CMJ ISSUE 1285 RECAP

As we have noticed over the past few weeks it is TIGHT up at the top of the charts. We have seen a handful of records jockey for that #1 spot as Toro Y Moi has held pretty strong until this week.  This week left no doubt from the start of reporting to the end who was going to be #1 --LOCAL NATIVES.
With a very nice 60% of the stations Local Natives was able to nock off Toro Y Moi.   You could see this coming a few weeks ago the slow build of stations over time has been rather impressive.  So what now, who is going to be our next #1? Well this is where  timing comes into things more than ever.

This following graph is the number of stations reporting each week throughout the year. I have reduced it to include only the last 3 years ( weeks are across the bottom and # of stations on the other axis)
The Blue line is 2011
Red is 2012
Green 2013

As you can see weeks 1-8 are mostly a slow climb, then weeks 9-12 are chaos. Weeks 9-12 are March.
You have SXSW, Spring Breaks, Midterms in general its a hard time to predict or to really know who is going to keep on reporting. In the past 8 years the record that holds the #1 spot on week 8 has gone on to lose it in week 9, also it is worth nothing that the record that holds the #1 spot in week 9 holds for an average of just over 3 weeks.  The reason for this is a lot stations end up sending in the same chart for a few weeks in a row because of all the above noted factors making it harder to make a push for number one.

So in theory the next #1, be it Local Natives or something else, has a chance to be up there for a good amount of time. So who is in the running?  Foxygen is hanging around at #2, Toro Y Moi at #3, Unknown Mortal Orchestra #4, Yo La Tengo #5, Tegan and Sara #6. Last weeks surprise Ducktails has already faltered out of the top 5 at #7 while last weeks big adds Foals comes in at #10 , STRFKR at #13 and Nick Cave at #19.  Over the past few weeks we have seen lots of big jumps up the chart only to watch the records fizzle.

Ruby suns made that huge 118-13 move only to fall down to 15 the next week
Ducktails went from 135 - 7 only to stay at 7,make a rebound to 5 and then fall the next week back to 7
Fidlar went from 162 to 10 and has been stuck at 8

A lot goes into what makes a record go up or down but the track record recently of huge debuts or moves has been less than spectacular.

So back to the question. Who will be #1 going forward?  Out of all of these a few stand out to me.
Local Natives has a great chance to buck the trend of getting hurt by the March Madness so I wont cut them out.  Foxygen held strong but got jumped that is never a good sign for someone trying to get #1 Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Tegan and Sara are interesting and I could make a case for either.  My gut, and the numbers tell me that those are the only real options for #1 next week.

This weeks top debut goes to ICEAGE coming in at #33 on the charts . The largest fall comes from The XX falling 74 spots ( not bad for a former #1 record thats been on the chart for 23 weeks) Only 26 new records on the chart this week and Foxygen is the only record staying in the same place as last week


This weeks ADDS race was won out by Mount Moriah with 82 adds.  This year more than ever before it seems like the #1 add spot is a curse more than a blessing as only Toro Y Moi so far this year has gone from #1 most added to #1 on the charts.

One last thing I wanted to look at comes from Shil over at Team Clermont. Last week we looked at how close everything is in the top 10 does that same thing happen lets say in the 120-1209 range?

120	108	122	108	6	CARRIE RODRIGUEZ	Give Me All You Got	Ninth Street Opus
121	125	-	121	2	CHARLES BRADLEY	"Strictly Reserved For You" [Single]	Dunham
122	170	-	122	2	DEER TRACKS	The Archer Trilogy, Pt. 3	The Control Group
123	-	-	123	1	MITZI	Truly Alive	Future Classic
124	100	67	16	9	CUB SCOUTS	Told You So [EP]	Self-Released
125	151	75	75	5	PANTHA DU PRINCE AND THE BELL LABORATORY	Elements Of Light	Rough Trade
126	180	-	126	3	RED BARAAT	Shruggy Ji	Sinj
127	-	-	127	1	PASCAL PINON	Twosomeness	Morr
128	-	-	128	1	PARENTHETICAL GIRLS	Privilege (Abridged)	Marriage-Slender Means Society
129	122	83	48	15	MAC DEMARCO	2	Captured Tracks

