Uncharted Territory: Bieber Boosts Halter, Pitty Takes a Tumble, Russ Chimes Debuts

Two words: Bieber Power.

Say Justin Bieber attended your show with Selena Gomez, jumped stage to perform a song with you, and tweeted about it to his 9.9 million Twitter followers. How many followers would you gain? In the case of singer/songwriter Ernie Halter, the number is 16,500 and counting. That's right. Halter, who debuts at No. 35, earned a surprise visit from the Biebs.

On tour, Bieber covered Halter's song "Come Home To Me." Once back, he crashed one of Halter's California shows with Gomez and sang it with him. Halter and Bieber traded Twitter replies after the show, causing a firestorm of Bieber fans to converge onto Halter.

Since the appearance, the budding performer has released an acoustic cover of "Baby" by Bieber, which both fans bases loved.

Two weeks ago, Brazilian rock singer Pitty debuted (No. 14) and broke into Uncharted's top 10 the next (No. 3). She now topples from No. 3 to No. 29. Why the quick rise and fall? In May, Google Brazil launched Orkut Live, an online community that features live interviews with artists and celebrities, with Pitty as their front-runner. Her interview, uploaded to YouTube on May 10, went viral, bringing in 202,000 views. Activity, however, has since cooled off. Along with this, Pitty recently released her live, 12-song DVD "Flying Circus Troupe Delusional."

Elsewhere, UK-based producer and remix artist Russ Chimes debuts at No. 31. This week, he gained 15,000 new plays, respectively. Leading up the May 23 release of his latest EP, "Tonic/Helix," Chimes uploaded a teaser to his SoundCloud, which gained nearly 4,000 plays. His new "Shake Aletti" remix is also featured on "Moda Volume 1," out May 26.

Uncharted ranks artists - those who have not charted previously with Billboard - using a formula blending weekly additions of friends / fans / followers across the world's leading social networking sites (MySpace, Twitter, Facebook), as well as weekly artist page views and weekly song plays on influential music outlets (YouTube, Last.FM, SoundCloud).

Canadian DJ Lazy Rich, who debuts at No. 39, also had a big week on SoundCloud. During the tracking week, he added 14,000 new plays, most of which fell under a preview of his latest track "Better Wipe That Up." While only a preview, the full-version will be released on June 30. June to August, Rich is touring globally from Brazil to London to San Diego.

Lastly, the rock act Otenki, one of the finalists in Billboard's recent Battle of the Bands, claimed a top ten spot (bouncing from No. 11 to No. 6), with an 85,000 MySpace play gain. Their new EP "Kinetic" is due out this spring.

To discover new music and get a head start on following the careers of these emerging artists, find the rest of this week's chart on Billboard.comor in Billboard Magazine, and check in with Uncharted Territory every week for more.

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