Lady Gaga has snagged a piece of pop music history in landing the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 this week with her new single “Born This Way.”

Even more significant than posting the highest first-week digital sales by a female artist, with 448,000 downloads of the song, according to Nielsen SoundScan, Gaga scored the 1,000th No. 1 single on the Billboard chart since its inception in 1958.

In recognition of the milestone among chart watchers, Billboard has posted a chronological listing of all 1,000 chart-topping songs.

The first? Ricky Nelson’s “Poor Little Fool,” which beat all comers on that first Hot 100 chart dated Aug. 4, 1958. With that in mind, some might consider it a shame that America’s latest teen idol, Justin Bieber, didn’t land the No. 1 slot this week to bookend the half-century-plus period that began with pop music’s original teen idol. (Life magazine is credited with coining the phrase in a feature story on Nelson’s rise to stardom.)

Pop & Hiss thought we’d take the opportunity to scan through the years for some of the chart’s other high- and lowlights.

Jim Guerinot, the manager of No Doubt, Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails, the Band’s Robbie Robertson and the Offspring, was initially as skeptical as anyone in the concert business that the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger would clear the Justice Department.  But during the last year, as the two companies began working together more closely in hopes of uniting, he’s seen significant gains, both for his artists and their fans.

"I’ve gotten a tremendous amount of cooperation from them on fan-oriented programs to prevent scalping and lower ticket prices,” he told The Times on Monday.

He noted that anti-scalping measures that Reznor wanted for Nine Inch Nails’ farewell tour last year were implemented without resistance from Live Nation or Ticketmaster, and that both also fell in line with No Doubt’s wish to offer significant numbers of seats on the group’s 2009 reunion tour for $10.

“I can see where there would be concern from independent promoters, but on all my tours, I’ve been able to  lean into indies where I wanted to and where it’s more effective for the fans,” Guerinot said.

He believes the state of the economy nationally had a “tremendous amount” of influence in the approval from the Obama administration, which had been widely expected to exert far tougher scrutiny on corporate mergers than the Bush administration that preceded it.

Rock band No Doubt has filed a real-world lawsuit over its virtual role in the just-released Band Hero edition of the Guitar Hero video game series, claiming that the game has “transformed No Doubt band members into a virtual karaoke circus act,” singing dozens of songs the group neither wrote, popularized nor approved for use in the game.

In a suit filed today in Los Angeles Superior Court, the band alleges that Santa Monica-based Activision, the maker of the game, has far exceeded the contractually approved use of likenesses, or avatars, of band members Gwen Stefani, Tony Kanal, Tom Dumont and Adrian Young.

[Updated at 1:04 p.m.: “The band [members] are bitterly disappointed that their name and likeness was taken and used without their permission,” manager Jim Guerinot said today. “They agreed to play three No Doubt songs as a band.... Activision then went and put them in 62 other songs and broke the band up [and] never even asked.”]

[Updated at 2:25 p.m.: In a statement issued this afternoon, the company said: “Activision believes it is within its legal rights with respect to the use and portrayal of the band members in the game and that this lawsuit is without merit.”]

The suit also charges that the game allows users to manipulate their characters to sing songs popularized by other pop music acts. No Doubt’s contract with Activision allowed the company to use the band’s music and likenesses in no more than three of the band’s own songs, the suit states. The game, which was released Tuesday, puts the group members’ images, collectively and individually, into more than 60 songs, “many of which include lyrics, contained in iconic songs, which are not appropriate for No Doubt and have not been and would not have been chosen by No Doubt for recordings or public performances.”

Neil Young and Co. give the kids a great show, and Young gives his fellow performers a great example.

Reporting from Mountain View, Calif. - The direct impact of Neil Young's annual Bridge School Benefit Concerts is as plain as the joyful faces of the special-needs school's students, many of whom watch each year from an onstage riser placed right behind the performers.

Those faces were often captured by the video cameras that were otherwise trained on the stars of this year's shows, which got underway Saturday at Shoreline Amphitheatre just north of San Jose with unplugged sets by No Doubt, Coldplay's Chris Martin, Jimmy Buffett, Sheryl Crow, Monsters of Folk, Fleet Foxes, Wolfmother and Gavin Rossdale. Adam Sandler was scheduled to take over Buffett's slot as the only change on Sunday's lineup.

