CMJ RECAP ISSUE 1346 WEEK 21

I hope everyone had a great Memorial day weekend! 

There is not really a ton to talk about with this week. We had a very SLOW week at radio but not as slow as last year at this time but still a dip overall. It will be interesting to see if the numbers go even lower or if they rebound next week.  If I had to guess I would say rebound. 

Thee Oh Sees hold on to #1 for the second week.  The Black Keys came close but were not the first record since the Decemberists to go from ADD week to #1 in one week, they had to settle for #2 a mere 9 stations behind.  Wye Oak stayed at #3 and Tune-Yards made a big move up to #4.  They were #8 last week so thats pretty impressive.   Worth keeping an eye on as 4AD/ Beggars/ Matador have made the run to #1 having less stations than the other records making a run. That is just the power of the CORE.  I still think they are pretty far back but as I said worth keeping an eye on. 

It was a rough week for the ADDs this week with the #1 most added record, Popstrangers only grabbing 64 adds. I thought it would go to Owen Pallett but he finished 3 behind and Coldplay came in at #3 with 50.  None of these records should pose a real threat to #1. 

I have to imagine next weeks ADDS will be a lot bigger as most people don't like to go on Memorial Day weekend. The benefit of going though is you have an easier path to #1 with smaller records that go. 

Well this is a short and sweet one this week as I am still recovering from Punk Rock Bowling and Las Vegas! 

If there is anything you want to talk about hit me up on twitter! 

CMJ RECAP WILL BE UP ON LATE 5/28

I just got back from Vegas.
ooof..

CMJ RECAP--CMJ ISSUE 1345 WEEK 20

This is it! The start of summer is just a few days away. We have been working towards this moment over the past few weeks losing a few stations at a time but the real drop off happens next week.

If we look back to last week at this time  Weeks 18-21 the stations dropped off as follows :

268
242
234
209

This year is about the same:

267
238
228
???

So this next week we should see just around 200 reporters and the week after there is usually a rebound to almost the week before but it should hover in the 220-230 range for the rest of the summer.  The good thing about summer though is that the majority of these stations are bigger stations with legit airplay and we are mostly losing smaller stations that tend to not be as consistent in their reporting.

Thee Oh Sees took the top spot this week, a week later than I initially thought they would but after looking at the numbers last week we saw that in most cases it takes a few weeks to make that climb even if you are a big record.  The last Thee Oh Sees record was #1 for 2 weeks. It will be interesting to see if this one builds on that one or does about the same.   One thing about these summer transition weeks is that the newer records do better until everything stabilizes.  Things can and do get lost in the shuffle.

Thee Oh Sees is a pretty solid #1 at this point with just over 60% of the reporting stations so who could be the next in line?

Damon Albarn had a great week on the charts moving from 10 to 5 but did so by only gaining 4 stations and only currently have 39% of the stations.

Lykke Li had an impressive week as well moving from 17 to 6 and having about the same amount of stations as Damon.

Tune-Yards might of had the most impressive week moving from 30 to 8 by almost doubling the amount of stations on the record.

Out of those I would have to say Lykke Li has the best shot to make a run at #1 as it is a week newer than Damon. That plus the last record went #1 and their is an indie working it all line up in her favor.
I think though if Tune-Yards had an extra push they would have a real shot but 4AD tend not to be concerned with playing the game to get to #1 as much as others do.

I was a little surprised that Woods fell off so fast as I thought they were making a run from 9 to 5 and now back to 9.

Last weeks #1 most added Swans comes in just over 40 at #37 and last weeks runner ups Chromeo come in at #19 and Pains of being pure at heart come in at 44.

I think all of these have a chance at top 10 and perhaps we will see one of them in the top 5. Summer can produce some crazy results.

This weeks #1 most added Comes from The Black Keys who also debut at #26.  When we were looking at the last few #1 records and I mentioned above it has typically taken about 3 weeks to make the move but each of the last 3 #1 records have started in the 60s. Should be interesting to see what kind of move the Keys make this next week.

What do you guys think? Who will be next weeks #1? Thee Oh Sees?  Lykke Li? Damon Albarn? Tune-Yards? The Black Keys?

Lets talk about it all on twitter!

Oh and go out and enjoy summer! Memoral day is not a day you should be locked in the office. No mail = no work!

Talk to you soon.

Douglas

CMJ ISSUE 1344 WEEK 19

POOF! It is not officially summer in college radio land. I had been talking about a decline coming and over the past few weeks we have been losing a lot of stations to summer.
Over the past month we have gone from 310 stations to 289 to 267 to this weeks 238. Is this rock bottom? I don't think so. That usually comes on Memorial Day so expect another 2 weeks of drops before leveling off.

This week Mac Demarco is finally dethroned but not by Thee Oh Sees but rather Wye Oak!  They put on a nice charge and there were very few times I doubted it would not be #1 this week. I was surpassed by Thee Oh Sees not jumping at all and instead staying at #4, it did however 7% more stations than last week so it is gaining. This time of year with the number of stations dropping so fast I try and look more at the % of stations a record has rather than raw numbers.   This week Wye Oak had 60% of the stations to Thee Oh Sees 52%.   With Thee Oh Sees coming short I started thinking maybe I am expecting too much too soon.  This is after all only the 3rd week out there and even Arcade fire took 2 weeks to get to #1.   The last record to actually go #1 the week after the add week was the Black Keys (but they went for ADDS the last week of the year and debuted the first week of the next year) and that does not count you have to go back 2 full years to the Decembrists to find a record go #1 the week after ADDS.  Most records it looks like take around 3-4 weeks after adds to get to #1. Something to think about for future weeks.

The graph above is based on those percentages so you can kind of see the arc of a #1 record. I included War on Drugs and Cloud Nothing because, as you see it looks like they would of been #1 had they not been blocked by Mac Demarco.  And Broken Bells I included so you can see what a #2 record that had no real chance at #1 looks like.  

What I hope to do is to go further into these #s and see if we can't use them to predict if a record is going to go #1.   Also look at how well Real Estate did. Just crazy.  

This weeks #1 ADD was SWANS and If I had more time I would really want to look at how that band has grown at college radio.  Because unlike Mac Demarco, they have been around for a while with this being their 12th album.  Looking over my data that started in 2005 they had never had a #1 most added record. Yet all of a sudden everyone is excited about them.  I know circles of people that have preached how good Swans are for years but no one in radio really cared.  That might be something to look into soon.  

I need to start getting ready for the fantastic 14th Noncomm in Philly. See some of you there I hope!? 

Next week I should have a normal Blog and the week after I will be in Las Vegas for Punk ROCK BOWLING!!!   

You know where to find me. On the Twitters 

Go Bruins! 

CMJ ISSUE 1343 Week 18.

What a bummer of a week.  Not the charts really those are fine. A lot of you are leaving for the summer as we lost another 20 stations this week.   Mac Demarco holds at #1 and will most likely be knocked off by Thee Oh Sees next week ( #4 this week).  Lykke Li comes in at #1 most added and its really hard to tell if she is a challenger as the last one did go #1. But are people as excited?

The real bummer of the week is that one of the cornerstones in college radio, one of the few huge CORE stations that is actually run all by students is switching to a daytime news format.

http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2014/05/06/wras-album-88-switching-to-daytime-news-format.html

It is a real blow to college radio.

Let's talk about it on Twitter.