Taylor Swift
Photo: MTV News

In the three years since Taylor Swift released her self-titled debut album, she has become an undeniable superstar. Not only has she found mainstream success outside of the Nashville country-music scene, but she's been breaking records all over the place. On the heels of her Fearless re-release, 2006's Taylor Swift just became the longest-charting album of the decade.

"That's a crazy statistic," the singer told MTV News at rehearsals for her gig hosting "Saturday Night Live" this week. "It means that my first album that came out, the self-titled album, charts longer than I guess any album this century."

The album, which contains Swift's breakout hit "Teardrops on My Guitar," came out in November 2006, peaked at #5 in 2008, and has remained on the charts for a whopping 157 weeks and counting. Take that, former record-holders, Nickleback! "Was it Nickelback? Who I like!" she said. "I'm just really excited."

Swift credits the success of the album to her massively loyal fanbase. "I mean, when things like that happen, I love the fans more and more," she said. "And I didn't think I could love them any more for all the things they've done for me, especially in the last year."

The world appears to be Swift's oyster, and this week the pearl is "SNL," where she'll also serve as the night's musical guest. "It's just blown my mind that I get to be here hosting 'SNL,' and it's all because of what the fans have done for me," she said. "So, [the fans] continue to amaze me."

• Taylor Swift
• Nickelback

Kelly Clarkson's <i>All I Ever Wanted</i>
Photo: Sony BMG

Despite a strong debut last week, U2 have been replaced at the top of the Billboard albums chart by a resurgent Kelly Clarkson, whose All I Ever Wanted will take the pole position in its debut week on sales of 254,000.

That's just a shade behind what Clarkson's last album, the troubled My December, did in its first week (291,000) in June 2007, but with a hit single in "My Life Would Suck Without You," Clarkson seems poised for a solid comeback. Also debuting on the charts is the second album from in-demand songwriter/producer The-Dream, Love Vs. Money, which hit the #2 spot and racked up 151,000 in sales, besting U2's No Line on the Horizon. For the beleaguered music industry, the upside was that the totals for the top three represent the first time in 2009 that a trio of discs in the top 10 has passed the 100K-plus mark.

Had J. Holiday's Round 2 debuted with slightly better numbers at #4, it might have been a four-way, but alas the singer could only muster 55,000 units, barely edging out this year's chart queen, Taylor Swift, whose Fearless fell several spots to #5 on sales of 51,000, edging her ever closer to the 3 million mark. The only other debut in the top 10 was the controversial collabo between former Soundgarden/ Audioslave frontman Chris Cornell and producer Timbaland, Scream, which snagged the #10 spot with sales of 25,000.

Elsewhere in the top 10, dance diva Lady Gaga hung tight, slipping a few notches to #6 with The Fame, racking up 46,000 new fans, while the rest of the top 10 was unchanged, with Nickelback at #7 (36,000), followed by Beyoncé's I Am ... Sasha Fierce (28,000) at #8 and Jamie Foxx's Intuition at #9 (26,000).

Just outside the top 10, pop-punk stalwarts New Found Glory's first album for Epitaph, the Mark Hoppus-produced Not Without a Fight, lands at #12 (23,000), followed by the #15 debut of Punk Goes Pop Volume 2 (20,000), which features Bayside covering Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls," August Burns Red ripping through Britney's "... Baby One More Time" and the Cab doing Rihanna's "Disturbia."

Alt darling Neko Case drops to #17 after a surprising #3 debut for her critically acclaimed Middle Cyclone album (20,000), the Yeah Yeah Yeahs blast onto the charts for a #32 debut for It's Blitz! (13,000) and the Jonas Brothers' 3D Concert Experience continues its freefall, dropping another 15-plus spots in its third week to #37, with just 12,000 units shifted.

Gone are the days of #1 debuts for former "American Idol" champ Taylor Hicks, whose independently released The Distance limped in at #58 on sales of 8,000, nearly 290,000 less copies than his self-titled major-label debut managed in 2006.

