FINAL REPORT OF 2014!!!!! CMJ ISSUE 1373 WEEK 48

Ahhhh another year in the books!

Nothing too crazy to end the year here. We Finish with TV On the Radio at #1 again.  And Smashing Pumpkins take the #1 most added spot.

This year we had 19 different records reach #1. How many can you name?
Ty Segall held the #1 spot for the most weeks with 5 and there were only 4 one week wonders in Blood Orange, St. Vincent, Alvvays and Wye Oak.

There were 48 reporting weeks this year. 34 of the Most added records failed to go #1. Of course some of the last adds for this year will have a chance in the new year but still shows how unpredictable the ADD stat can be. I am sure a lot of them went top 5 and still had good runs but it also goes to show how hard it is to go #1.

In looking at the charts this year the difference between the top 5 and the top 10 has become more pronounced. A top five is difficult where as a top 10 has become a lot easier. The gap between those in the top 5 and 6 and lower has become bigger. It used to be that getting into the top 10 was just as difficult as getting into the top five is now. Of course scoring a top 10 is still worth something If it were "EASY" then I would have a lot more of them. I just mean it is a lot easier than it was just a few years ago.

I am curious as to what will be the #1 record of the year from CMJ. Dum Dum Girls, Spoon, Ty Segall, Mac Demarco all held #1 for at least 4 weeks. A lot of the time longevity will help push a record to #1 so maybe one of the early #1's like Beck or Sharon Jones, Black Keys?

Well it has been fun if there is anything you want to know about reporting/ CMJ that I never talk about let me know. Lets chat on Twitter @theanimalarrg  Also I had a lot of fun on Instagram on Monday documenting the day in the life of a promoter so check that out my username is douginthehouse

CMJ ISSUE 1372 WEEK 47 recap!

Well here we are the second to last week of the CMJ year. I have already started to see the emails come in telling me "AHHHH EXAMS"  or "AHHHHH I AM GRADUATING I CANT BE BOTHERED WITH REPORTING ANYMORE "  and also " AHHHH MIMOSAS" Of course all are valid reasons so I tend to not worry too much about these last few weeks.

For me it is a great time to catch up with stations I might of not talked to in a long time and try to lay the groundwork for the new year with little or no pressure of trying to get them to chart records.

I don't see much action taking place on the charts these last few weeks. TV on the Radio is firmly intrenched at #1, Panda Bear at #2 and Deerhoof at #3. I would bet that will be the same next week I could maybe see Ty Segall sneaking into the top five though that might be something to watch for.

This weeks ADDS had Parquet Courts or Parkay Quarts as it says on the album at #1 most added with She and Him coming in a distant second place.  These won't be factors this year but should both run up the charts quickly to start the new year.  

The only thing I want to mention about the adds is the whole Parquet Courts/ Parkay Quarts title thing. I saw a station on twitter say they would report the record as Parkay Quarts because thats what it says on the album. I knew of course that CMJ would change that to Parquet Courts because thats what the promotion company or the label decided on.  I was not bothered by this change but the station seemed  to be.  I would be curious as to what others have to say about it?

I wanted to share with you my top records of the year. I know some people get really passionate about their top 10. I think mine just reflects what records I enjoyed the most throughout the year and currently.  I would be curious to hear what yours are https://bop.fm/p/BxIW 

Lastly as some of you may or may not know this year I put together a Promoters Football Fantasy league. We had members from AAM, The Syndicate, Distiller, Terrrorbird, Planetary, Vitriol, A Man a Plan a Canal, Co-Sign, Team Clermont and of course Pirate.

It has been a pretty competitive league and we enter the playoffs this week. The top team Thus far has been Jessie from Vitriol with an 11-2 record. Shockingly his only 2 losses have come against Shil from Team Clermont. Shil sadly did not make the playoffs but he seemed to be rather excited about continuing on in the Consolation Bracket. Jessie gets a first round bye this week and will face the winner of Rogo from AAM and Graham from A Man a Plan a Canal.  Should be a a tight match up. Graham is the higher seed for those wondering.   I came in 2nd place and will face the winner of Steve from Pirate and Oscar from Planetary. Both come in at 8-5 and should be a really close match.

In the rest of the Consolation Bracket we have Tyler from Co-Sign who had the worst luck out of any team. He had the most points scored against him throughout the season.  John from Terrorbird had no idea what he was doing yet every week he tried his best and in his first ever fantasy football season finished 4-9, that is the same record as Allan who from the looks of it has also never done fantasy football. I kid. I kid. Our worst team of the year went to Dave from distiller with a 2-11 record with his 2 wins coming against Shil and his round one opponent Joe from the Syndicate. So maybe he can make a run in the losers bracket final!

Stay tuned for an update in a few weeks on who will win.  You can check out the league here

http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/f1/820189

Thank you for reading. If you are graduating good luck be sure to let the incoming MD's know about the CMJ RECAP.

Douglas

CMJ ISSUE 1371 WEEK 46

I hope everyone out there is getting ready for a great thanksgiving. This week saw VERY low numbers across the board but that did not slow Tv on the Radio from taking over at #1. The Preatures took #1 most added.

