says Steely from his Carlsbad home.

Steely did not play on Daughtry's self-titled debut album, which, according to Billboard, was the most popular record of 2007: 3.2 million copies sold, number one for two weeks, and never left the top 50 all year.

"When the number-one record of the year is by the fourth-place runner-up from American Idol, that's a pretty piss-poor statement about the record industry," says a local insider about Daughtry's music. "It's formulaic crap that won't matter in the grand scheme of things five years from now."

Steely disagrees.

"We won three American Music Awards and have three Grammy nominations. How do you criticize a band that has sold more records than anyone else?"

Daughtry embarks on a two-month tour of the U.S. with Bon Jovi February 12.