In looking in this group of 10 the high was .046% of the stations and the low was .026%
When looking at raw numbers thats only a swing of 6 or so stations throughout the group.  Much like in the top 10 the one with the most stations does not always have the highest spot. Carrie Rodriguez was the lone record to have the .026% while Deer Tracks and Red Baaraat had the highest %.  So how does that compare to lets say the #200 record Slam Dunk?  Slam Dunk comes in at THE SAME % of stations as Carrie Rodriguez. Pretty crazy that size of station and chart position can have that much effect changing a record from a potential #200 all the way to 120!  Lets go 80 spots in the other direction to #40 well they come in with 5x the amount of stations and 16% of the stations.  Just for fun lets look at one last record just to see how much change is between #40 and #120 That brings us to the #80 record Hemmingbirds.  So my guess would be that it should come in around 8% of the stations. I was pretty close it came in at 9%.  

Thanks again for reading! If you have any questions you want me to tackle let me know @theanimalarrg  Let me know if you will be at SXSW as well! Until next time.

CMJ ISSUE 1284 RECAP

Another week and another week with Toro Y Moi at #1.  However I was wrong about a few things from last week, something I was not wrong about was that it is getting very tight up at the top.  It does look like we have seen the peak with Toro when they had 61% of the stations last week. This week they fall to 57%. At the same time Foxygen showed no signs of slowing as they maintain 55% of the stations.    Local Natives keeps the pressure on at #3 with 53% of the stations while Yo La Tengo keeps holding on at #4 with 44% ( propped up by a slew of larger stations) .

Last week I predicted a top 4 of Toro Y Moi, Local Natives Tegan and Sara and Yo La Tengo. 3 out of 4 is not half bad. I will get into this more when I have more data but I overestimated the strength of indies over labels.  It will be interesting to see what happens next week as Foxygen had a REAL shot of #1 this week and no doubt Local Natives will be pushing for #1 next week.  I have to believe that the Toro Y Moi run is over at this point and that next week we will see a new #1.  I don't see any other record having a real shot other than Foxygen and Local Natives but any of the rising top 10 could put themselves in position to take it soon. 

Lets look at this weeks top 10 overall in terms of both raw numbers and percentage change from the previous week.  

1) TORO Y MOI ( 57%)   +2 STATIONS  DOWN 4%
2) FOXYGEN  (55%) +11 STATIONS  STEADY %
3) LOCAL NATIVES(53%)  +23 STATIONS UP 4%
4) YO LA TENGO (44%)  -7 STATIONS  DOWN 6%
5) DUCKTAILS (49%)  + 21 STATIONS UP 4 %
6) UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA(52%) + 27 STATIONS UP 5%
7) TEGAN AND SARA (48%) + 15 STATIONS UP 2 %
8) FIDLAR (44%)  +9 STATIONS  STEADY %
9) RA RA RIOT(41%) - 7 STATIONS DOWN 6%
10) THAO AND THE GET DOWN STAY DOWN(30%)  + 33 STATIONS UP 9%

You can see how different the top of the top 10 is from the bottom of the top 10.  As a general rule 60% of the stations is almost always a 1 record. A lot of the time it takes just around 55% In looking at last years numbers most #1 records had 55% to 63% of the stations. The lowest #1 record  last year had 53% of the stations while the highest had 78%( the most dominate #1 I have ever seen, it was Black Keys in case you were wondering)   The next few weeks will be interesting for sure.

Last weeks #1 most added record Frightened Rabbit stumbled out the gate coming in at 27. Pissed Jeans made a nice move to #16 from #132 and will be worth keeping an eye on. This weeks number one most added was Nick Cave and the Bad seeds with 131 adds the second most adds for any records this year behind Tegan and Sara.  Foals and STRFKR also gain over 100 adds. This week was all Nick Cave from start to finish with no real threat of anything else taking it.  I think the timing of the Nick Cave record will help it have a great chance at #1.  It is curious to note that no  Nick Cave record has gone #1 in the last 10 years. This time around feels different though.

I still think that there are about 5 records at radio now that could be the next few #1's . What do you think?

Lets look at all the other data.  We had 39 debuts this week the highest coming from Beach Fossils at #21.  The biggest move comes from Pissed Jeans jumping an impressive 122 spots!  The largest drop comes from Black Moth Super Rainbow going down 77 spots, however thats in its 14th week. In case you were wondering the record on the charts the longest right now is the Lumineers at 35 weeks!

Last weeks poll question asked, since 2005 what band has had the most #1 records. It is actually a 3 way tie. Iron and Wine, Black Keys and Animal Collective have each been #1 4 times since then!