I hesitate to really talk too much about the chart this week or even over the next few weeks but I am more than happy to go over things if anyone has any questions.  I would like to tackle my favorite records of the year and also have a debate about Favorite vs Best. I think they are vastly different.

This week though  I want to look back to 7 weeks ago. Issue 1364. Specifically the ADDS.

Showing Radio 200 Adds Chart For Issue #1364

TW	TA	Artist	Recording	Label
1	100	FOXYGEN	And Star Power	Jagjaguwar
2	74	MINUS THE BEAR	Lost Loves	Dangerbird
3	69	S	Cool Choices	Hardly Art
4	68	BASS DRUM OF DEATH	Rip This	Innovative Leisure
5	64	EX HEX	Rips	Merge
6	55	HISTORY OF APPLE PIE	Feel Something	Marshall Teller
7	53	BUDOS BAND	Burnt Offering	Daptone
8	44	VASELINES	V For Vaselines	Rosary
9	42	RURAL ALBERTA ADVANTAGE	Mended With Gold	Saddle Creek
10	41	BARR BROTHERS	Sleeping Operator	Secret City
11	38	EMPIRES	Orphan	Chop Shop
12	32	CHRISTOPHER OWENS	A New Testament	Turnstile
13	28	GERARD WAY	Hesitant Alien	Warner Brothers
14	26	DINOSAUR FEATHERS	Control	Ernest Jenning
15	24	HOMESHAKE	In The Shower	Sinderlyn
16	23	VAN ALLEN BELT	Heaven On A Branch	Nonstop Everything
17	23	GREY GORDON	Forget I Brought It Up	No Sleep
18	22	LAETITIA SADIER	Something Shines	Drag City
19	20	SOFT SWELLS	Floodlights	Modern Outsider
20	18	AUSMUTEANTS	Order Of Operation	Goner

These were the 20 records that were able to get on the adds list. I asked my stations to tell me every company that contacts them what all went for adds that week. Then I kept track of what happened. I thought It would be fun to look at . Lets see if It is. 

Overall according to my stations there were 44 adds being pushed at radio from 11 different companies.  The most that week was 8 adds and a few companies had only one add. 

I thought that those companies with less adds would do better over the course of each project. This was not entirely the case. The company with 8 adds got 3 of their adds on the adds list and over the course of the projects they charted 4 of them.  

There were 3 companies that had 5 adds each. Each had very different results. Two of those companies had all 5 of their adds chart, although neither had all of the adds on the Adds list while the third was only able to get one ADD on the list and only charted 2 throughout the past weeks. 

Lets take a look at that list again and see how they did in regards to charting. 

Showing Radio 200 Adds Chart For Issue #1364

TW	TA	Artist	Recording	Label
1	100	FOXYGEN	Peak at #3
2	74	MINUS THE BEAR	Peak at #21
3	69	S	Peak at #26
4	68	BASS DRUM OF DEATH	Peak at #21
5	64	EX HEX	Peak at #6
6	55	HISTORY OF APPLE PIE	Peak at #44
7	53	BUDOS BAND	Peak at #12
8	44	VASELINES	Peak at #50
9	42	RURAL ALBERTA ADVANTAGE	Peak at #54
10	41	BARR BROTHERS	Peak at #43
11	38	EMPIRES	Peak at #69
12	32	CHRISTOPHER OWENS	Peak at #67
13	28	GERARD WAY	Peak at #57
14	26	DINOSAUR FEATHERS	Peak at #82
15	24	HOMESHAKE	Peak at #42
16	23	VAN ALLEN BELT	Peak at #140
17	23	GREY GORDON	Peak at #182
18	22	LAETITIA SADIER	Peak at #98
19	20	SOFT SWELLS	Peak at #182
20	18	AUSMUTEANTS	Peak at #76

I think its pretty cool that all of the records that made the adds list charted on the chart. However I should note there are several records that did not make the ADDS list that went on to chart Higher than those listed above, I counted 10 in total.  The highest of those was a band called The Gromble and they peaked at #119.

The biggest overachievers, as far as chart position goes, were Ex Hex that outperformed all but the #1 spot ahead of them. And Budos Band that were only beaten by Ex Hex and Foxygen.  

So in general it does look like getting on the ADDS list is a very good indicator of future chart success. It also looks like overall your position on the chart does show how a record will do although not as much as I might of thought.  It is also hard to draw any conclusion from just one chart. 

CMJ RECAP ISSUE 1370 WEEK 45

A funny thing happened as we started to wind down the final four reporting weeks of the year we finished above 300 stations! I feel like we should throw a party any time this happens as it is becoming more and more rare.  I anticipate that the number of stations will fluctuate a lot with Thanksgiving and then the final 2 weeks of the year.

We do have a bit of a race for #1 in the upcoming weeks that should make the end of the year a bit of fun. Caribou takes #1 again, and this week have separated themselves from King Tuff who is firmly holding at #2.  However next week we could see 3 records vie for #1.

