CMJ ISSUE 1337 WEEK 12

Hello everyone from lovely New York City.  Everything so far is great, however I am still getting used to being back on east coast time.

These next few week should prove to be very exciting.  According to the past few years we have the next six weeks of increased reporters before a big drop off. So these next six weeks should be very exciting, as if they have not been exciting already.

This week was a fantastic race. We had Beck #1 for the last few weeks but a charging St. Vincent and Real Estate.  So there was always a chance Beck could hold on but with War on Drugs, Black Lips and Liars all going for adds over the past few weeks the window for both St. Vincent and Real Estate was closing fast.  So why not put everything you could into this week.

To be honest when the charts closed today I really thought it was going to be Real Estate.  They had more stations. And everything else was equal. I don't have the formulas to determine how a #1 gets there but it had to of been close. Real Estate had more of pretty much every size station.  Somehow though St. Vincent ends up at #1.  I really did think it was close but it was still somewhat of a surprise.

So now we have 6 weeks before stations stop paying attention because of "exams" and that sort of thing and we really could see a new number one each week.   I would not be shocked if St. Vincent held it for only one week before Real Estate took over and then I would not be shocked to see Black lips or War on Drugs take it as both are charing up the charts.

The strength of War on Drugs and Black Lips though is significantly less than that of St. Vincent and Real Estate I think. It does not mean they cannot get to #1 but I just wonder if there is a correlation to the number of stations reporting a record the week after the add week and its path to #1.  Beck, St, Vincent and and Real Estate all showed up on the charts the next week with in excess of 160 stations. This week we only saw around 130 stations with War on Drugs and the same with Black lips the week before.   Perhaps there is a magic number to look for in the week after ADDS to predict at #1 record. It will take more research for sure but something worth looking it.

Liars took #1 most added pretty easily this week and is also a contender for #1 the next few weeks.
The last liars record went to #3 but was only #2 most added so this has to bode somewhat well for the record. I do think it will depend on how many stations jump onboard the first week.  Again I am not positive of this 160 week after add number but it should be something to keep an eye on from now on.

So what do you think will happen for #1's ?

We have
Real Estate
Black Lips
charting up
with St. Vincent just getting in there.

you think all three get to #1? or you think St. Vincent holds?

I think we have a bunch of new number ones for the next few weeks.

Let's talk about it on twitter @theanimalarrg

CMJ ISSUE 1336 Week 11

I really don't know how much time I have to write this but there is so much going on that I wanted to talk about so lets see how much I can get to.

For whatever reason I started to doubt my thoughts on Beck. However you can never understate the power of comfort, or familiarity.  Beck might not be the coolest or even the best record out right now but EVERYONE knows who he is. Where as some of these other records  A LOT of people know who they are but A LOT is not EVERYONE.  And this is the perfect time of year to have people not care how good your record is and just know who you are. ( not saying the Beck record is bad but I have a feeling Beck is being powered by mostly familiarity.)   It's spring break, its SXSW it's midterms its " I have too many records"

So Beck continues at #1.  But man are there a lot of contenders on the way / HERE

St. Vincent and Real Estate are pretty much deadlocked at 2 and 3.  Could be fun to watch them joust back and forth for a while as Beck just hangs out.  Lets welcome Black lips to the party as jump into the top 5. They are still a bit aways from 2 or 3.

Our number one ADD from last week was Elbow and they come in as the #1 debut at #34.  Elbow will go as far as AAA takes them as a lot of college kids will be like who?

This weeks #1 ADD was War on Drugs and while I thought it would be a battle between them and Perfect Pussy... well it was not. It would be interesting to look at if records did better for those companies that had more people at home than at SXSW. Sadly I am moving and don't have the time. But the records I glanced at seem to suggest that it had no effect either way.

War on Drugs looks like it could contend and while Perfect Pussy might challenge the top 10 or squeeze out a top five I doubt they seriously challenge for #1.

That is all I have time for sadly as they are packing up my cable now...
until next time where I will be in lovely New York City!