And, after a #3 debut in November and steadily declining sales ever since, Guns N' Roses' highly touted comeback, Chinese Democracy, will fall out of the top 200 next week, likely done in by a combination of no radio hits, music videos, announced tour dates or public appearances or interviews by frontman Axl Rose.

Look for the charts to remain fairly static next week, as the only major new releases include a deluxe edition of the "Twilight" soundtrack and Gorilla Zoe's Don't Feed Da Animals.

• MTV News' Headlines Of The Day

• Kelly Clarkson
• Guns N' Roses
• U2
• Jamie Foxx
• The-Dream

The Fray's self-titled album
Photo: Epic

It's been four years since Denver rockers the Fray released their debut album, but clearly their fans have not forgotten the "How to Save a Life" group. The band's self-titled second album will debut at the top of the Billboard albums chart next week with sales of 179,300, according to figures provided by Nielsen SoundScan.

That top debut will push Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's Working on a Dream — which held the spot for just one week — down to #2 with sales of 101,600, a 55 percent slide. Country singer Dierks Bentley will debut at #3 with Feel That Fire, which sold 71,200 copies.

The rest of the top 10 is mostly full of the usual suspects, once again. Taylor Swift will continue her strong chart run with Fearless, sliding down to #4 with another 63,900 moved, enough to push her over the 2.5 million mark. She's followed by Beyoncé's I Am ... Sasha Fierce (#5, 51,400), Nickelback's Dark Horse (#6, 47,300), new entry Kidz Bop 15 (#7, 38,400), Jamie Foxx's Intuition (#8, 36,600), Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak (#9, 33,900) and Keyshia Cole's Different Me (#10, 33,600).

Further down the chart, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus debut at #14 with 26,000 copies sold of Lonely Road. Florida melodic metalcore rockers A Day to Remember pop in at #21 with sales of 21,700 of their third studio album, Homesick. Best New Artist Grammy winner Adele's debut, 19, jumps 29 spots to #27 on sales of nearly 17,900, and she'll likely see an even bigger jump next week. Adele's iTunes live EP, iTunes Live From Soho, will debut at #105 with sales of 6,300.

Another Best New Artist nominee, fellow British crooner Duffy, saw a double-digit percentage leap for Rockferry, which was boosted to #53 with sales of 11,500. A number of other Grammy-winnings artists were helped by the awards show, including Coldplay (#31, 16,700), Leona Lewis (#42, 12,700) and Jennifer Hudson (#47, 12,100). Expect Album of the Year winner Raising Sand from Robert Plant and Alison Krauss to have another huge bump next week. Sand flies back onto the charts at #68 thanks to about 9,400 new converts, a 286 percent increase from the previous week.

Elsewhere on the chart, "American Idol" season-six third-place finalist Melinda Doolittle's full length debut, It's Your Love, will land at #58 in its first week with close to 10,900 units moved. Franz Ferdinand's Tonight: Franz Ferdinand nose-dives 50 spots after last week's top 10 debut, down to #59 with 10,700 in sales. Cannibal Corpse bring their Evisceration Plague in at #91 with 7,500, and just a few customers behind is the latest from Ben Kweller, the country-tinged Changing Horses at #92. Indie darlings Heartless Bastards debut at #150 with sales of 4,200 for Mountains.

The top 10 might get shaken up a bit next week by new albums from Lily Allen, "Saturday Night Live" viral faves Lonely Island and the latest from Bobby Valentino.

• The Fray
• Leona Lewis
• Bruce Springsteen
• Duffy
• Adele

Photo: Ethan Miller/ Getty Images

Ticketmaster and Live Nation Inc. announced on Tuesday (February 10) that they will combine forces to create one of the largest live entertainment companies on the planet, to be called Live Nation Entertainment.

The merger combines ticket provider Ticketmaster, which sells tickets for more than 80 percent of the major arenas and stadiums in the United States, with Live Nation, the world's leading concert-promotion company, into a company whose value is an estimated $2.5 billion.