Deerhoof made a nice move from their #9 debut to #3. The one to watch though is TV on the Radio coming in at #4 after the add week. I have to think that TV on the Radio is as sure of a thing we have seen in a while.  But Caribou did gain stations this week so perhaps that continues to grow.

The ADDS this week saw Sub Pop do what they do so well on add as they planted another record on the top with Flake Music taking #1 most added. The biggest surprise / mystery of the week though has to be TV on the Radio getting an additional 42 adds and coming in at #7 most added.

It does amaze me how many stations decided to ADD the record when it clearly went for adds the week previous. It is almost like the one sheet that came with it went in the trash and the accompanying emails also were quickly discarded.  It might not seem like a big deal but imagine if those 42 adds were redistributed and a up and coming unsigned artist were able to crack the adds chart because of say one extra add.

I get the sense more and more that some stations do not realize how the promoter music director dynamic works.  So I thought I would try and shed some light on it.  Promoters are hired by either the record label or band to send the record to radio. The idea is that we will then, in exchange for the free music, get feedback and perhaps airplay on that said artist. It is a pretty simple dynamic that has been working for longer than I have been doing this job. So it surprises me when I don't hear from a station for say 3-4 months and they are shocked that they no longer receive records. Without the implied opportunity to get some feedback there is no point in sending records. With the number of physical copies that are sent out ever decreasing( for most projects I am told) it should be no surprise when the physical copies stop.

We had a nice discussion about this dynamic on twitter yesterday so please follow @theanimalarrg and check out the discussion.

The last thing I wanted to check out this week were the increased number of INVALID charts.

Invalid

CFRE	KRFC	KTUH	SCAD-Atlanta Radio	WCHC	WDCE	WESU
WFCS	WHSN	WKCO	WMUC	WNJR	WNSU	WOUB -AM
WPPJ	WSWI	WVUA

A chart can be Invalid for many reasons. The most common reasons for being invalid  are charting the same record more than once and or not reporting 30 records. 

Here is what one of those looks like. 

26FRONT BOTTOMSRoseBar None

27JPNSGRLSCirculationLight Organ

28TWIN PEAKSWild OnionGrand Jury

29- *- *- *waiting for CMJ verification

 30- *- *- *waiting for CMJ verification 

As you can see for whatever reason they decided to not report any records for 29 and 30 thus rendering the rest of the chart worthless, in regards to counting towards the top 200. One of the things that came up in the twitter conversation yesterday is why shouldn't a station be allowed to report just 28 or even 10 if they want.  My opinion can be found in that conversation but I am interested to hear what more people have to say about that.  

That is all we have for this week! 3 more reporting weeks left! Happy Early thanksgiving! 

CMJ ISSUE 1369 WEEK 44 RECAP

Oh hey there new #1 record!  Caribou finally made the move I thought they would of made weeks ago and took over #1. It was pretty close though as King Tuff still has more stations than Caribou, its just a matter of one moving up and the other moving down. I thought the big story though this week was the move of Deerhoof up to #9 in its first week on the charts.  That was until I looked at the numbers and Deerhoof is at best weeks away from competing for #1. If anything I think this weeks #1 most added Tv on the Radio has a better shot at #1 than Deerhoof does. My guess is that we see Tv on the Radio jump up and perhaps even pass Deerhoof next week. If I had to predict it out through the end of the year I would say Tv on the Radio is our end of the year #1.

Something fun to start thinking about is who is the #1 record of the year? This is based a lot of the time on longevity and when the record was #1.

Lets take a look at who was #1 this year going backwards :

CARIBOU-1
KING TUFF -3
TY SEGALL-5
SPOON--4
ALVVAYS-1
JACK WHITE-3
PARQUET COURTS-2
BLACK KEYS-3
THEE OH SEES-2
WYE OAK--1
MAC DEMARCO--4
REAL ESTATE--2
ST VINCENT--1
BECK--2
DUM DUM GIRLS-4
SHARON JONES--3
BLOOD ORANGE--1
ARCADE FIRE-1

Last year the #1 for the year was Vampire Weekend and I think a lot had to do with how long it was on the charts.

Out of the records listed above
Black Keys are still on there and have been for 25 weeks
Jack White for 23 weeks
Alvvays for 15 weeks
Spoon for 14 weeks

Will the longevity of the record matter more than how long it was at #1? Or even when it was #1? My guess would have to be Mac Demarco because of when it was in the year and how long it was #1. If Ty Segall would of been earlier I would of said that.

So yeah lets talk about it who do you think will be the record of the year.  Also another fun game is what will be the highest ranked #2 record of the year?

Follow me on Twitter @theanimalarrg and lets chat.

CMJ ISSUE 1368 WEEK 43 RECAP

Hello everyone, thank you for stopping by! This time last year Dr. Dog was our #1 record at college radio and we would only have one more number one record the rest of the year as Arcade Fire took over.