Follow me on twitter @theanimalarrg to discuss the charts or to hear me complain about Time Warner and how bad they are at what they do.

CMJ RECAP ISSUE 1334 WEEK 9

Remember a few weeks ago when Broken Bells looked like it would float its way up to #1. Or even sooner ago when Beck looked like it would be one of the easiest #1 records of the year.  But no #1 record is ever easy. Unless of course you are Dum Dum Girls apparently.  I wish I could say it was close but it was no where near close.  There were less stations reporting this week so the number of stations reporting Dum Dum Girls dropped but the percentage of stations only went down by a little bit. Last week 67% of all stations charted Dum Dum Girls and this week there were 64% of stations.

I don't want to say Beck had a bad week or does not have a chance at #1, because he does. But the window is down to one week. I see no scenario where Beck gets #1 later than next week.  The reason is simply the HUGE adds we had this week.  Real Estate looks like what I thought Beck would look like. Almost 200 ADDS!! These days its pretty rare to get that many ADDS. #2 most added St. Vincent had 185 ADDS and that would of been amazing any other week, THEN we had Black lips that had 129 adds and that would of been #1 most added Last week, the week before, the week before that, Black Lips would of been #1 in 5 of the 9 weeks so far this year.

So what happens now?

We have Dum Dum Girls with 64% of the stations and with a pretty nice lead on #2.

#2 BECK made an awesome jump from #42 to #2. I have to wonder if any record has jumped to #2 in its first push week on the chart and failed to make #1?  I have to think that does not happen very often if ever.

#3 Broken Bells window is closed.

#7 Phantogram jumping from #65 is pretty impressive so soon but I just think they will get jumped this next week.

I would not be shocked if Beck, Dum Dum Girls, St. Vincent or Real Estate were #1 next week. Any of them. Each of them have their reasons to go for it. If I am pushing Beck I see what went for adds this week and think my window to get to #1 is THIS WEEK so I put everything I have into this.

If I am pushing Dum Dum Girls I am thinking why not keep pushing and get an early start on #1 for the year and keep the others out until I have something else I can get in there.

If I am Real Estate or St. Vincent I am thinking once one of the 2 get to #1 it is going to be hard to boot the other one out.

Should be exciting to watch.  I think Beck does it.  However if not then it really could be anyone.

So who is going to be in Texas next week?  I will! We should hang out if so be sure to touch base on the twitter @theanimalarrg

There will be no recap next week due to SXSW or the week after due to me moving to NYC ( well if something exciting happens I might try to write SOMETHING )

Thank you for reading!

Douglas

CMJ RECAP ISSUE 1333. WEEK 8

BECK WATCH WEEK ONE.

Well here we are. Week one of Beck watch. Not a bad showing on adds by any means with 137. However thats only 44% of reporting stations. Seems kind of low right? This happens when you have a BIG NAME going for adds. Some stations take it upon themselves to say, well they don't need MY help so they don't add the record. In comparison though Dum Dum Girls had 159 adds in their add week with 60% of reporters.  I kind of thought Beck would blow that out of the water.  Not to say I think anything less of the Beck record I still think it will go #1 but this is a sign of maybe it not being as powerful as I thought It would be.  In addition to the big add week Beck comes in at #42.  I am thinking it might take another week for Beck to jump all the way to #1.  The other notable add this week was Phantogram coming in at a solid #2 with 101 ADDS. If not for Beck I would say they had a real chance at #1. The fun is coming the next few weeks with Real Estate and St. Vincent both going for ADDS soon. Should be fun to watch.

Dum Dum Girls not only remained #1 this week but the gap between 1 and 2 ( Broken Bells) got even wider.  Sure the window is there for Broken Bells I really thought they would need a BIG week this week in order to make a run at #1 though. The big question to me though is what happens if Dum Dum Girls continues to gain stations. How many records can they keep out of #1?  This next week is very important before we get into the spring break/ SXSW cycle of not knowing what stations are going to be reporting week to week, and also not knowing if those charts are recharts from previous weeks.

