This week in College Radio! CMJ issue 1294.

Welcome to This week in college radio, it is a weird time of year. Its a sad time as I learn some of my favorite Music Directors are moving on to  Program Director or Station Manager ( I promise you will be bored Sara/KLSU) or even graduating. It is always a bummer to lose some really fun people. When I was Music Director of my station I once left to become Station Manager. I HATED it so much that I eventually switched back to Music Director. A word of advice. It is the BEST JOB at the station
It is also an exciting time of year because that Music  Director that never had time to return an email and only reported 2 over the course of 12 weeks is GONE!!! OUT OF HERE!!!! A new person that might actually like music and talking to people will be taking over and breathe some fresh air into the college radio world. So its a weird time.  Sad to see some of you go and excited for the chance that some stations might improve.  The Music Director has so much impact on what a station gets from us as promoters. If you report every week and communicate with me I could care less if you love or hate my records. My job is to get feedback and if you give it to me I am pretty happy. Of course I want my records to do well and I strive to that to happen but if you don't report and don't communicate you don't even get the chance to love or hate my records!
 A good example is from WUNH. For a long time they had been passed around Pirate with no luck so we stopped sending records.  Then one day a new MD came in. Decided he wanted more records and started talking to people and the perception of that station has changed completely at least for us.

Ok on to the charts this week. It seems like forever since we have had a repeat #1 and Thee Oh Sees do just that this week! Remember last week when it seemed like they just snuck in there... well they absolutely dominated this week with 56% of the stations up from 51% last week.  When last week was such a squeaker I thought this week would be too but Thee Oh Sees look to be rolling. #2 this week is The Knife comes in at 52% of the stations so within striking distance of that #1 spot.  A big surprise this week are The Strokes hanging out at #3, I expect them to fall fast, well I expected them to this past week too so what do I know.  Also within striking distance of #1 are Iron and Wine at #4, Kurt Vile continues to push ahead coming in at #5. Phoenix making the big move from 70 and last weeks add week to #6. The Flaming lips make a big move from #20 to #9 and Junip comes in at #12 from #62.  James Blake also went up but with all of these other records and only a 2 spot jump this week they are sure to be passed next week.

So what happens now? With so much change over at radio via stations shutting down, new MDs, and just general excitement over it being summer time it is so hard to predict. I could make an argument for The Knife, Iron and Wine or Phoenix being next weeks #1. I don't think it will be Thee Oh see's            ( although I thought that last week)  and here is why.  You have the same company working both Thee Oh Sees and Iron and wine. They see Phoenix there charging ahead really fast. so the idea is to get Iron and wine to #1 before they do and to do that you have to slow down your own record somehow. Then again you could be happy just keeping Thee Oh sees at #1 for a while knowing how hard it is to switch them over. I can tell you I would try to get more #1's If that is the case that leaves the door open for The Knife.  I do have a feeling though these next few weeks it is going to be harder to get ahold of stations and get rotation moving around so perhaps that favors a long run where we have the same stations in the top 5 for weeks.  This is the most unpredictable it has been in some time.  

In ADDS this week !!! takes the #1 spot by ONE over Sub Pop band Still Corners.  The biggest move of the week comes from THERMALS jumping an impressive 120 spots! The highest debut comes from Major Lazer at #34. The #1 debut used to mean a lot more to me but now it seems that the bigger artists all debut on the add week instead of the next week. I often wonder how this happens since most of these stations only have the record for few days ( not all but most)  I can see it happening when there is a single out there or the record gets mailed really early but it happens almost every week. This weeks #1 most added !!! debuted at #190, giving them a shot at the biggest move of the week I suppose but the debut just sounds more impressive to me.  Only 24 debuts this week a pretty big drop from our
normal.

Thanks for reading. If you have any insight you would like to add please hit me up I would love to share other opinions on what is going on at College radio in addition to my own.