Green Day's "Nimrod" Charts At No. 10

Green Day is "hitchin' a ride" up the charts with their new release, Nimrod. The album sold 81,000 copies its first week in the stores, securing the No. 10 slot on the Billboard album chart.

The band is excited about their third album, and is very involved in devising schemes to bring them closer to their fans, according to band spokesman Jim Baltutis. "We recently kick-started www.greenday.com, where you can get Green Day information and audio clips of Billie Joe (Armstrong), and send email to the whole band," he said.

Baltutis also confirmed that the Berkeley-based punk trio will be guesting on Fox's King of the Hill "sometime in mid-November." Nimrod's first single, "Hitchin A Ride," has been holding solid near the top of active rock charts. Baltutis says there is no decision on the follow-up single, though "Good Riddance," "Prosthetic Head" and "Redundant" are all possibilities.

In other chart news, teenage sensation LeAnn Rimes recaptured the top slot with You Light Up My Life, pushing Janet Jackson's The Velvet Rope back to No. 2. Two film soundtracks also grace the top five -- Gang Related at No. 3 and Soul Food at No. 5, and Fleetwood Mac's The Dance sold 111,500 copies, jumping up three spots from No. 7 to No. 4. LL Cool J's latest release, Phenomenon, debuted at No. 7.

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Song Stories

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell | 1974

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.

More Song Stories entries »

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