Susan Boyle has made U.K. chart history. The former Britain’s Got Talent contestant sold over 410,000 copies of her debut album I Dreamed a Dream in its first week of release, making it the fastest-selling album of 2009 as well earning the biggest first-week sales of any album in U.K. chart history. The album is also on track to top the American, Australian, and Canadian charts. [TheDailySwarm.com]

Chris Brown will not sing on Good Morning America after all. Last week, Brown was scheduled to perform on the morning show as a replacement for Adam Lambert in the wake of Lambert’s controversial American Music Awards performance, a move that drew ABC heavy criticism. Instead, an interview with Brown will air on the December 11 episode of the news magazine show 20/20; the interview is billed as “his reply to Rhianna,” who appeared on 20/20 earlier this month. [NYPost.com]

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This week, we celebrate Thanksgiving here in America, and we’d like to give thanks to everyone who reads the Jamz every week. We do this for you and hopefully you’ve all found some decent groups throughout the year. We’ll be rounding up our faves in a couple weeks and there are still two spots open for the Reader’s Choice HDJs, which will be coming up soon. Until then, hold on tight because we’ve got another rip-roaring, good time jams for y’all this week. No turkeys in sight! Get it? Turkeys….Thanksgiving…..ha ha ha…whatever…

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In a career spanning 25 years, cellist Matt Haimovitz has grown from a winsome lad of 13, making his debut with Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic, to an institution, noted both as a concert artist and solo recitalist. However, unlike many institutions, Haimovitz has never allowed himself to fossilize, and he is equally well recognized for edgy, envelope-pushing fare as for delivering the great Western classics with his special, personal perspective that has endeared him to standard concert audiences. In order to pursue both streams of endeavor, Haimovitz has found it necessary to employ strategies of booking that essentially divide his audiences. Haimovitz’s most recent Figment tour finds him in a more exploratory vein and collaborating with composer/performer Du Yun, co-founder of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) and lately winner of Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s fourth annual Elaine Lebenbom Memorial Award for Female Composers.

As they’ve reached a break in the tour, AMG’s Uncle Dave Lewis caught up with Matt Haimovitz and Du Yun via linked cellphones from an internet café in New York City.

AMG: I understand that you have just finished the first leg of your Figment tour with Du Yun. How is that going?

Matt Haimovitz: It’s going very well, thank you! I like doing this kind of tour where I am playing so often in unusual kinds of venues; it gives us time to build up momentum artistically and do get more deeply into our program and get more comfortable with it. It’s getting better and better as we go along, and it’s nice to be able to do something like this every once in awhile.

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Its title aside (which suggests that Hoagy Carmichael was some distant forerunner of Jackson Browne or Dar Williams, a case that would be both difficult and a little absurd to make), there’s no doubt that First of the Singer Songwriters: Key Cuts 1924-1946, a four-disc, 101-track collection from English reissue label JSP, is carefully and lovingly assembled, and it outlines an impressive and amazing legacy. Carmichael was technically a singer/songwriter, of course, in the sense that he was quite capable of performing his songs at a commercial level, and he certainly had a public persona as an unassuming, laid-back, slightly world weary but jivin’ jazz cat out of Indiana, but his songs didn’t depend on that persona in order to get across, and that, more than anything, sets him apart from most if not all of the so-called singer/songwriters of the present day.

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Everyone remember Sally Shapiro, the icy Swedish disco duo? They had a couple albums that were blogged to death, including one that was released this year. Well, if you read the small print on their records, you’ll see the name Roger Gunnarson as the composer of many songs, including “Anorak Christmas.” Turns out he’s also responsible for a whole bunch of very good pop music during the past decade. Gunnarson’s own group, Nixon, made a few really good electro pop albums in the early 2000’s; he was a member of the noisy indie pop groups Free Loan Investments and The Garland; and best of all, he has his own Shapiro-esque set up with a duo called Cloetta Paris. Roger writes the sweet and gentle Italo disco-inspired tunes, wraps them in cheerfully frigid synth pop arrangements, and a female friend of his (not named Cloetta) sings them in a simple but very effective manner. If you like Sally Shapiro at all, you need to check out Cloetta Paris because, confidentially, they are way better! It’s like Roger snatched back the formula and perfected it while nobody was watching. He’s my indie pop hero!

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Iconic R&B group Sade has a new album, Soldier of Love, prepped for release next year. The band, which features vocalist Sade Adu, is best known for such hit albums as 1985’s Diamond Life, 1992’s Love Deluxe and 2000’s Lover’s Rock. According to Sony labelmate Maxwell, the album is “monolithic.” Soldier of Love is slated to arrive on February 10, 2010. [Billboard.com]

Experimental composer/musician Glenn Branca wrote an editorial for the New York Times titled The End of Music in which he ponders whether new music is the same as old music. [NYTimes.com]

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Susan Boyle’s debut album, I Dreamed A Dream, may oust the Arctic Monkeys’ Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not as the fastest-selling U.K. debut in history. Boyle sold 130,000 copies of her album during its first day of release, while Arctic Monkeys moved over 360,000 during their album’s first week. The race is on. [NME.com]

Following Adam Lambert’s sexually-charged performance during the AMAs, ABC has canned the singer’s next gig — a Wednesday morning appearance on Good Morning America. “Given his controversial live performance on the AMAs, we were concerned about airing a similar concert so early in the morning,” said an ABC spokesperson. Instead, Lambert will serenade early risers on CBS’ The Early Show, and will appear on the same network several hours later as part of The Late Show With David Letterman. For Your Entertainment, Lambert’s debut album, was released today. [RollingStone.com]

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I totally slept on Alphabeat’s newest single when it came out last month. You might have too. Well, we should both wake up because “The Spell” is a total jam. It trades out the Eighties worship of the first album (and the amazingly good singles “Fascination” and “10,000 Nights”) for a much slicker, more ’90s, almost boy band-sounding approach. Loads of icy synths, a pounding almost-New Jack drumbeat, and a brassy, splashy vocal performance from Stine Bramsen make this a nice next step for the band. Also perfect for a Max Martin remix — somebody make it happen! The video leaves off some of the bright colored cuteness of their early visual efforts in favor of a more sophisticated look. Again, very ’90s and very nice.

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