I started to look over the archives at college radio and found that the end of the year has typically ended with some record taking over and holding on until the end.
2005--My Morning Jacket, held on to the #1 spot for the last 4 weeks
2008--Of Montreal held the #1 spot for the last 5 weeks
2009--Tegan And Sara had the #1spot for 5 of the last 6 weeks
2010--Sufjan Stevens had the #1 spot 4 of the last 6 weeks
2011--M83 held the #1 spot the last 6 weeks

So not every year but a majority of years one record takes over towards the end of the year.  I would guess it has a lot to do with music directors getting hammered with school work or just that some of the best records are released at the end of the year.  So what will take over for the end of this year? We have already had 2 nice runs from King Tuff and Ty Segall leading up to this point. Could Caribou or Deerhoof take us to the end of the year? Or will it be something else?

While looking back over the years of #1's I noticed this weeks #1 record had 187 stations charting it out of 294 reporting.  The first thing that struck me was that yet again we had a week where we did not reach 300 reporters.  This year we have had only one week where we had over 300 reporters. Last year we had SIXTEEN.  Looking back even further I found that in 2009 Animal collective was #1 with an average of 280 stations charting the record each week. Crazy that there were more stations on a single record in 2009 than there are reporters now.

I believe I have gone over this before but it bears repeating. This year there have been 414 reporters to CMJ. Last year there were 449. So where are they going? I reached out to some stations that no longer report a few weeks ago and not shockingly I have yet to hear back. I have to imagine that CMJ is trying to get ahold of them too.

So what is the big deal? Less reporters means I can concentrate on those that are reporting on a regular basis right? In theory sure.  But let's look at how the landscape of college radio has changed over the years.

In 2005 there were an average of 441 reporters a week, with a high of 554 and a low of 176 ( first week of the year) Overall there were 678 stations that reported that year. There were fewer promotions companies at that time as well. So we had less records being worked and more stations to promote those records to.  This means each record had more opportunities.

Needless to say since 2005 the average has fallen every year.  We can take a quick look at the Average reporter per week

2005--441
2006--395
2007--364
2008--335
2009--303
2010--310
2011--277
2012--274
2013--269
2014--259

So we have on average now 259 reporters a week but now we have roughly double the promotion companies with some working upwards of 8 new records in a single week yet we still only have 30 spots on each chart.  Seems like it might be overwhelming to be a radio station music director.  This is why it is more important than ever to report on a weekly basis.  Every station matters to creating the best chart that can be created.

So on to this weeks recap.  King Tuff holds on to the #1 spot again. I thought this would be the week that Caribou took over but maybe they just don't want it enough. Kidding of course. But I would think they still have a very good shot to take over and could be that record that holds on throughout the end of the year.  Foxygen and Alt-J both took a slight step back. At the end of the year though there is really nothing holding a company from pushing until the very end.  Flying Lotus did jump up into the top 3 but with the same company working both Caribou and Flying Lotus and a second indie on Caribou I have to imagine Caribou being the priority.

The ADDS were pretty close with Deerhoof taking #1 by 3 adds over Panda Bear.  I would not be shocked if both of these records end up in the top 5 in the next few weeks.

Thank you for reading! lets talk about all this soon on the twitter. 

douglas

CMJ RECAP ISSUE 1367 WEEK 42

Welcome back everyone. I hope that if you were at the CMJ music festival you had a great time. I had a great time meeting up with a lot of MD's and hanging out with all the promoters in town.

The chart the week after CMJ is a crapshoot. You have all these MD's that were away coming back to PILES of records and feeling a bit overwhelmed with that plus school work and you have promoters that had little to no time to call anyone the week before.  As expected I did see a lot of Did Not Reports come through this week. Funny enough though they were from stations that were not at CMJ. I would say most of the stations that were at CMJ actually did report this week.  Just thought that was a funny observation.

We had another add week where no one record stood out from the pack. A lot like the last report when Kindness came in at #1 most added with only 69 adds. ( Kindness did have a pretty decent debut though at #53) This week Cold War Kids came in at #1 most added with 78 adds. I am sure CWK will do fine but the past has shown that most contenders have to break that 100 add mark.   But not every week is going to produce a record that will have a shot at #1 and a lot of those weeks you see a lowish #1 and a highish #20.

On to the charts! King Tuff keeps #1 and early on it looked like Caribou or Foxygen would also contend but in the end it was not very close. I think next week with promoters having a full week of work and stations having a full week of catching up that all three of those records should have a chance at #1.  

1	1	2	1	5	KING TUFF	Black Moon Spell	SUB POP
2	4	48	2	3	CARIBOU	Our Love	Merge
3	5	14	3	4	FOXYGEN	And Star Power	Jagjaguwar

Caribou being the newest record at radio I think has the best shot but Foxygen was not too far behind and it is all together possible that King Tuff can hold on to the top spot for another week. 

Flying Lotus made a nice jump into the top five but the chances of that moving ahead of the others is pretty slim. 

It is hard to believe that there are only 6 more reporting weeks of the year! How many more #1's will we have? 

