Thursday, August 28, 2014

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

CMJ RECAP ISSUE 1359 WEEK 34

I knew coming into this week that Ty Segall would be a force. The timing of the record could not be more perfect really. A nice stream of music directors coming back from break and really over the last few weeks not a ton of huge records apart from Spoon. At first glance I thought this week had a number of contenders such as Rentals, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Cold Specks and New Pornographers but even the highest of those had barely above half of what Ty Segall got for adds.

I started to look back at older playlists to see what the highest percentage of ADDS for a given record was.  Up to this point for this year it was Real Estate with 68% of all stations adding.  In looking further back I was expecting to find Black Keys, M83, Spoon, or any number of big records getting above or close to this amount. So I started to look up these big records and see huge ADD totals way above the 141 that Ty Segall had this week but kept on seeing that the number of reporters was way above what we had this week.   But percentage wise its only over the last 2 years that I have seen records with above 60%. So when Ty Segall at 1:55pm had above 70% of all add reporters I thought we were in for something exciting and new.   Sadly we did not get to that 70% mark with Ty this week as he came up just a little short with 69.4%.  So close to being rounded up even! Still a very impressive week.

So then the next question is how quickly will Ty Segall go number one.

First lets take a look at the charts. Does anything else have a legit chance to go #1 before Ty Segall jumps up there?

TWLW2WPKWKSArtistRecordingLabel
11114SPOONThey Want My SoulLoma Vista
22325JENNY LEWISVoyagerwarner
33215ALVVAYSAlvvaysPolyvinyl
451043RAVEONETTESPe'ahiBeat Dies
561153TWIN PEAKSWild OnionGrand Jury
64445WHITE FENCEFor The Recently Found InnocentDrag City
77874BEAR IN HEAVENTime Is Over One Day OldHometapes-Dead Oceans
891584WYTCHESAnnabel Dream ReaderPartisan
98984SHABAZZ PALACESLese MajestySUB POP
10--101J MASCISTied To A StarSUB POP


You look at the charts and you see a nice top 10 debut from J Mascis and you think maybe if they put everything behind it they could jump up there but right now they are over 100 stations behind so that looks pretty doubtful.  Jenny Lewis is on week 5, a week older than Spoon so stations into her should start to drop off pretty soon while we could see another week of growth from Spoon.   Because of the potential of Spoon gaining stations I really don't think anything here has a chance of jumping up to #1. Next week. That includes Ty Segall. If I had to bet I would say Ty comes in at #2 or #3 next week.  Then we might see a battle between him and Spoon but people should start dropping off spoon soon as it gets into weeks 5 or 6. 

This week CMJ announced that Nominations were open for the CMJ Awards

Nominations for the College Radio Awards are open!
Nominations will be open until 4pm EST, Friday, September 12th. You can nominate in any category, but a valid email and subscription are required! Voting will happen at College Day on Thursday, October 23.

I like that when it comes to voting later industry can only vote for stations and stations can vote for everyone. I think it should be more about the stations.  I would love for stations to pitch why they should win. Don't be shy! Be proud of your station.  I already have seen 2 emails promoting their stations and will share those below. I will also share any pitch from any station or promotion company given to me. So send em in doug at pirate pirate dot com

The first one comes from WDBM 

CMJ Nominations. You knew it was coming and I hate to just type it all out as to why we should be nominated for awards... but I feel that it must be done.

1. Biggest Champ of the Local Scene - As stated above, we're working our butts off to put together some sweet shows for our community. Not only that but we are out of Michigan State University so when we made the huge shift in our programming we made sure to cater to the students of our school. Now, everyone from frat boys to indie nerds love us!

2. Most Creative Programming - I mentioned we made huge programming shifts this summer. We cut down all of our categories and revamped their titles so that everyone gets a bit of something that they want. Honeypot - the accessible tracks. Cradio - college radio core tracks. Local - for the local band lovers in East Lansing. Old Alternative - for the songs that initially got us into good music. And of course, breaking and new - all the new artists and old artists coming out with new music to give everyone new music to discover! We've tried so hard to get in touch with our scene and because of that I've made sure to pick the coolest, funkiest tracks to teach our community about.