In a fairly understated way, Young and his wife, Pegi, the event's co-organizer, have a school of their own going in this show, one that trains newcomers in service to a cause higher than merely entertaining fans, and how to go about it with class and humility.

"Thanks for being here," Neil said when he finally took the Shoreline stage just before midnight on Saturday. His succinct statement applied as much to the other musicians as to the crowd, which appeared close to filling the 22,000-capacity amphitheater.

The powerfully emotional backdrop of Neil Young's annual Bridge School Benefit Concerts is evident in the faces of the nonprofit school's disabled students and those of their families, which were flashed on video screens throughout Saturday's 6 1/2-hour show.

On occasion, the performers' feelings burst to the surface as well. Event co-organizer Pegi Young's voice cracked at the outset of the show as she introduced each of the students who watched from a riser on stage behind the performers.

Then during No Doubt's set, singer Gwen Stefani had to reach for a tissue after singing "Simple Kind of Life," the song she wrote shortly before having the first of her two kids with husband Gavin Rossdale, who played his own set earlier in the evening. In that song, she wrestled with conflicting drives of career and motherhood, and looking into the faces of the children for whom the yearly fundraiser was launched back in 1986 -- right about the time No Doubt got started -- Stefani choked up.

"This is very emotional," she said. The acoustic arrangements the band used -- including a string quartet for about half the set -- brought out the sweetness and vulnerability of that song, "Don't Speak" and even the usually feisty "Just a Girl." Apparently big girls do cry.

Young brought things to a close with a strong set, accompanied by Pegi Young, bassist Rick Rosas, pianist Spooner Oldham, lap-steel and dobro player Ben Keith and drummer Karl Himmel. Just before midnight, he offered a solo reading of "I Am a Child," the Buffalo Springfield song he wrote in his early 20s that has taken on added richness and levels of resonance with each passing decade.

With the Bridge School students looking on, the line "You can't conceive of the pleasure in my smile" also gained an extra measure of potency. "I gave to you, now you give to me" became less a plea as in the original than practically a demand to acknowledge the responsibility inherent in parenthood.

Neil Young just kicked off the 23rd Bridge School Benefit this weekend in Mountain View, just north of San Jose.

After Young's wife, Pegi, introduced the Bridge School students, including their son, Ben, Neil Young offered the title number from his 1978 album "Comes a Time." He was joined by three members of the Dennis Alley Wisdom Dancers, a Native American troupe that provided a brief cleansing ceremony to set a spiritual tone for the evening.

On a balmy night with the sun setting behind the hill at the Shoreline Amphitheatre, Young played acoustic guitar and harmonica for the event that traditionally runs 100% unplugged.

This year's lineup also includes No Doubt, Coldplay's Chris Martin, Sheryl Crow, Jimmy Buffett, Adam Sandler, Fleet Foxes, Monsters of Folk and Wolfmother.

It was the start of what figures to be six hours of music for what's become one of the pop music community's most respected benefits. Proceeds from the two-day event benefit the Bay Area school for special needs children.

--Randy Lewis

Related: Bridge benefit: No Doubt's Gwen Stefani tears up; Neil Young wraps up
Related: Bridge benefit: Sheryl Crow's 'favorite gig in the world'
Related: Bridge benefit: Gavin Rossdale, Wolfmother, Fleet Foxes go unplugged
Related: Bridge benefit: Chris Martin goes Coldplay-ful

Photo credit: Randi Lynn Beach / For The Times

Of all the people who deserve credit for making No Doubt's return tour such a giddy success, singer Gwen Stefani's trainer merits extra kudos. When Stefani took the Gibson Amphitheatre stage Wednesday night in a brash outfit that seemed equal parts chola swagger and Hamptons riding crop, women in the audience gasped at the impeccable tone of her abdominal muscles.

Less than a year after giving birth to her second child, the 39-year-old Stefani looked every bit the insouciant Anaheim daughter, equally quick with a toothy smile or a kick in the shins. The message was clear: No Doubt is in great, great shape today.