What were your highlights/ lowlights of CMJ? Lets talk about all of that on the twitter 

CMJ ISSUE 1366 WEEK 41

Well it is here! The last reports before CMJ!!! I am pretty excited for CMJ week and hopefully we can meet up at the Pirate! CMJ party! Or any other party just hit me up on Twitter and we can make plans!

This week we finally saw the fall of Ty Segall from the #1 spot. What a run though! Has to be in contention for biggest record of the year. As expected it was King Tuff that took over the #1 spot with just under 70% of the stations charting.  This sets up what should be a fun few weeks on the chart.  As we have a bunch of records that have put themselves in position to contend.

TW	LW	2W	PK	WKS	Artist	Recording	Label
1	2	5	1	4	KING TUFF	Black Moon Spell	SUB POP
2	1	1	1	8	TY SEGALL	Manipulator	Drag City
3	3	7	3	13	ALT-J	This Is All Yours	Canvasback-Atlantic
4	48	-	4	2	CARIBOU	Our Love	Merge
5	14	113	5	3	FOXYGEN	And Star Power	Jagjaguwar

This top five should be rather volatile over the next few weeks. I could of included some of the next group as well 

6	80	-	6	2	FLYING LOTUS	You're Dead	Warp
7	8	19	7	4	APHEX TWIN	Syro	Warp
8	7	8	7	6	BANKS	Goddess	Harvest
9	26	165	9	3	EX HEX	Rips	Merge

but really think top five will be the ceiling for these records.  Foxygen made a nice move into the top 5 but Caribou has the added push of 2 indies on board and being a week younger, it will be tough for Foxygen to pull past Caribou.  Alt-J I feel is out performing what I thought it would and while I doubt it has the momentum to take #1 it is worth keeping an eye on.  

We have 7 more reporting weeks after this CMJ break. My guess is that King Tuff holds for another week before Caribou takes over. After that its anyones guess. 

The ADDS this week were not much to look at. Anytime you see a record get #1 most added with under 100 adds you know its an underwhelming  week. To have the #1 most added record get only 69 adds... ooof.. none of these records will be contenders for the top of the chart. 

See you at CMJ!!!! 

PIRATE 2014 CMJ PARTY

HERE YOU GO!

...special secondary invite coming soon. 

CMJ ISSUE 1365 RECAP. WEEK 40

It amazes me how fast the CMJ festival can sneak up, we are one ADD week away before we head to NYC to see bands and put some names to faces. That also means there are only eight more ADD weeks before the end of the year!  I can't speculate who will make it to #1 over that time but we have a lot of interesting contenders. 

This week we have Ty Segall at #1 for the 5th week! It has been impressive by how much Ty Segall has been #1. Most weeks it has been a gap well over 50+ . This is the first week where the #2 record is within striking distance. King Tuff is making that move all the way up to #2 this week with just around 10 less stations.  Alt-J moved up to #3 and it will be interesting to see if King Tuff can run away with the chart for a few weeks the way Ty Segall did. There does look to be more legit competition now.  

So who are the contenders? 

After King Tuff and Alt-J we have Aphex Twin and Growlers who both cut their chart number in half. But neither of these records really should compete for #1, maybe top 5 for each though.  Foxygen, last weeks #1 made a solid week 2 move up to #14 in what would of been the debut week. 

I don't really see any others could make a run though. This weeks ADDS though should provide some interesting contenders in Caribou, Flying Lotus and Zola Jesus.   Caribou and Zola Jesus both have 2 indies on them but I feel that the two indie push really shows its best impact on the ADD week and does not translate to the charts as much as you might think.  We will look more in-depth at that in a few weeks. 

This next week should be fun though as everyone wants to be going into the CMJ festival with a good number as trying to rebound or catch up after the week off is a huge pain. Those that went for ADDS this week should be in pretty good shape I would think. 

I noticed something I had not noticed before this past week when logging into CMJ. On the industry log in page reads this :

Not a subscriber?

Subscribe to CMJ New Music Report, the world's leading trade magazine for the new music industry.

For the NEW MUSIC INDUSTRY 

But what defines NEW MUSIC? I guess that could be different for everyone. I would say New Music is anything in the past 4 months while someone else might say its anything that came  out in the last 4 weeks. The point is it can be different for everyone and that everyone is "right."  I bring this up because there is always what I consider OLD things on the chart and that would be anything over 3 months old or 12 weeks well over the typical 6-8 weeks a promotion company will work a record to radio.  Black Keys, Jack White, Old Crow Medicine Show, Morrissey, First Aid Kit, Eno-Hyde, A sunny Day in Glasgow, How to Dress Well all OVER 12 weeks and in my opinion taking a spot from a new band that could use the help and exposure.  But because there is no guide to what is new or even an suggestion we can find stations charting records that came out last April.   So then the question is can we define NEW? Or should we just continue to let stations chart a record that is over a year old? At some point I think there should be a cutoff so that stations are encouraged to play new music. After all CMJ is the "worlds leading trade magazine for the NEW music industry " So shouldn't they be trying to help define what is NEW music? 

Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts  on Twitter.  And stop charting The Knife. It came out a year ago. 