The deal still has to face major hurdles that could delay it as regulators launch an antitrust review to ensure that the new company does not represent a monopoly. The merger comes after Live Nation cut ties with Ticketmaster earlier this year and attempted to launch its own rival ticketing service. Minutes after the deal was announced, New York Senator Charles Schumer, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, quickly criticized it, according to the New York Times.

"This merger would give a giant, new entity unrivaled power over concertgoers and the prices they pay to see their favorite artists and bands," the senator said in an e-mailed statement. "It must be viewed skeptically and scrutinized with a fine-toothed comb by the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission."

Both services have endured bad publicity over the past few weeks. Ticketmaster got slammed by Bruce Springsteen's manager for allegedly redirecting fans trying to buy tickets for the singer's upcoming tour to a secondary resale site it owns called TicketsNow, where they were forced to pay premium prices for seats. Ticketmaster apologized to Springsteen and his fans, according to the Los Angeles Times. But on Monday, Bloomberg.com reported that a $500 million lawsuit had been filed in Canada against the company for allegedly selling tickets at inflated prices.

Phish fans were also outraged recently when tickets for the beloved jam band's reunion shows went on sale and, according to Billboard.com, Live Nation's new ticketing system crashed due to the high volume of requests.

Live Nation has been preparing its ticketing system for over a year, all the while making mega-million-dollar deals with artists including Jay-Z, Madonna, U2, Shakira and Nickelback for those acts' touring, merchandising and, in some cases, recording rights.

In addition to its holdings in the U.S., which encompass nearly 120 venues including 39 amphitheaters, as well as a number of major regional concert promoters, Live Nation controls businesses that print artist-related T-shirts and merchandise and run fan clubs.

The deal comes as the music industry is mired in a continuing downturn, with Nielsen Soundscan reporting that album sales slipped 14 percent in 2008, marking the fourth straight year of significant declines in CD sales.

Meanwhile, touring revenues were up slightly in 2008, and the business remains one of the most consistently profitable parts of the music industry.

In a release announcing the deal, Ticketmaster and Live Nation promised that they would attempt to give fans better access and more options for buying tickets, improve pricing schemes, invest in better ticketing technology such as paperless ticketing and mobile delivery of tickets, and increase attendance at events.

While the merger has led some to fear that the new company could unilaterally raise the average price of a concert ticket and leave fans without a second option, Ray Waddell, Billboard magazine's concert tour reporter told CNN that he doesn't expect ticket prices to "just blow up" should the merger be approved.

"Traditionally, when there's competition taken out of the marketplace, it really doesn't do a lot for lowering prices, but both these companies are very sensitive to the market and what the fans can pay," he said, adding the caveat that a combined company would control "everything before, during and after a concert takes place over the course of an entire tour, and that's pretty sizable."

• Jay-Z
• Madonna
• U2
• Nickelback
• Shakira

Bruce Springsteen's <i>Working On A Dream</i>
Photo: Columbia

It took the Boss to finally unseat country-pop dynamo Taylor Swift from the top of the Billboard albums chart after eight weeks at #1. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's Working on a Dream will debut in the top spot next week on sales of 223,000, according to figures provided by Nielsen SoundScan, ending a two-month run by Swift's Fearless album, which will drop to #2 on sales of 55,000.

Dream is Springsteen's ninth #1 album, but despite a prominent slot at the inauguration of President Barack Obama, not to mention a rousing performance at the Super Bowl, the new album sold 100,000 fewer copies in its first week than the band's previous album, 2007's Magic.

It was a bit of a shake-up in an otherwise slow week, during which Scottish dance rockers Franz Ferdinand notched their best-ever Billboard chart debut by sneaking in at #9 with 30,000 units shifted of their latest, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand. They provided some of the only movement in the top 20 during yet another mostly down week for the business. Beyoncé's I Am ... Sasha Fierce slipped a notch to #3 on sales of 51,000, followed by Nickelback's Dark Horse (43,000), Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak (33,000), newcomer 2009 Grammy Nominees at #6 (32,000), Jamie Foxx's Intuition (31,000), Keyshia Cole's A Different Me (30,000) and, at #10, Britney Spears' Circus, which crossed the 1.3 million mark thanks to another 28,000 copies sold.