Thanks for reading  be sure to follow me on twitter @theanimalarrg   and if there is anything involving college radio you have questions about please ask! 

CMJ ISSUE 1283 RECAP

Things are about to get crazy. Let us jump right into it! This week Toro Y Moi continues its reign at #1 with a whopping 61% of stations reporting them. Yo La Tengo continues in the #2 spot and Foxygen up to #3. Remember last week Foxygen had only 48% of the stations but they jump all the way to 55%.

You might also recall last week huge debuts and or moves from Ducktails and Fidlar, also remember that I said they were about to be jumped. In comes last weeks huge add class with Local Natives in at #4, Unknown Mortal Orchestra at #6 and last weeks #1 most added Tegan and Sara in at #10.  So yeah things are about to get intense with every promoter acting like if they don't get what they want their cat will die.  This, to me, is when promoting gets fun. You have 5-6 different records, depending on who you ask, that have a legit shot at going #1 and you have a different company working each of them!  THEN you have some really big records coming the next few weeks! Looks like Distiller put themselves in the best position with Local Natives in at #4 so quickly. I think Next week you will see the top 4 be Toro Y Moi, Local Natives, Tegan and Sara and Yo La Tengo. 

This weeks ADDs race was another close one with Frightened Rabbit beating out Beach Fossils by 3 adds but with neither of them busting the 90 add threshold.  The chance of either of these records getting to #1  with the records that are out there now is small but not impossible.  Even more slim when you take into account the records coming between now and SXSW.  Not every week can bring you 3 records that have a shot at #1 like last week.  

This weeks chart really got me thinking about last week's add week even more. Tegan and Sara squeaked it out at #1 but this week both the #2 and #3 most added record vaulted over them. This tends to happen a lot but what does it mean for that #1 most added record? 

To get a good picture I went back through my records back to 2005. 

In 2005 there were 17 #1 records and of those 10 of them were most Added. This is out of 49 reporting weeks so 32 most added records did not go to #1.  So that means that 58% of the #1 records were also most added but that only 20% of the most added made it to #1 

2006 19#1 records and 10 of those were most added out of 46 weeks. 21% of most added went to #1

2007 15 #1 records and 10 of those were most added out of 47 weeks 21% of most added went to #1

2008 17 #1 records and 11 of those were most added out of 48 weeks 22 % of most added went to #1 

2009 18 #1 records and 14 of those were most added out of 48 weeks 29% of most added went to #1

2010 16 #1 records and 13 of those were most added out of 46 weeks 28% of most added went to #1

2011 22 #1 records and 17 of those were most added out of 49 weeks 34% of most added went to #1 

2012 21 #1 records and 15 of those were most added out of 48 weeks 31% of most added went to #1

So while most of the #1 records were most added, being most added does not strongly indicate that you will go to #1.  With an average of 18 #1 records a year and each #1 record holding that spot for an average of 2.6 weeks it tends to block out a good number of #1 most added.  But it is good to see that over the past 8 years 68% of all #1's have come from being most added.   

There is a lot of data there and In trying to present it as objectively as possible it may make it difficult to comb through.  I will say I am somewhat surprised in seeing that being #1 most added does not lead to being #1 more often but not that surprised that most #1's were most added.  Given the data it and looking at just the last 2 years you can see we are getting more #1's and more of those coming from most added.  To me this looks to be a trend that will not end soon, but only time will tell. 

So lets get back into the data of the charts for the week.  This week there were 32 debuts marking another week of downward trend of debuts.  The number one debut is VERY interesting My Bloody Valentine. With no promoter working it, no label, no hard copies we see a very impressive debut at #30. When I saw this number I thought it had to be all big stations but was very surprised to see the stations playing this record run from the biggest to the smallest with well over half of those being in the top 10.    This weeks biggest jump comes from Yellow Red Sparks with a 124 spot jump! The biggest drop comes from Lamps with a 92 spot drop.  Always my most fun, the records running in place we have our top 3 the same as last week in Toro Y Moi, Yo La Tengo and Foxygen and Ducktails running at #7 

Last weeks Poll question asked what you thought the next #1 record would be with half of you voting for Tegan and Sara and the other half Local Natives.  Pretty good guesses.  

This week I wonder if you can guess the band with the most #1 records since 2005.  

Thanks for reading and be sure to follow me on twitter @theanimalarrg   and if there is anything involving college radio you have questions about please ask! 