CMJ ISSUE 1364 WEEK 39 RECAP

Happy October friends! We have 2 short weeks until the CMJ Music Festival, have you checked out the lineup? Who are you excited to see? It amazes me how many Music Directors have no idea what this festival is. I asked a station yesterday if they were going and they said I don't know. ( They were in Utah so I am pretty sure they would know if they were going) It just got me thinking about how many MD's don't know how things work  because no one has taken the time to tell them because of having previously bad Music Directors before them or in some cases no Music Directors before them.  So while I do poke fun and am frustrated with stations that don't know how to do ADDS whenever I can I try and explain what they are and how to do them. 

Lets take a look at some examples of doing ADDS wrong, these all come from stations that did adds for issue 1364. 

	-
1. KING TUFF Black Moon Spell 2. NEHRUVIANDOOM NehruvianDOOM 3. KENDRICK LAMAR "i" [Single] 4. WAR ON DRUGS Lost In The Dream 5. ICEAGE "How Many" [Single]

So what is wrong with these adds.  Well first off King Tuff was an official ADD last week. By Adding the record this week this station is helping no one.  When it could of been used for someone like Emilyn Broodsky who only missed the adds chart by a handful of ADDS or Bonnie Prince Billy who missed by even less.  This is an example of not paying attention to what is new at radio and that is a lot of what College radio is about. 

Another common mistake is not adding 5 records. 

1. EX HEX Rips

This station decided to only add EX HEX for whatever reason.  I guess you could make the argument that it was the only new record they liked and everything else would of been older stuff.  So what is worse.  

Well my answer would be this... this is worse. 

1. GERARD WAY Hesitant Alien

2. EMPIRES Orphan

3. TY SEGALL Manipulator

4. KASSIM RITE "Spaceman" [Single] Doing both. Not only did this station add a record that went for adds WEEKS ago but they only added 4 records.  It is my opinion that you are better off not doing ADDS at all if you feel like you do not want to participate in the way they have been done for years.  Most companies send out emails and have websites where you can get this information so adding something on the wrong date is very avoidable. Let's talk about this week now!  If we were waiting for Ty Segals armor to weaken then we will be waiting a bit longer.  There was an uptick in reporters this week and that only meant more stations playing Ty Segal.  The percentage of stations playing him even went up.   Death From Above 1979 made a nice move up to #2 but I believe thats as far as they go.  King Tuff, last weeks #1 add comes in at #5 and Alt J moves up to #7 from #66.  If i were a betting man my money would be on King Tuff to take over the week before CMJ.  One thing thats fun about the charts this time of year is all the stations that were off for the summer come back and want to play all the stuff from the summer, but that quickly turns to being replaced by new stuff so we should see a lot of turnover on the chart in the next few weeks.   This weeks #1 ADD was Foxygen and was the only record that had 100 adds this week. It will be interesting to see how this record does. The last one went to #2 so the expectation has to be a #1 record.  It is going to be tough as Foxygen does not have a secondary indie working the record to radio while King Tuff, Alt J, Ty Segal and the upcoming Caribou all have promotion companies behind them. If you look at every #1 from last year only one came from a band that did not have the extra push of a promotions company behind it. So it can be done with an in-house push, we shall see. So lets continue the conversation on Twitter.    And if you are new at being a MD and have questions just ask. Most of us are here to help!

CMJ ISSUE 1363 WEEK 38

Happy Autumn everyone! Now is when the fun starts! We are a short four weeks away from CMJ and I feel like we are on the verge of having peak reporters out there. I thought we would bust through that 300 reporter level this week but came in at 291. Next week I think.  

Ty Segall comes in at #1 yet again with 71% of all stations reporting.  The #2 record is still Spoon and in comparison they only have 49% of the stations.   So It might be a few weeks until someone takes over.  Death From Above 1979 moved up to #4 from #12 in their second week and that looks pretty impressive until you realize they only have 44% of the stations.

Karen O had a nice move as well  up to #8 in her second week and has %40 of stations
last weeks top add Drums comes in at #17 but only has 27% of the stations.

Notice the huge drop off.  Not that # of stations is the only predictor for success as New Pornographers has 36% and that is less than the any other record in the top 10 but the quality of stations is better and pushes the record higher.

While looking up the # of stations for every record would be way to time consuming I thought it would be fun to take an overall look at every 10th record so lets take a look we will look at all the top five as well.

1--71%
2--49%
3--36%
4--44%
5--45%
10--38%
20--27%
30--17%
40--18%
50--12%
60--09%
70--08%
80--13%
90--07%
100--06%
110--06%
120--04%
130--06%
140--03%
150--03%
160--03%
170--05%
180--03%
190--02%
200--03%

One thing that stood out to me were that there were pretty clear jumps.
200-140 were all pretty much the same. Then we saw a jump in the 130-100 range.  Another jump in the 90-60 range.   The big break of stations comes at the top 30 range. These records seem to be on another level than those below that mark.   I expected there to be more a difference between each group of ten though and it did surprise me that you could be 200 or 140 with pretty much the same amount of stations.