The band's round of summer touring -- its first after a five-year hiatus -- isn't exactly a reunion, as the inventive ska-pop band never truly broke up. But it was an occasion to reconsider the impact of the Orange County band on the tastes of an in-between generation too young for grunge, but one that swapped MP3s via dial-up modem.

For many twentysomething women today, No Doubt's early-'90s hits such as "Just a Girl" and "Spiderwebs" were first clues that summer fun and speaking your mind could go hand in hand. Their boyfriends could skateboard to the punkier moments of the band's breakout album, "Tragic Kingdom," and its singles were correctives to Seattle's gloomy stranglehold on rock radio. Even the band's late-career turn toward dark and sugary club-bangers anticipated rock and rap's turn toward dance beats and collaborations. No Doubt might have been rock's first undercover poptimists.

Who says the monolithic ticket-lords aren’t paying attention?

With the current economic climate taking an increasingly larger bite out of the concert business bottom line, Live Nation has been offering No Service Fee Wednesdays, when concert-goers can buy tickets to select shows without incurring those painful service fees that often discourage potential buyers from pressing the “send” button on expensive ticket orders.

On July 8, Live Nation will add even more incentive with All-In-One pricing for lawn tickets on Wednesdays, which throws in parking, a hot dog and a soda (on top of no services charges) all for only $29.99. Finally, the recession is working for fans of live music. There’s no word on a vegetarian option for those free hot dogs, though.

Tickets for the first edition of All-in-One Wednesday” (which includes shows from Blink 182 and Coldplay) go on sale at 12:01 a.m. PST on July 8 at www.LiveNation.com. Other concerts affected in the L.A. area include No Doubt (Aug. 4), Rock the Bells (Aug. 8), Toby Keith (Aug. 15) and more, including all shows at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine. 

-- Scott T. Sterling

Photo: Gwen Stefani. Credit: Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Las Vegas

Can a band that’s been on hiatus for five years, during which time its lead singer launched a monstrously successful solo career, return to find a meaningful place again within a music industry that’s gone into free fall while it was away?

No Doubt.

Much has indeed changed since the rock foursome from Orange County bid fans adieu in 2004 with a short but potent tour to promote a new greatest hits album, one that functioned as the guidepost for Saturday’s explosive opening-night performance to a sold-out house at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.

Singer Gwen Stefani birthed two children and two platinum-plus solo albums, not to mention establishing herself as a bona fide fashion designer, while bassist Tony Kanal,  guitarist Tom Dumont and drummer Adrian Young broadened their music skill sets by writing, playing with and/or producing other artists.
Nobody tried to pretend everything was the same as when No Doubt was riding high on the pop charts in the late-’90s and early-2000s, and it paid off in several aspects of a smartly conceived, thrillingly executed show that’s due for nearly five dozen dates across North America over the next four months.

Many of No Doubt’s songs revolve around love and heartbreak, subjects both universal and timeless. As the group’s chief lyricist, Stefani has channeled the woman’s point of view, specifically that of the young woman she used to be who often struggled to identify her place in the world.

One challenge for No Doubt in assembling a major concert tour without a new album to focus on is that the quartet didn’t have an automatic theme around which to design the tour. The trek gets under way on Saturday in Las Vegas and reaches Southern California for several homecoming shows in late July and August (the band plays Fresno on May 19).

Band members toyed with, and rejected, several ideas until they landed on one that seemed to have potential -- reflecting what they wanted this tour to accomplish and their Southland origins: a stage design inspired by the iconic arches of the Encounter restaurant at Los Angeles International Airport.

Tour creative director Ray Woodbury and his team have come up with a gleaming white superstructure consisting of six ramps/legs extending from a central inverted cone that looks something like the hull of a spaceship, within which Adrian Young’s drum set is situated.

The entire stage is white, including amplifiers used by guitarist Tom Dumont and bassist Tony Kanal,  as well as keyboard stands on the upper arms for adjunct horn-section-keyboardist-singers Gabrial McNair and Stephen Bradley.