I am just making the case that Dum Dum Girls could keep Beck out. It even becomes more likely as other big records get pushed up there.  When stations have to choose if they think Beck, Real Estate, St. vincent or Dum Dum Girls is the "best" a lot of the time they end up charting all of them and we end up with very small margins for error.  

We should continue the conversation over on the twitters @theanimalarrg 

CMJ RECAP ISSUE 1332 WEEK 7

Happy Presidents day chart week. It amazes me how many people worked on Presidents day. Like so much is going to happen in college radio if you don't come in for one day. Anyways I spent my Monday Bowling and not thinking about ADDS for the day. It was fantastic. These Monday holidays do have some impact on the charts though, some stations don't report and some that do end up sending in the same report as before.  Not as many as you would see on say MLK day but we did end up seeing less reporters this week than last week. Not a huge amount but still down in the time of year where we should be seeing more reporters every week. I would guess next week we would see another uptick.

It is no shock that Dum Dum Girls is still #1. Like I mentioned last week I think they will hold it for some time. While the number of people reporting went down the number of people reporting Dum Dum Girls still went up. Next week should be another easy week for them. Then It could get interesting.  

Last week I spent a lot of time talking about what we should expect from Broken Bells and well I did not see this coming. They come in at #5 this week! Angel Olsen also had a good week coming in at #11.  These are the two records that could challenge for #1 in the upcoming weeks. However the gap is still pretty big between Dum Dum Girls and Broken Bells, so much so that I see more of a chance of Angel Olsen catching up with Broken Bells before Broken Bells catches up with Dum Dum Girls.  It will be interesting to watch for sure.

This weeks #1 add was ANOTHER Sub Pop record. It seems like only a short time ago when every Sub Pop record was just doing average at best and now all of a sudden it seems like every Sub Pop record is again #1 most added and a contender for #1.  I guess everything goes through cycles, even Sub Pop.   Notwist also comes in at #133 on the charts, so not a HUGE debut so I have my doubts it will challenge for #1.

We should talk about the radio more over on twitter @theanimalarrg

CMJ RECAP ISSUE 1331 WEEK 6

Sorry for the delay everyone. I did not think anyone would miss a week but I am more than happy that you did. I have been debating on pushing the weekly blog back to Thursday as to be a bit more of a preview of the upcoming week as well as a recap of the last week.  So many promotion companies do not have everything up until Friday making it difficult to really write about the upcoming week.  I would love to be able to write more about what next weeks ADDS will do as opposed to what they just did.    For now I will keep trying to do this on Wednesday morning but any feedback is greatly appreciated.  As I also mentioned previously I started a wine blog www.corkreports.com and am trying to figure out when to post my reviews for that one as well.

So on to this past week. Well done Sharon Jones! If you would of asked me beforehand if I thought she would go #1 I would of thought with 100%  conviction NO. I would of been wrong.  She had a great run 3 weeks at #1 anytime of year is fantastic.  This week she falls to Dum Dum Girls who made the quick jump from 54--2--1 in three short weeks.

With Dum Dum Girls taking the top spot it sort of ends the chances for Damien Jurado and Mogwai both of whom I thought had excellent chances for #1 a few weeks ago.

This weeks #1 most added record was Broken Bells slightly over Angel Olsen.  I thought that Broken Bells would take the #1 spot but I did not think it would be close and checking the numbers throughout Monday it looked like it could be anyones game.  So the question we ask with every #1 most added record is... Do they have a shot at #1?

I think Broken Bells  is a fun one.  First off did the last one go #1?  It did not, it was not even #1 most added.  The week the last one went for adds it came in #3 most added with 75 ADDS.  Gorilliaz was #2 with 80 and Liars was #1 with 115.   Out of those three the only one that went #1 was Gorilliaz and they held it down for 5 strong weeks.  Broken Bells peaked out at #2, so not bad by any means, and Liars peaked at #7.  Crazy to look at that the #1 ADDED record ended up being the lowest of the three.  