3. Biggest Improvement - I've heard that this is for smaller stations on the rise but we've accomplished so many new and exciting things here at WDBM. New digital boards, our first concert, we got our radio tower fixed after being off the air for two months, we put out a gazillion professional looking videos, we're releasing our new website soon, and so much more. Now I can safely say that Impact89FM is thee coolest place I'll ever work!

4. Music Director of the Year - Not sure if I would be up for Rookie of the Year or this award because I only started in January.... and honestly, I'm not sure if one of my peer Music Directors has done a better job than me. All I know is that these past several months my life has been dedicated to making WDBM sound as awesome as it can possibly sound to our listeners. I truly think that music directing isn't just about being able to pick the music that sounds good but being able to pick the music that makes sense for the station. This year I've strived to be objective, pull together the music director community, create strong connections with as many promoters as possible, and learn as much about music and the industry as my brain could hold!

5. Station of the Year - This is last but definitely not least. We have a music review team, video team, promotions team, news team, sports team, production team and an entire desk staff. We will never stop trying to get in touch with our community and with our university. Winning this award would give our school just another reason to continue supporting us at WDBM. I truly think that we at Impact 89FM are killing it - I'm so proud

The second one  comes from WHUS

So as you probably know, the CMJ Award Nominations opened up today and just wanted to let you know before you send in your nominations that I'm gunning for a few awards!
My number one priority for the conference is definitely ***BEST TASTE IN MUSIC***. I was nominated last year, but I'm feeling better than ever about my taste in music. It's definitely blossomed over the last year of being Music Director here at WHUS. With age, as well, my taste has developed into that of perhaps a fine wine? I'll let you decide. Check my last.fm most played artists!http://www.last.fm/user/BadGeist/library
While I'm at it, I might as well gun for ***MUSIC DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR*** also! I've really enjoyed being Music Director for the past year and a half, so maybe something physical, like a plaque or something, would accurately portray my feelings for the position. I don't know. I feel weird asking people to nominate me for something like a big award, but it sure would be cool to have a big award or something like that.

Currently, if we want to get meta, there's a tour group coming through the station and I'm wearing my Daft Punk mask from last summer, just working at my desk and occasionally staring at individual people until they look at me. I'm not wearing my glasses while I write this email, so I can't see the screen. People are walking by being like "oh wow cool office" and not saying anything about the mask. Cmon now, people. Give Life Back To Music. Take that as you will in the nomination process.

UPDATE:
Here is one from WWVU 
Happy Tuesday radio family,

I wanted to send a quick email to have you guys consider my station for a couple of CMJ Nominations. We're been nominated for Best Community Resource for the past 5 years, and last year we got a tremendous amount of love and received Best Community Resource, Most Improved Station, and Music Director of the Year nominations. Asking for nominations is a kind of funny thing, but I ask because the nominations we received resulted in a lot of local press about my station and the university tossed a little more funding our way. Like most college stations, there's always rumors of our operations being cut from the university budget and, for the last year, we've been operating without a station/general manager. It's just me and my lovely PD holding down the fort here in Morgantown and we're killing it. It's a position we're used to being in. 

So, it would be awesome if you considered WWVU for Best Community Resource, Most Improved Station, Best Use of Limited Resources or whatever you see fit after your dealings with my and my station. It's good to have both quantitative and qualitative records to legitimize our efforts in the eyes of university higher-ups. These nominations help. 

Love ya'll, hope everyone has a good 3 day weekend.

Jared

--
Jared Peterson
WWVU-FM
WKNC 

<Godzilla_banner.png>
Hi everyone!

As much as I hate to see summer go, a new school year is always a fresh start, so I got inspired to revamp our email format! (though I promise it won't always be this lengthy). The image above is part of a retro comic book-style graphic drawn for us by a local artist a few years ago. WKNC is shown as a rampaging Godzilla-type guy and the artist even depicted local commercial radio stations running in fear from the KNC monster. RAD. We recently purchased the rights to the image and now we are going crazy with it -- we just got a whole batch of sweet T-shirts in (anyone wanna do a T-shirt swap at Hopscotch? Let me know!). Anyway, I hope that you will forgive my use of Comic Sans because this is maybe the one situation in which it is actually appropriate?