When Gwen Stefani, Kanal, Dumont and Young set eyes on it for the first time last week during rehearsals in Ontario, they appeared delighted. “They really nailed it!” Stefani said. “Now I feel like writing a song.”

That’s the idea behind the tour -- allowing the musicians to re-acclimatize themselves to one another and reignite the creative spark after a five-year hiatus.

But they didn’t initially know just how close to home their idea for the stage design hit.

The singer-songwriter always knew No Doubt would rise again. No matter how long it took.

Gwen Stefani may be a superstar pop singer, hit songwriter, fashion maven and role model for millions of girls and young women, but on a brutally hot afternoon late last week, on a loading dock outside a largely empty sports arena in Ontario, she was just a mom, trying to keep her 3-year-old son entertained while she took on an impromptu decorating project.

"I don't have time to do this, but you know me -- once I get obsessed with something . . .," Stefani said while splattering globs of sky blue, neon orange and electric pink paint across three large squares of white fabric. She and a couple of friends were creating tapestries that will hang in the backstage dressing rooms during the first full-scale concert tour in seven years by No Doubt, the once-scrappy ska-rock group that emerged from Anaheim to become one of the biggest-selling pop music acts of the 1990s and early 2000s.

Nearby, Kingston James McGregor Rossdale, the first of Stefani's two kids with rock star hubby Gavin Rossdale, frolicked over a separate sheet of material reserved for him. Eager to include his 8-month-old brother, Zuma, in the fun, James (as Stefani usually calls him) plopped his hands on his young sibling's head.

Inside the 6-month-old Citizens Business Bank Arena a short time later, Stefani, bassist Tony Kanal, guitarist Tom Dumont and drummer Adrian Young were showing pretty much the same childlike exuberance and energy as they bounced around the gleaming white retro-futuristic stage set they were trying out for the first time before the tour kicks off Saturday in Las Vegas.

Following a group hiatus of five years while Stefani put out two multimillion-selling solo CDs, "Love.Angel.Music.Baby" and "The Sweet Escape," No Doubt is back. From the early box-office response to nearly 60 shows across North America, the quartet is poised for one of the biggest tours of 2009.

During the break, many fans wondered whether Stefani's solo career would mean the end of the road for the Orange County band that launched her, but in Stefani's mind there was always No Doubt.

"The day I got home after my tour ended last year, I wanted to do a photo shoot with the group -- I thought it was an important thing to do," Stefani, 39, said during a lull in the show rehearsals. "This is what I told the guys: The plan was I wanted to do the dance record, go on the tour, come home and get pregnant -- since I'm a pro at it now because I did it before," she laughs, before elaborating on her plan. "I'll write the record while I'm pregnant, then after I have the baby, we'll go on tour and we'll have a new No Doubt record. It'll be amazing."

There's a certain serendipity to Paramore's opening slot on the upcoming and much-anticipated No Doubt return tour. Fans of the latter might remember the video for "Don't Speak," where No Doubt's three male members look daggers at bejeweled frontwoman Gwen Stefani as they're cropped out of a magazine shoot.

A similar thing might have happened over the last two years to Paramore. The young Tennessee pop-punk quintet vaulted into the charts on the strength of such buoyant singles as "Misery Business," the "Twilight" soundtrack cut "Decode" and their platinum-selling 2007 sophomore album "Riot!"

But Paramore's ochre-haired spitfire singer, 20-year-old Hayley Williams, inadvertently but understandably gleaned much of the spotlight during that rise. Her striking aesthetics and outspoken personality made her something of a tabloid regular, all while personal troubles brewed among her bandmates. Paramore canceled part of a European tour last year because of, as Williams said in a blog post, "internal issues that have been going on in this band for quite a while now," ones that they had to work on "at home and on our own terms."

"The room just got smaller and smaller as more people were looking on," Williams said on a couch in the home of producer Rob Cavallo, where the band is wrapping up tracking its as-yet-untitled third album. "You start to resent it, and a lot of that anger and emotion needed to come out, especially for me."

If there were doubts as to the band's future then, their forthcoming album should remedy them. The album is both about band members' grievances with one another, and a document proving they're finally past them.