Sleater-Kinney

The past few weeks I have spent a lot of time listening to The Breeders, Be Your Own Pet, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and various other female fronted bands. They all brought  me back to one of my favorites I have not listened to as much lately and one that 

I am sure not everyone is very familiar with since the last record came out in 2006.  But this week I would love to tackle 

as always from Worst to Best. 

Sleater-Kinney 

Sleater-Kinney

The Hot Rock

Call the Doctor

The Woods 

One Beat 

All Hands on the Bad one  

Dig me Out 

CMJ ISSUE 1282 RECAP

Welcome to another CMJ recap! We had one of the more exciting top ADD's races I have seen in a long time and we will work to dissect why the record that came out on top did so.  We also have a new #1 record in college radio. And after we get through all that,  I thought it would be fun to take a look back and and see what things were like 10 and 5 years ago at CMJ.  Before then last weeks Poll had no clear cut winner so This week we ask What will be the next #1 record be sure to vote!

But first the charts! As I predicted last week Toro Y Moi comes in at #1 with a robust 59% of the stations charting the record! Yo La Tengo actually went up to 53% but was really no match for the momentum Toro Y Moi has right now.  Ra ra Riot got Jumped by Foxygen and Growlers round out the top 5.   

1--Toro Y Moi ( 59%)

2--Yo La Tengo ( 53%)

3--Foxygen (48%)

4--Ra Ra Riot ( 52%)

5--Growlers (41%)

Notice the HUGE drop off from #4 to #5 I think its very likely we see 2 of these records drop out next week.  Thats because last weeks tied adds of FIDLAR and Ducktails are about to join the party. 

FIDLAR is actually our biggest move of the week going a huge 152 spots up the chart! Ducktails actually comes in a bit higher at #7 and impressive 128 spot jump.  Will either of these records get to #1? It is hard to tell but based upon the last several weeks we have to see how they handle the second week in. There are SO many new records coming out that a big debut has become relatively easy. So records are making big 100+ point jumps or top 40 debuts only to see them fall the next week. 

A bunch of the records I have talked about the last few weeks have taken spills in that 2nd week of pushing : Christopher Owens, Free Energy, Bad Religion, Ben Harper,  Nightlands, Bleeding Rainbow, A$AP Rocky ... have all stalled or fallen because of the new records coming in.  In fact EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE RECORDS GAINED STATIONS how crazy is that! Yet they all fell or barely went up.   It's because stations are so excited to have new records to push out the old ones that each round of newer ones does increasingly better than the previous weeks. If past years are any indication, and they tend to be, then the next 4 weeks should see a much more stable chart.  

The last two weeks we have seen 38 and 33 debuts on each chart and this week 34 so lets pay attention to that and see if it goes up or down.  Our biggest drop of the week is Gospel Claw falling 104 spots. And there are NO records that ran in place!  

As I mentioned before this week was a CRAZY add week with 3 big records all pushing for the top spot. So I wanted to spend some time and take you inside a week of going for adds.  We had ( with the pitchfork score) 

Local Natives (8.1) 

Unknown Mortal Orchestra (7.3)

Tegan and Sara (7.3)

Thao & the Get Down Stay down (7.5)

as the three potential records pushing for the top add spot. All with glowing reviews and very different fan bases.   We will start this on Monday Morning when I first checked adds.  

With 44 stations reporting the rundown was 

Unknown Mortal Orchestra--18

Local Natives--16

Tegan and Sara--13

Thao & the Get Down Stay down--9

The next time we checked there were 57 reporters ( 12PM PST ) 

Unknown Mortal Orchestra--21

Local Natives--20

Tegan and Sara--17

Thao & the Get Down Stay down--10

at this point I decided that Thao would not be in the running and would concentrate on the others 

At 1PM with 69 reporters 

Local Natives--29

Unknown Mortal Orchestra--26

Tegan and Sara--24

At 2pm with 74 reporters

Local Natives--30

Unknown Mortal Orchestra--28

Tegan and Sara--28

An hour later there were only 4 more reporters. As this tends to happen Mondays are a bit slow during the day as most stations are talking to promoters and then reporting at night or the next day. The numbers stayed around the same until i checked again  5PM

5PM--with 92 reporters 

Unknown Mortal Orchestra--39

Tegan and Sara--36

Local Natives--35

Lots of changes in day one.  Usually by this point a record will have started to pull away and you kind of know who will be #1 most added.  This week I had NO idea.  So we started it all back up on Tuesday at 5am