Also, speaking of Hopscotch, it is only 9 days away!! Obviously we're all really excited here --we've been blogging and social media-ing like nobody's business. I hope I can meet some of you guys there! But if not, maybe I'll see you at CMJ

Also I'm gonna be shameless and help make your nomination process easier -- WKNC would be preeeetty thrilled to get nomz for any of the following: 
Biggest Champion of the Local Scene (have you heard of Mount Moriah, The Love Language, or Sylvan Esso?? We have 10 hours a week dedicated to strictly NC music, from the nationally-recognized to the obscure, featuring interviews and live performances, plus we host Local Band Local Beer every Thursday)
Best Use of Limited Resources (we are almost entirely SELF FUNDED! This year we raised $11,000 from our annual Double Barrel Benefit) 
Rookie of the Year (self-explanatory??)
Best Community Resource (25,000 watts means we can reach a LOT of people! catch us in INDYweek all the dang time)
Most Creative Programming (yeah, we like indie rock, but did you know we also have a show featuring Indian music, and a show entirely in Spanish?)
Will Never Sell Out (for those of you who think I don't add enough of your stuff :P)
Station of the Year (we're growing in leaps and bounds, y'all! This year's DBB raised the most money EVER, and Lounge was just named as a finalist for CBI's National Student Production Awards in the category of Best Vodcast - Television!)



That does it for this week! I will tell you my nominations as I did last year the week of the 9th.  Lets talk about it more on the Twitter 

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

CMJ RECAP ISSUE 1358 WEEK 33

It is the calm before the storm. 

The charts are pretty simple at this point as nothing is really close to challenging Spoon. I don't think anything else will jump up there for the next few weeks and suspect there just to be a rotation of records in the top five like we saw a few weeks ago when Jack White was #1.  

The new Ty Segall record goes for adds next week though and it could be 2 hours rap rock and it would still go #1. So 2 weeks maybe? It should coincide with a bunch of people coming back from summer as well. 

I was really excited about this announcement from CMJ this week: 

Hard to believe it, but it's that time, folks: Nominations for the College Radio Awards open next week! You can nominate in any category, but, this year, stations will be allowed to vote for both radio and industry awards, while industry can only vote for radio.

 We will go through my nominations a few weeks after the categories are announced.  Are you coming to CMJ this year? I would be interested in knowing why you are not if you are not. 

Saw this tweet this week I wanted to talk about: 

came across a playlist with SEVENTEEN records on it from the same promo company. #collegeradio

17 records from one company means perhaps that company is working too many records.  Or maybe it means that that company has partial ownership stake in the station and gets to control the playlist. Or maybe they intern for that company.  

There have always been playlists like this and of course there are conspiracies that go along with it.  One of my favorites was that one promotion company actually has login information for a bunch of stations.  The rumor goes that when they are close to going #1 they would use one of these stations to report a bunch of their records in hopes of going #1.  Of course these reports come from stations that rarely report and never pick up the phone so there is no way to confirm or deny. 

We have heard that some promo companies threaten stations with removal of service if they don't chart their records, that happens and in some cases it is warranted. But often times I have heard of some companies threatening removal of service if they are not playing upwards of 10+ records. That seems a bit much in my book.  Also stations can get everything digitally now so I am not sure how much of an effect that has. 

Or all of those could just be rumors and maybe the promoter just has really good records for that particular station. More than likely though it happens with smaller stations that are easily influenced.  It would take me a while to go through all 200 stations that reported this past week to find examples or even to find the station charting 17 of one company.  So lets take a look at a few random stations and see what we find.  First lets take a look at a smaller station. 