So what does that mean for this Broken Bells record?   The first thing that comes to mind for me is that there is nothing else out there that looks like it is making a run. So that looks really good for both Dum Dum Girls and Broken Bells.  Second I look at ( and I feel stupid even saying this ) but I looked at the Pitchfork score for this record compared to the last. This one got a 5.4 the last a 7.2 . Neither of those will have much of an impact on what the record does I think.  For me if its an 8 or higher it helps and if it is a 4 or lower it hurts. Everything in the middle does nothing.   Last we need to look at what is coming soon, right now I am a little fuzzy on what could be competing with Broken Bells over the next few weeks.   With all that said I think it has a very good shot for #1.  The main thing that hurts it is Dum Dum Girls just getting there this week. I could see a situation where they are 1 and 2 for many weeks and some new record ends up jumping in there.   Or could Angel Olsen be the Gorilliaz?  I think it will be fun to watch.

Continuing on with this weeks ADDS I spent a lot of time asking stations this week what they were really enjoying at radio, as I like to do and the #1 record for this week was Temples. So many stations told me how much they liked this record. I am looking forward to checking it out soon.  The second most mentioned record, and I apologize for not including them in the mix for potential #1, was Hospitality.  They are at #7 currently on the top 200 in only week 3 but the same thing that might keep out Broken Bells will for sure keep out Hospitality and thats Dum Dum Girls.

Week three on the charts needs to be a good one, if you fall on week three then you are scrambling to try and get going back up to where you WERE  week 4 whereas if you went up on week three you can shoot for a new peak much easier.  So lets look at some other records in week three right now.

Drowners made an ok move from 12-15 but they started at 40 so it seems like a bit of a slow down, but being so close to top 10 ... so stressful that one.

Habibi made a nice move to 13 from 23 and started at 33. You can't be anything but happy with moves like that.  Should be in line for a top 10 I would think

Cibo Matto up to #18 from #29 and started at #35.  Better move in the 2nd week than the first. That is always a good sign.

Against Me! down to #19 from #16 and started at #32. You LOVE that first week jump from the 30's to almost top 15 but you hate to see the down already.  Looking at the big first week move though you hope that it was just a bunch of people not reporting and not a real decline.  I thought last week that top 10 was within reach. Now it seems like that will be very difficult.

Thank you for reading! Let's continue the discussion over on twitter @theanimalarrg

CMJ RECAP ISSUE 1330 WEEK 5

You can't stop Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings you can only hope to contain them! I think the most impressive thing about this run is that the number of stations charting her keeps on going up. Also It is not like there are not other contenders. We saw Damien Juardo and Mowai race up the charts and it was never even that close.  That should all come to an end next week when Dum Dum Girls ( last weeks #1 add) over takes that spot. You don't jump from #54 to #2 and stall in most cases.

It is really looking up for  Sub-Pop early on this year with Mogwai, Dum Dum Girls and this weeks #3 add Thumpers.  Overall there are 5 Sub Pop records charting 2 in the top 5. Not a bad way to start the year off.

This weeks #1 add was from Band Of Horses 90 adds is good but I would guess it has little to no chance in challenging for the top spot later on.

As a promoter I always try and take time out and listen to what else is out there, stuff I am not working.  As you know as Music Directors its hard to stay on top of things. I try and ask a lot of you what you are listening to. A lot of the time they will tell me about my records but I really REALLY want to know about whats good. So I don't have to listen to everything like you do!

Here is what I like recently. That new Against Me! is fantastic. I am happy so many stations are playing it as it seems like it would be a bit outside of some stations comfort zone.  #16 is REAL good perhaps it can get top 10? Might be a stretch but I hope it does.

I actually really like that second Pixies EP. I was having this conversation with a station that was not very familiar with the Pixies and he liked it. It made me wonder if we were hearing all of their songs for the first time would these stand up along side the old stuff? I think they would.

Have heard a lot of people mention they like the new Beck songs so I am looking forward to that record. Let me know what I should listen to!?

This past week I honestly spent a ton of time on old soundtracks, Reality Bites, Judgement Night, Pump up the Volume, Say Anything.  So many good still to go through .

We should continue this conversation on line @theanimalarrg

Thanks for reading

Douglas