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 :

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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.