1. WHITE FENCE For The Recently Found Innocent-
2. RAVEONETTES Pe'ahi
3. ALVVAYS Alvvays
4. WILDEST DREAMS Wildest Dreams
5. JOEL JEROME Psychedelic Thriftstore Folk
6. MUFFS Whoop Dee Doo
7. BLACK BANANAS Electric Brick Wall
8. PS I LOVE YOU For Those Who Stay
9. EDJ EDJ
10. JENNY LEWIS Voyager
11. SPOON They Want My Soul
12. HOW TO DRESS WELL What Is This Heart?
13. MONOMYTH Saturnalia Regalia!
14. TWIN PEAKS Wild Onion
15. TOTAL CONTROL Typical System
16. CELEBRATION Albumin
17. MIGHTY STEF Iveagh Flats
18. LATIMER HOUSE "Birdcage Walk"/"Until Then" [Single]
19. BECK Song Reader
20. PUSS N BOOTS No Fools, No Fun
21. AARON BEHRENS AND THE MIDNIGHT STROLL Aaron Behrens And The Midnight Stroll
22. WYTCHES Annabel Dream Reader
23. LITTLE RACER Modern Accent
24. CLOSURE IN MOSCOW Pink Lemonade
25. COLD AND LOVELY Ellis Bell [EP]
26. DEAP VALLY Sistrionix
27. OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW Remedy
28. ACID Liminal
29. HONEYBLOOD Honeyblood
30. TIJUANA PANTHERS Wayne Interest

I was not able to find every promoter for this stations chart but of what I was able to find were 8 records from one promoter and then 5 from another. The don't seem to be promoted or are just from companies I could not find.  This is from a smaller station. So not to the extreme that we found from that tweet but still 8 out of 30 is a lot of records.

This next one is from a middle of the road station not a huge one but not a small one either

1. SHABAZZ PALACES Lese Majesty
2. SPOON They Want My Soul
3. JENNY LEWIS Voyager
4. WYTCHES Annabel Dream Reader
5. MUFFS Whoop Dee Doo
6. GOT A GIRL I Love You But I Must Drive Off This Cliff Now
7. RAVEONETTES Pe'ahi
8. BECK Song Reader
9. HOLLOW BOYS Believe In Nothing
10. STRAND OF OAKS Heal
11. ROSEBUDS Sand + Silence
12. WHITE FENCE For The Recently Found Innocent
13. PS I LOVE YOU For Those Who Stay
14. ALVVAYS Alvvays
15. MORRISSEY World Peace Is None Of Your Business
16. JPNSGRLS Circulation
17. SPIDER BAGS Frozen Letter
18. FADED PAPER FIGURES Relics
19. BISHOP ALLEN Lights Out
20. JOYCE MANOR Never Hungover Again
21. FREEMAN Freeman
22. BENJAMIN BOOKER Benjamin Booker
23. TWIN PEAKS Wild Onion
24. TRAMPLED BY TURTLES Wild Animals
25. SUMMER CAMP Beyond Clueless
26. SCARVES Empty Houses
27. SLOW CLUB Complete Surrender
28. ARMY NAVY The Wilderness Inside
29. LEMAITRE Singularity [EP]
30. FOXING The Albatross

On this station you see a bit more of a mix with the most records by one promoter being 5. So to me this shows this station is not overly impacted by what the promoters say and he/she is doing what they think is best for the station.

So lets take a look at a larger stations playlist and see how that looks in comparison

1. CAYETANA Nervous Like Me
2. AMANDA X Amnesia
3. CELEBRATION Albumin
4. DAN MELCHIOR UND DAS MENACE Hunger
5. BLACK ANGELS Clear Lake Forest
6. DAVID KILGOUR AND THE HEAVY EIGHTS End Times Undone
7. DEATH HAS NO DOMINION Death Has No Dominion
8. GHETTO GHOULS Ghetto Ghouls
9. JOYCE MANOR Never Hungover Again
10. MONOMYTH Saturnalia Regalia!
11. PARQUET COURTS Sunbathing Animal
12. REIGNING SOUND Shattered
13. HONEYBLOOD Honeyblood
14. GERONIMO Cheap Trick
15. SAINTSENECA Dark Arc
16. STRAND OF OAKS Heal
17. PEOPLE'S TEMPLE Musical Garden
18. OUMAR KONATE Addoh
19. REDREDRED Pattern Completion
20. DILATED PEOPLES Directors Of Photography
21. PERFECT PUSSY Say Yes To Love
22. LANDLADY Upright Behavior
23. KAHOOTS Take To The Fields
24. KUTOSIS Dream It Away
25. ALVVAYS Alvvays
26. KITE PARTY Come On Wandering
27. ENO-HYDE High Life
28. BRIGITTE FONTAINE Brigitte Fontaine
29. CHILDBIRTH It's A Girl!
30. NICOLE MITCHELL'S BLACK EARTH ENSEMBLE Intergalactic Beings

This seems pretty typical for a bigger station. A mix of older records they want to keep playing and some new stuff sprinkled in.  No one company really dominates this playlist and I would be shocked if this station actually talks to promoters on a regular basis.