The ninth volume of WWE: The Music hit the charts at #11 on sales of 24,000, Hoobastank's cleverly named latest For(n)ever squeezed out 15,000 in sales to debut at #26, the Rihanna remix album Good Girl Gone Bad: Remixes managed to move just under 5,000 copies to debut at #106, and smooth English singer/songwriter James Morrison popped up at #130 for the first week for his Songs for You, Truths for Me album, thanks to 4,000 in sales. MTV's favorite teen metallers, Crooked X, rocked up to #176 with their self-titled debut, which whipped up just over 3,000 in sales.

A couple of scrappy indie albums that took advantage of the January doldrums took serious tumbles, including Antony & the Johnsons' Crying Light, which dropped more than 50 percent and 84 slots to #149 on just over 3,600 sold; Bon Iver's Blood Bank EP, which fell 41 slots to #57 with 9,000 new converts; and Animal Collective, whose Merriweather Post Pavilion tripped from #13 to #52 on 10,000 copies, but was off nearly 60 percent from its debut. Also swan-diving in a similarly spectacular fashion was sensitive fiddler/whistler Andrew Bird, whose Noble Beast plunged from #12 to #50 on sales of more than 10,000.

Springsteen and Swift should be relatively safe next week, with debuts from the Fray, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and the latest Kidz Bop album.

• Bruce Springsteen
• Taylor Swift
• Franz Ferdinand
• Nickelback
• Beyoncé

Taylor Swift's <i>Fearless</i>
Photo: Big Machine Records

Stop us if you've heard this one before: Taylor Swift's Fearless will top next week's Billboard albums chart.

The country crossover princess sold 63,300 copies of her sophomore album to top the chart for the seventh week (and sixth in a row). That's a feat that hasn't been accomplished since Usher's Confessions spent nine weeks at #1 back in 2004. Fearless has sold more than 2.3 million copies since being released in November.

All-in-all, it was a slow week for album sales. Beyoncé's I Am ... Sasha Fierce landed at #2, selling just over 49,200 copies. Nickelback's Dark Horse follows at #3, with sales of more than 46,400 copies.

The week's biggest debut belongs to the "Notorious" soundtrack, which sold more than 42,900 copies to bow at #4. The accompaniment to the Biggie biopic — which features some of rapper's biggest hits, plus tracks from Jay-Z (featuring Santogold) and Faith Evans — becomes the fifth soundtrack to debut in the top five over the past year, according to SoundScan. Speaking of movie tunes, A.R. Rahman's Golden Globe-winning "Slumdog Millionaire" soundtrack posted a 116 percent rise in sales (bumping up to #16) after last week's awards show.

Rounding out the top 10 are Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak at #5, with sales of more than 39,500 copies, the omnipresent "Twilight" soundtrack at #6 (36,000 copies), Britney Spears' Circus at #7 (34,000 copies), Jamie Foxx's Intuition at #8 (31,400 copies) and. Keyshia Cole's Different Me at #9 (31,300). Perhaps benefitting from the return of "American Idol," David Cook's self-titled debut posted a 58 percent jump in sales to land at #10, with sales of more than 30,600 copies.

Other debuts on this next week's chart include the Derek Trucks Band's Already Free at #19, Heather Headley's Audience of One at #27 and (hed) p.e.'s New World Orphans at #72.

• Taylor Swift
• Notorious B.I.G.
• Beyoncé
• Usher
• Jay-Z

Britney Spears
Photo: Jive

Well, there's really no denying it now: Britney Spears really is back! Back to selling tons of records, at least.

Her Circus album will debut at #1 on next week's Billboard albums chart, selling just under 505,100 copies. It's Spears' fifth album to debut at #1 on the chart, and it sold nearly twice as many copies as last year's Blackout album, which was denied the top spot on the chart by the Eagles' Long Road Out of Eden.