5AM with 128 reporters 

Local Natives--57

Unknown Mortal Orchestra--56

Tegan and Sara--56

7AM with 136 reporters 

Unknown Mortal Orchestra--62

Local Natives--61

Tegan and Sara--60

8AM with 152 reporters

Unknown Mortal Orchestra--71

Local Natives--70

Tegan and Sara--70

8:30 AM with 172 reporters 

Local Natives--78

Unknown Mortal Orchestra--77

Tegan and Sara--77

 8:45AM with 177 reporters

Local Natives--82

Tegan and Sara--81

Unknown Mortal Orchestra--80

9:00AM with 186 reporters

Local Natives--87

Tegan and Sara--86

Unknown Mortal Orchestra--87

So here we are with only 2 hours left before charts close with No real idea of who will get #1 most added.  If we were to take a look at previous weeks we should expect around 260-280 stations to report adds With that in mind that means at 9 am there are still around 100 stations left to report . This is around the time you start to see huge jumps in the number of stations reporting. Not sure why more stations do not report on Friday or even the weekend to save themselves the stress but because stations wait until the last minute promoters can have more of an impact on what goes on with  the adds 

As I said it got to be rapid fire at this time 200 stations become 225 became 240 in about a half hour

200 stations 

Tegan and Sara--97

Local Natives--95

Unknown Mortal Orchestra--91

225 stations 

Tegan and Sara--106

Unknown Mortal Orchestra--104

Local Natives--96

241 stations 

Tegan and Sara--118

Local Natives--116

Unknown Mortal Orchestra--105

We finally started to see some separation with just under an hour of reporting left making it a two record race to the finish for the final hour 

252 stations 

Tegan and Sara--127

Local Natives--123

Unknown Mortal Orchestra--111

262 stations 

Tegan and Sara--131

Local Natives--129

and when the dust settled ....

270 stations 

Tegan and Sara--136

Local Natives--132

....Tegan and Sara took the #1 most added crown. 

Again. It comes down to just a few stations. And I bet if we were to have this ADD week another 4 times it would come up differently every time. So I wanted to take a closer look at the numbers.  This week there were 270 reporters and each have 5 adds so that should equal 1350 ADD spots.  However this week only 1302 ADDS were reported. So right there 48 adds went unused, wasted.  The top ADDS list makes up 879 potential adds this week, leaving us with 423 ADDS that did not go towards records on the adds list. With so many companies working so many records its understandable that some adds are going to be ADDed that won't impact the adds chart. This week number of ADDs that did not make the adds chart is 198 meaning that 225 ADD spots were used on old records that are not going for adds. 

When you look at how close that ADD chart was you can see that even 5 of those ADD spots could of put Local Natives ahead.  

There were 44 stations that added Tegan and Sara, Local Natives and Unknown Mortal Orchestra 

There were 41 stations that added Tegan and Sara and Local Natives 

There were 20 stations that added Tegan and Sara and Unknown Mortal Orchestra 

There were 27 stations that added Local Natives and Unknown Mortal Orchestra 

lastly there were 50 stations that added None of the top 3 adds.    

So What does Tegan and Sara getting most added mean?  In the next few weeks we will look at what a #1 record means in terms of going #1 we will also be taking a look at how having an indie work a record impacts that record.   But the main point of this exercise is to show that every ADD can have an impact. So ADD what you want to but know that it means something.

Thanks for reading!  Oh before we go  we were going to take a look at what was going on 10 years ago and 5 years ago. 

On  FEB 3 of 2003  issue 799 The #1 record at college radio was... Joseph Arthur--Redemptions Son rounding out the top five were Primal Scream, Sigur Ros, Calla and the Ravonetttes. The Number one most added record was Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds--Nocturama. 

you can check out the whole issue below or by clicking here 

Five years ago in Feb 2008 I cannot find online but I can tell you the #1 record was Magnetic Fields and #1 most added was a band called Air Traffic 

Tegan and Sara

This week we will tackle the discography of TEGAN AND SARA!  So lets do the Top TEGAN AND SARA records from Worst to best.  This was difficult as I have been a huge fan since record #1 and yet they have changed so much since then.  It would of been really easy for me to rate each record better than the last and to be honest that was a thought I had.  I could do this list every week and I bet I would have the records in another order.

Under Feet Like Ours
This Business of Art
if it was you
Sainthood
So Jealous
Heartthrob
The Con