So its fun to look at the different playlists from different weights of stations, from what we looked at I would say that the smaller station seemed to be the one influenced the most.  What do you think?

Lets talk about it on twitter

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

CMJ ISSUE 1357 WEEK 32

Well that was about as quick as I thought it might happen. Spoon EASILY took #1 this week.  Early on, when lets say there were only 50 reporters things were close but Spoon pulled away.  So how long does spoon stay up there is the question? I don't think there is anything currently on the charts that poses much of a threat. My guess is that it stays up there until the new Ty Segall goes for adds.

Speaking of adds. We have our lowest add winner in a  LONG time with Bishop Allen getting 61 adds. 33% of stations added the record. Thats pretty low. All that will matter in the end though is that it was #1 most added.

I thought one of the more interesting questions this week was what was going to happen to Morrissey since he was "dropped".  Early on there were a lot of stations reporting him but that fell off pretty quickly and he fell a spot from #5 to #6.

What are you guys looking forward to for this fall?

Who is going to CMJ this year?

We had a really great discussion last week about Alvvays and who the last #1 debut record was.  Lets have more conversations! You can hit me up on twitter @theanimalarrg



Wednesday, August 06, 2014

CMJ ISSUE 1356 WEEK 31

Oh hello August! I don't know about you but I am excited about these weeks as I am going to soak up every last bit of summer that I can.

We saw a few weeks of more stations reporting but this week we drop down to our second lowest station total of the summer with 215 reporters.  For adds we barely stayed above 200 at 201.

I had a feeling ADDS would be pretty easy this week as SPOON dominated with 62% of stations! I was expecting them to debut a bit higher on the charts and make a jump to #1 next week but a debut in the 70's most likely means a 2 week climb to #1. Raveonettes come in at #2 with 99 adds and because this summer chart is so weak they will surely see a top five in their future.

Lets talk about these charts though. What a weird summer. Records that take number one only to leave and then comeback and a host of other records that maybe in other times of the year would go #1.   This weeks #1 does come as a bit of surprise to me as it is rare that a bands first record goes #1 but some how Alvvays did it.   My first guess is timing.  For a while we have seen a handful of records make a nice push towards the top of the charts only to have Jack White and Parquet Courts keep them out.  I thought How to Dress Well would be the next one to take it, that or Antlers or A Sunny day in Glasgow but all three of those missed the window. Perhaps if they had gone for adds a week or 2 later they would have a shot.

But Alvvays did it in 2 weeks. Without tons of good reviews ( ok reviews) and only one indie working it.  Perhaps that is part of the key. Maybe those records with just one indie tend to do a little better because neither team has a crutch.  I know when I work with another indie I don't work any less and I am sure if you were to ask every company they would say the same but maybe there is a little bit less urgency when two indies are on a record and perhaps each team works on their other records a little more than that one. Who knows really. I would love to have the answer as to why Alvvays goes #1 yet A sunny Day in Glasgow only goes to #4 ( only is relative a lot of records would love to be top 5!) I really think it does come down to timing and who is working it at the time.

Would love to hear what you guys think about how/ why a record goes #1.  In this case I think it really comes down to timing.

Lets continue the conversation on the twitter. 

OH and I was tossing around the idea of an all College Radio Fantasy Football League. Let me know if that is something you would be into email me at Doug at Piratepirate . com

thanks

8/7/2014 update
The discussion has continued on for the last day about Alvvays and what was the last debut record to go to #1. Not counting supergroups.  You can follow along on Facebook

Originally we thought the debut from Bush was the last one... but it looks like we have discovered many records after Bush that have done it..

Some fun facts though that the first Arcade fire only peaked at #7
The First R.E.M peaked at #2 as did the first Strokes and first Vampire weekend.
Fun stuff.

douglas





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