Circus' first-week sales total is certainly big, but it's only the sixth biggest opening of 2008, behind albums like Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III, AC/DC's Black Ice, Coldplay's Viva la Vida, Taylor Swift's Fearless and T.I.'s Paper Trail. Still, it outpaced the first-week numbers of some of Brit's pop peers, including Beyoncé's I Am ... Sasha Fierce, Mariah Carey's E = MC² and Miley Cyrus' Breakout.

Interestingly enough, the Brit-sanity was so high among album buyers that Blackout also managed to return to the charts, selling more than 4,600 copies to land at #198.

Spears' manager, Larry Rudolph, told The Associated Press that the success of Circus really does signify Brit's triumphant return. "At the end of the day, I think she is America's pop princess, and the world's pop princess, and this just reconfirms it to everyone who doubted it," he said. "Professionally, she's feeling great. ... It's great for her to hear that she's got a #1 album again."

Those sentiments were seconded by in a statement from Jive Records, Britney's label. "We're absolutely thrilled for Britney," the statement reads. "The response to Circus is a testament to how great the album is, and to how connected and supportive Britney's fans are to her and her music."

Swift's Fearless lands in the #2 spot on the albums chart for the second-straight week, selling 193,500 copies. Beyoncé's Sasha Fierce is at #3, with sales of more than 152,800 copies. Last week's chart champ, Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak, drops to #4, with sales of close to 141,700 copies. Nickelback's Dark Horse rounds out the top five, selling 133,400 copies.

The rest of the top 10 features the "Twilight" soundtrack at #6; the week's other big-name debut, Akon's Freedom at #7; the soundtrack to "High School Musical 3" at #8; the ubiquitous hits collection Now That's What I Call Music! 29 at #9; and David Cook's self-titled effort at #10.

Aside from Circus and Freedom (which sold 110,600 copies), other notable debuts on next week's chart include Scarface's Emeritus (#24, with 42,000 copies sold), Neil Young's Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House 1968 (#40, with 26,400 copies sold) and the soundtrack to Beyoncé's new movie, "Cadillac Records" (#66, with 15,600 copies sold).

• Today's Headlines: Britney, T.I. & More
• Britney Spears Is #1

• Britney Spears
• Taylor Swift
• Kanye West
• Nickelback
• Akon

Nickelback's Mike and Chad Kroeger
Photo: MTV News

There's something funny about Nickelback. Well, actually, there's plenty that's funny about them, but for the context of this article, let's just focus on one rather glaring point: Despite the fact that they have sold something north of 25 million albums worldwide, and are probably one of the 10 hugest rock acts on the planet, they still consider themselves to be complete underdogs.

And they are steadfast in this. They maintain a constant "us against the world" mentality. They grind out tour dates not in weeks or months, but years, because they don't know any other way of operating. They get positively zero respect from rock critics, and are 100 percent fine with this. And all of that is why they chose to name their new album Dark Horse.

"It just came up, this phrase, you know ... 'dark horse,' " frontman Chad Kroeger laughed. "It was like the underdog, and I always liked the underdog. ... There was just something about it, you know, like, 'Always bet on the underdog,' so there you have it. Now it's on the front of many little compact discs out there."

And Kroeger's right. There are many of those discs out there. Dark Horse bowed at #2 on last week's Billboard chart, bested only by Beyoncé's I Am ... Sasha Fierce. The first single off that album — the so-dumb-it's-brilliant "Something in Your Mouth" — is burning up rock radio (and a few feminists too), thanks to lyrics like, "I love the way you dance with anybody/ And tease them all by sucking on your thumb/ You're so much cooler when you never pull it out/ 'Cause you look so much cuter with something in your mouth." And in February, they'll launch yet another globe-spanning tour in support of the disc. You know, just business as usual for one of the biggest rock bands in the world.

