CMJ ISSUE 1323 WEEK 46

Happy Thanksgiving week everyone!

Arcade fire is #1 by such a margin that I wont have to discuss a new #1 until Feb it feels like.

Have a great one!


douglas

Wedding Recap! CMJ ISSUE 1322 WEEK 45 RECAP

Hello Friends! I hope you guys had a fantastic week! Looks like I picked the right week to get married as these charts are pretty easy to talk about right now but we will get to that in a second.

First up I wanted to share with you the playlist I made for everyone that attended my wedding. I have a few extras if you want a hard copy just let me know.  Here is the playlist :




You can also view photos on Facebook,  Instagram   and Twitter by  searching the hashtag #amydougwed

You can also check out our official website here http://www.amy-and-doug.com


It was a blast and a half, we even had a party crasher at the afterparty! We had to call the police and he ran through the vineyards until he was caught. Pretty exciting though.  


Now on to the charts.

Arcade Fire.

I told you before this record would dominate.  That might be an understatement.

This week Arcade fire has 70% of all stations reporting.  Thats a Huge number. There are less than 100 stations NOT reporting Arcade Fire. There has not been a record this powerful since the last Black Keys and I think in the next few weeks we shall see Arcade Fire destroy that record.

So does the #2 record have a shot? Head and the Heart? Eh maybe next year? Next year with any record that wants to go #1 since there are only three more reporting weeks left in the year.  So how far back is Head and the Heart?  They have 40% of reporting stations and they could have an awesome week next week and get up to 60% and they would still be WAY behind.   So this is really just a battle for stations to get top 5's and top 10's. Nothing wrong with that when Arcade Fire is #1. Really not much you can do.  

So what does this mean for us as promoters? Well I can't speak for everyone but for me it does allow me to take a less aggressive stance when talking to stations about records. I am still trying to get as many stations as possible but I am able to take my time a bit more with each station and focus on records that have been overlooked by some stations.   Also right about now the number of records being added each week should be dropping a lot. That means less records to push the old records off the charts giving us a longer timeline in pushing records. In the peak of Fall and Spring we have a rigid amount of time we can keep going with a record before other records come in and push them out.  Now in-between we can spend more time trying to get more stations over longer periods with out much pushback.

One of my favorite projects was the first Neko Case record on Anti.  We went for adds late in the year and the #1 band at the time was firmly locked in. We were stuck in the top 5 for about 4 weeks to end the year. Then the new year came we were still stuck there but we were not losing any stations and because there were no other big records coming along we were able to hold our position and eventually the #1 record lost enough and we maintained enough that we were able to snag a #1 record.  So If I were pushing any of the big records that have recently come out such as Blood Orange or this past weeks #1 add Shearwater I would for sure be eyeing the start of 2014 for a move to #1.

Thanks again for reading and sorry for the lack of depth the past few weeks..I have been busy.

Lets talk about things on the Facebook or the Twitters.

Arcade Fire weekly Recap. Week 44

Well this is going to be short and sweet as I have a wedding to get to( Mine)   But Arcade Fire is #1 and really should be #1 until the end of the year.  And #1 most added is Blood Orange.

Follow along the Wedding excitement  #amydougwed on www.twitter.com

I will return soon! Until then have a great one!

Douglas

CMJ RECAP : CMJ ISSUE 1320 WEEK 43

I seriously did not think we had a chance at keeping #1 for a second week. But here I stand very happily proven wrong with DR DOG as the #1 record in college radio for the 2nd week in a row. Also for the second week in a row we had the same number of stations report..

How did this happen? We all knew that the Arcade Fire  had been sent out late but I thought If any band could overcome this and go from ADD week to #1 It would be them. They did pretty well and came in at #3 but are seriously lacking in higher core stations in comparison to both Dr. Dog and Of Montreal ( #2) . I know I said this last week but I have no doubt that they will overcome this and get to #1.  Its funny when I am considering #3 after the ADD week a disappointment.


ADDS were pretty weak this week with the #1 most added record only gaining 87 ADDS ( M.I.A)
With 2 EP's in the top 5 for most ADDED you know there are no big records at radio for the week.  Even without a juggernaut like Arcade Fire I don't think any of these would have a legit #1 shot.


I wanted to share with you some conversations I had this week at college radio about the new Arcade Fire record. It is, without a doubt, the most talked about record at the format. Every station I asked said something about it, mostly positive.  As you know I am not working the record so it is a bit easier for me to talk freely about it. I think the record is fine but my favorite from them is Neon Bible. I did not like the suburbs at all but I found myself defending Arcade Fire quite a few times this week.

One of the conversations I had started with the Music Director telling me they loved the new Arcade Fire record but they would most likely be passing on it.  I thought that was a very interesting statement. Why pass on something that you love? They said that they were just too popular.
It is an interesting reason to pass on something right? Too many people like them so we won't play them.  My next question was well if you do not play the record are there other stations in the area that are going to play them?  No. They said.  So your station, being one that likes the band, is going to pass on the band because your listeners can't get them anywhere else but they are too popular. It really makes no sense to me.

We moved on from Arcade Fire onto the real issue and that is what should College radio be? There was no real answer as it should be unique for each station.  There are some stations that serve as the pop station in town and that is their service to the community. There are others that play mostly hip hop because they are the only ones that can fill that need. In the end the answer was there is no real easy answer as to what is college radio.

I think it is a fun conversation to have and hope every station has it all the time, instead of just doing what we say or what reviews tell them to do.

That brings me to another station I had a conversation with. They passed on a record of mine, and of course this does happen from time to time but I always ask for a why. They had lots of reasons and they all sounded like good ones until I realized he was just quoting a Pitchfork review for the band. No real point to that just thought it was funny.

We are getting close to the end of the year what are your favorite records? Time to start putting that list together!

Thank you for reading lets talk about this on the twitters or the facebooks.