CMJ ISSUE 1378 Week 5

Oh hello everyone! Happy February! Day late on the recap here in what was a slightly delayed week. Sleater-Kinney took the #1 spot but Panda Bear did not go quietly. I was checking early and often and the gap between the records, ended at 9 stations, never really got much larger than that. The record to keep an eye on though might be the Decemberists.  They stayed at #4 this week but that gap between that and #1 is a lot lower that I would of expected.  With the last few charts the top two records seem to be sitting alone on their own tier with a huge gap at #3. So it is nice to see records in the 3 and 4 spot be legit contenders.  If Sleater-Kinney had been as dominate as they were the add week I would say none of these records would have a shot but for whatever reason they are not running away with it like I thought they would. I should also mention Viet Cong is holding strong in the #3 spot and also could make that move. I have less faith in them just because Decemberists is a bigger name and has many #'1 under their belt and have also claimed #1 on the AAA chart.

The question then is what happens with Bjork. Does she come and join the top 5 party next week?
Coming in at #11 the week after the ADD week is pretty great.  We could have a couple weeks of Sleater-Kinney at #1 and then perhaps see a late battle of Decemberists and Bjork? Anyone else join them?  Maybe Twerps but not sure if they really contend for #1 So nothing that is on the charts currently I would say.

 Last week we talked about the Ty Segall combining of records and that was before I even realized there was a third Ty Segall going for adds this week with another promotion company than the other 2.  Perhaps there is some Ty Segall fatigue out there as the new record only came in at #5 most added or it could be that the record is live. I would guess it is a combination of the two.

Adds were pretty fun this week as there seemed early on to be a 5 team race between Natalie Prass, Title Fight, Jessica Pratt, Mount Eerie and Ty Segall.  In the end it came down to two very different records Natalie Prass and Title Fight with Natalie coming out on top by 7 ADDS. Who knows maybe if stations only added records that went for adds then it might of been closer.

Maybe we need to tackle this a little bit more and more often but ADDS do not need to be that difficult.  I think ADDS are silly if we can't all follow the same rules. That means ADDing records that are going for adds.

For example this week I saw this

1. SLEATER-KINNEY No Cities To Love
2. ROUGH CHURCH Friction/Reflection

The problem here is that A) Sleater Kinney went for adds 3 weeks ago. This helps no one.  I feel that it might of been better for this station to not report ADDS at all than to report this. You could also argue that they have 5 ADD spots why not use them.  Part of the problem is that there is no RULE that governs what you can and cannot add. It is a open system that allows you to ADD what you like. But I will remind you that when you ADD records not going for ADDS that you are just wasting everyones time. You wasted your own time by adding old records and you wasted my time by having to see it.  Do you think there should be Set RULES for adds? Most stations I explain ADDS to understand why they should follow the unwritten rules as they want to help the artists. There will always be stations that do what they want and we will never get 100% of the stations to fall in line unless there is a rule.

It is important to note this week though that the station that had been charting Goldfinger the last few weeks did not report Goldfinger. So that is a minor victory.

Well thats what we have for the week lets talk about it on the twitter! Thanks for reading

Douglas