"We just do it the way bands used to do it. We didn't adhere to it, we just did it. Record. Album. Go on the road. Stay on the road forever, until everyone is sick of that album. Go back to the studio and make a new album. Go on the road. That's it," Kroeger said. "We want to go back to all those towns and have those people show up and want to sing rock-and-roll songs twice as loud back at us as we are singing it to them, and that's why we keep doing what we're doing. This is a good gig. It's a lot of fun. It's every young kid's dream. ...We all just want to be rock stars and live in hilltop houses driving 15 cars."

And it's those sold-out shows — not to mention that success — that continues to befuddle Nickelback's many detractors. There is nothing many critics and bloggers would like to see more than Kroeger and company fall flat on their faces — which, of course, only makes Nickelback strive harder to get huger. Well, that and a healthy dose of humility.

"I used to have four roommates, and we used to live in this house and it just used to be a bunch of drunk kids barely getting by, trying to get enough money for beer at all times — weed and beer," Kroeger laughed. "Food was definitely low on the priority list for sure. We were just trying to get by and having the best times ever. And I always think about that. ... Oh, and what are these 'blogs' you speak of?"

• Nickelback Embrace The Role Of 'Dark Horse'

• Nickelback

Beyonce's <i>I Am... Sasha Fierce</i>
Photo: Columbia

Three mega releases hit stores last week, but of course, there's room for only one at the top of the chart. So would Beyoncé debut at #1 with her latest, I Am ... Sasha Fierce, or would Nickelback's Dark Horse ruin Thanksgiving dinner at the Knowles abode? Or would "American Idol" winner David Cook's self-titled debut outsell them both?

No one could have predicted the outcome with any certainty, but as expected, the three releases will sweep the chart's top three spots on next week's Billboard albums chart.

With just over 482,400 copies of Sasha Fierce snatched up during that album's first week in stores, Beyoncé makes it three #1's in a row, following the chart-topping successes of her previous solo efforts, 2003's Dangerously in Love (which sold 317,000 copies to open on top) and 2006's B'Day (which also entered at #1 with 541,000 scans).

Canadian rockers Nickelback were poised to score back-to-back #1 openings, but will instead have to settle for second, as Dark Horse enters the chart with with close to 326,400 sold, according to the latest sales figures releases by Nielsen SoundScan. Cook's eponymous debut lands at #3, with week-one sales clocked at almost 279,600. Only one other new release cracked the chart's Top 10, and that album belongs to Il Divo. The Promise bows at #5 with nearly 161,600 scans.

The rest of the Top 10 is teeming with some of the year's biggest albums. Last week's chart-topper, Taylor Swift's Fearless, falls three spots to #4 with around 217,000 copies scanned, and the "Twilight" soundtrack slides one place to #6, selling nearly 125,000 units. The Now That's What I Call Music! Vol. 29 compilation disc follows at #7 with 115,300 sold, while the soundtrack to "High School Musical 3: Senior Year" comes in at #8, with almost 85,800 scans. Enya's Winter Came sold 83,300 copies to claim the #9 opening, and rounding things out at #10 with just under 73,000 sold its AC/DC's Black Ice.

Also new to next week's chart is Dido's latest, Safe Trip Home, which opens at #13, after selling 50,600 copies. Mudvayne's New Game, which follows at #15 with week-one sales reported at 48,300. Rapper Slim's latest, Love's Crazy, enters at #32, with sales of 26,800, while Ace Hood's Gutta follows at #36 with sales of nearly 24,700.

• Beyoncé
• Nickelback
• Taylor Swift
• David Cook
• Dido

Nickelback
Photo: Roadrunner

Chad Kroeger wants you to stop playing "Guitar Hero."

On Monday, less than 24 hours before the release of his band's new album, Dark Horse, the Nickelback frontman was sitting inside the Sunset Marquis Hotel in West Hollywood, California, grumbling about what he perceives to be rock and roll's dwindling numbers.

"I feel like there's not enough rock bands out there, especially when we go on the road," said Kroeger, who performs with the Canadian rock outfit on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" on Wednesday night. "It's tough to find other bands out there, because either they're making a record, or they just got done touring. So kids: Start rock bands. Set down the 'Guitar Hero,' learn how to play an actual guitar and start a band, because it's hard to find more bands to put a solid rock-and-roll package together, to get out there. It's getting harder and harder, but I think we've done it."