This weeks ADDS race was a fun one as there were multiple records by multiple companies that were actually good. This seemed to confuse the stations though and so many of them were stressed about how many good records they had.  Well hopefully it remains this way the rest of the year.  King Tuff ran away with the ADDS though with only 100 stations NOT adding the record and coming in at #82 on the charts. I said before I thought Ty Segall might keep #1 until the CMJ festival but if anyone is going to knock him off it will be King Tuff. Just a matter of when and not if.

There were some other big name records that should hang out in the top 10-5 range over the next few weeks and it will be interesting to look back in six weeks to see if the ADD position was a preview of how well the record did.   If I had to predict I bet some of the lower added records do better than some of the higher added ones. Just based upon my conversations with stations more people were excited about Whirr and Mr. Twin Sister than they were about most of those above them.  

Should be interesting to watch.   Let's continue the conversation on Twitter. 

CMJ ISSUE 1362 WEEK 37

Better late than never, both the motto of CMJ and myself this week.  CMJ had a weird server issue this week that delayed charts until around 1am Wed Morning. Hopefully this is the only hiccup for this reporting season. There tends to be one every few months so hopefully they got that our of their system.

I asked you guys who you thought would be #1 most added last week and as far as I can see no one picked the Drums.  They came in with 114 adds.  A good amount considering the problems with CMJ this week.

Of course Ty Segall remains #1.  We have four more reporting weeks until CMJ can he hold on that long? It would be pretty impressive considering the time of year.   Lets look at the contenders on the chart.  Avi Buffalo made a big move from #20 to #8 my guess is that they make the top five but I am not sure on much after that. Same with Tennis making a nice move from #29 to #2.  Those are both from 2 weeks ago. Last weeks adds made some nice moves as well.  Banks comes in at #11 this week having debuted at #125 in the ADD week.  Death From Above is the top debut at #12 and Karen O last weeks #1 most added comes in at #18.

Congrats to everyone that was Nominated for a CMJ AWARD this year!  In a few weeks I will pick who I will vote for at CMJ.

Lets talk about whatever you want to on Twitter 

CMJ ISSUE1362 PREVIEW AND A LATE WEEK 36 RECAP FOR ISSUE 1361

With the big CMJ Nomination post I did yesterday I thought about not doing one of these.  Then I had a long conversation about Ty Segall yesterday and thought we could talk a little a bit about what happened and perhaps spend more time on what might happen in the upcoming weeks.

It was no surprise that Ty Segall took over #1 this week. Spoon is still killing it out there and it could be one of those things in the upcoming weeks where people are happy with #3.  At the very least I think people are going to be happy with #2 for a while. I was looking over the upcoming adds on CMJ and could not really find anything that would bump out Ty before the CMJ Music Festival Break.  We will get more into that in a bit.

This New Pornographers record is doing great too. Good to see them back up in the top 5. Not sure if the last 2 records went that high but they were no where near as good as this one in my opinion. Normally I would say perhaps if Matador hired indies the record would go #1 but with Ty there I don't think even an indie would help.  They might of benefited on the adds side with Interpol but I am sure that record will be fine.

The top debut of the week comes from Avi Buffalo, last weeks #1 most added record with a good showing at #20. There are a lot of Sub Pop records on the chart right now 6 actually 3 of them cracked the top 10 with J Mascis at #3 being the highest. I was trying to think of the last Sub Pop #1 as I tend to associate their records with #1's but I think it has been a while. Dum Dum Girls did it earlier this year I now see, I guess it is a credit to Sub Pop that I have in my head they should have more number one records.

I am a bit surprised with the Tennis album coming in at #29 considering the success they have had in the past. The record is pretty good too. Curious to why that star has faded.

Karen O came in at #1 most added this week pretty easily. I really thought Ryan Adams or Death from Above 1979 would of been up there a lot closer to the top but I guess those 2 are older names and might not be as "cool" as they once were? That is only a guess but sometimes as a promoter I can put too much credence into how a record did before in projecting how it will do in the future.  What was once something for everyone can quickly fall and new things are always coming and joining the party.

So let's take a look at what we can expect this next week. The top 200 is easy Ty Segall will be #1. As I mentioned before the question is for how long. What could possibly come in and take that spot. I have no idea.

For this weeks Adds lets take a look at what CMJ says is going for adds :

Showing adds from 09/12/14 to 09/16/14:

Band	Recording	Label	Add Date	Active?
2 BEARS	"Not This Time B/w Get Out And Angel (Touch Me)" [Single]	Southern Fried	09/16/14	Yes
ALEX MERCADO TRIO	Symbiosis	Fornarte Latino	09/16/14	Yes
AMY FAIRCHILD	Amy Fairchild	So Far	09/16/14	Yes
ANE BRUN AND LINNEA OLSSON	"Halo" [Single]	Balloon Ranger	09/16/14	Yes
ARCHIE POWELL AND THE EXPORTS	Back In Black	Self-Released	09/16/14	Yes
ASTEROIDS GALAXY TOUR	Bring Us Together	Rough Trade / Hot Bus	09/16/14	Yes
ASTRONAUTS, ETC.	Sadie	Hit City USA	09/16/14	Yes
AUCTION PROJECT	Slink	David Bixler	09/16/14	Yes
BRENDA XU	For The Winter	Self-Released	09/16/14	Yes
BRONCHO	Just Enough Hip To Be Woman	Dine Alone	09/16/14	Yes
CHRIS WALDEN BIG BAND	Full-On!	Origin	09/16/14	Yes
COBALT CRANES	Days In The Sun	Lolipop	09/16/14	Yes
CONTORTIONIST	Language	eOne	09/16/14	Yes
DEAD LOVERS	Supernormal Superstar	RANDM	09/16/14	Yes
DELS	"RGB" [Single]	Big Dada	09/16/14	Yes
ELECTRIC YOUTH	Innerworld	Secretly Canadian	09/16/14	Yes
ELIZABETH SHEPHERD	The Signal	Linus	09/16/14	Yes
FLOW TRIBE	Alligator White	SKM	09/16/14	Yes
GARDEN CITY MOVEMENT	Entertainment/Bengali Cinema	BLDG5	09/16/14	Yes
GENEVIEVE BELLEMARE	Live And Die	Verve	09/16/14	Yes
GOAT	Commune	SUB POP	09/16/14	Yes
GRAMMAR	Grammar	Self-Released	09/16/14	Yes
GRMLN	Soon Away	Carpark	09/16/14	Yes
GROWLERS	Chinese Fountain	Everloving	09/16/14	Yes
HAFEZ MODIRZADEH	In Convergence Liberation	Pi	09/16/14	Yes
HELLSPEAK	The Slaughter Rule Of Agony	Winterfall	09/16/14	Yes
HIGH ENDS	Super Class	Dine Alone	09/16/14	Yes
HOSTAGE CALM	Die On Stage	Run For Cover	09/16/14	Yes
JANE SHERMANS	The Jane Shermans	Go Go Love	09/16/14	Yes
JUAN MACLEAN	In A Dream	DFA	09/16/14	Yes
KASPER BJORKE	After Forever	HFN	09/16/14	Yes
KODAK TO GRAPH	"IAMANTHEM" [Single]	Self-Released	09/16/14	Yes
LEWIS AND CLARKE	Triumvirate	La Société Expéditionnaire	09/16/14	Yes
LIPBONE REDDING	Esmeralda	LR	09/16/14	Yes
LONELY KAMEL	Shit City	Napalm	09/16/14	Yes
LOOSE BUTTONS	Damage Gallery	Moon Crawl	09/16/14	Yes
LOWELL	We Loved Her Dearly	Arts And Crafts	09/16/14	Yes
MENACE AND LORD	Sun, Moon And Stars	Better	09/16/14	Yes
MIKE DOUGHTY	Stellar Motel	Snack Bar	09/16/14	Yes
MOON HOOCH	This Is Cave Music	Palmetto / Hornblow	09/16/14	Yes
NETORARE FAN CLUB	"Go To Sleep" [Single]	Mint 400	09/16/14	Yes
OBEY THE BRAVE	Salvation	Epitaph	09/16/14	Yes
PATRICK BATTSTONE AND RICHARD POOLE	The Last Taxi	Battstone	09/16/14	Yes
VARIOUS ARTISTS	Psychedelic Planet	Six Degrees	09/16/14	Yes
PURLING HISS	Weridon	Drag City	09/16/14	Yes
RUN THE JEWELS (KILLER MIKE AND EL-P)	"Blockbuster Night Pt 1" [Single]	Mass Appeal	09/16/14	Yes
SALLIE FORD	"Coulda Been" [Single]	Vanguard	09/16/14	Yes
SEPULTURA	Lles Tambuors Du Bronx Metal Veins Alive At Rock In Rio	Eagle Rock	09/16/14	Yes
SHE KEEPS BEES	Eight Houses	Future Gods	09/16/14	Yes
SILVA	Ocean View	Six Degrees	09/16/14	Yes
SLIMKID3 AND DJ NU-MARK	Slimkid3 And DJ Nu-Mark	Delicious Vinyl	09/16/14	Yes
SOFT SHADOWS	Reverb Is For Lovers	Self-Released	09/16/14	Yes
STEELISM	615 To Frame	Single Lock	09/16/14	Yes
XERATH	III	Candlelight	09/16/14	Yes

This week there are just over 50 records going for adds. Of course there are some records not listed that will be going for adds that we will find out about later. First off nothing out of this list looks like it will challenge Ty Segall for #1.  I see a Sub Pop record so I am sure that should do well.  I would love for you guys to take guesses at what the top 20 would be. If anyone wants to take a swing at it I will post them.   Send them to my email doug at piratepirate dot com .

Thanks for reading!


Oh and since it is Thursday here is my Throwback Thursday photo from instagram   It is me on the air back in the day on WVGS ( no longer a CMJ reporter sadly... don't let it happen to you! )