Of course, Kroeger was referring to Nickelback's upcoming tour, which is set to kick off in late February and feature support acts Seether and Saving Abel. Based on the band's previous album sales, it's safe to say that by the time that tour gets under way, Nickelback's new LP will have already gone gold.

But making Dark Horse was no easy task, he said. The record took more than six months to create, from conception to delivery, and Kroeger said he's pretty sure the band accomplished its stated mission of releasing a record that surpasses its previous offering, 2005's All the Right Reasons.

"The bar's been raised — it's pretty high, especially if we are going to be looking back at the last record," he said. "I think our fans were pretty happy with it, and we made a lot of new fans with that one, and we want to keep 'em. Call us greedy, but we want to keep 'em all. We want to keep going back to all those towns and have those people show up and want to sing our songs back at us, twice as loud. That's why we keep doing what we're doing. This is a good gig. It's a lot of fun, and it's every young kid's dream."

Kroeger admitted that some of the album's lyricism relies heavily on innuendo (take the track "Something in Your Mouth," for instance), but the singer's not trying to be controversial or creepy — he's just trying to pull you in.

"I wanted to get into grabbing someone's attention and holding it," he said. "Sometimes, there are a couple of moments within the record where parents might be going, 'What? This has to come out of the minivan.' But I think we're at the point now where we have to grab people's attention. Other than that, on this album, we were just focused on sustaining — to stay where we're at. We just wanted to write and record a bunch of good rock-and-roll songs we'll enjoy touring. We just hope that our friends are going to dig it half as much as we do."

Kroeger said that, while the whole record is something he and the rest of Nickelback are extremely proud of, he does have a few favorites on Dark Horse, including "Something in Your Mouth."

"That was the first song we worked on for the record," he said. "We were in Sweden and went over a bunch of material with our producer, Mutt Lange, and he wanted to get to a rocker. I've got this phrase: 'You look so much cuter with something in your mouth.' He thought that was perfect and was like, 'Let's start with that one right there.' So we just went off and just wrote this silly rock song that's got this great groove to it, and away we went."

"Burn It to the Ground" is a song that the band had to revise three different times, because producer "Joey Moi, who works with us on a lot of stuff, was sitting in the back of the studio, and said, 'I don't know — it doesn't make me want to pump my fist in the air and crack a beer open.' " The band continued to tweak the track until "everybody's head started moving in the same direction, and Joey said, 'Now I want to crack open a beer, now I want to party with my buddies, now I want to crank the song, and now it's doing what I thought the song should do.' "

The song "Gotta Be Somebody" is a tune Kroeger feels everyone will be able to relate to. "It's just one of those universal themes that Nickelback love to gravitate towards and something everyone can identify with," he said. "It hits such a common thread, because I think everybody that's single — or in a relationship and thinking, 'This may not be the one' — says to themselves, 'There's got to be that perfect somebody for me out there,' and that's what the song is about."

Other songs, like album closer "This Afternoon," were inspired by Kroeger's life experiences. "It's a good rock-and-roll version of [Garth Brooks'] 'Friends in Low Places,' " he said. "Anyone who's ever had roommates, or more than a couple, will relate to this song. I used to have four roommates. We all lived in this house. It was a bunch of drunken kids, barely getting by, trying to find money for beer. Food was low on the priority list. So it's a song about trying to get by and having the best times — ever."

• Nickelback

Gwen, T.I., Pharrell, Luda And More Hit The 2006 Billboard Music Awards

• Gwen Stefani
• Pharrell Williams
• Ludacris
• Janet Jackson
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Nokia Unwired @ Hard Rock Live: Season Finale

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Buzzfest Photo Gallery

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MTV.com LIVE: Nickelback Photos 08.31.2005

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Diary of Nickelback

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Nickelback Photos

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American Music Awards Red Carpet

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45th Annual Grammy Award Nominees, Presenters, And Performers

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• Nickelback