CMJ ISSUE 1364 WEEK 39 RECAP

Happy October friends! We have 2 short weeks until the CMJ Music Festival, have you checked out the lineup? Who are you excited to see? It amazes me how many Music Directors have no idea what this festival is. I asked a station yesterday if they were going and they said I don't know. ( They were in Utah so I am pretty sure they would know if they were going) It just got me thinking about how many MD's don't know how things work  because no one has taken the time to tell them because of having previously bad Music Directors before them or in some cases no Music Directors before them.  So while I do poke fun and am frustrated with stations that don't know how to do ADDS whenever I can I try and explain what they are and how to do them. 

Lets take a look at some examples of doing ADDS wrong, these all come from stations that did adds for issue 1364. 

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1. KING TUFF Black Moon Spell 2. NEHRUVIANDOOM NehruvianDOOM 3. KENDRICK LAMAR "i" [Single] 4. WAR ON DRUGS Lost In The Dream 5. ICEAGE "How Many" [Single]

So what is wrong with these adds.  Well first off King Tuff was an official ADD last week. By Adding the record this week this station is helping no one.  When it could of been used for someone like Emilyn Broodsky who only missed the adds chart by a handful of ADDS or Bonnie Prince Billy who missed by even less.  This is an example of not paying attention to what is new at radio and that is a lot of what College radio is about. 

Another common mistake is not adding 5 records. 

1. EX HEX Rips

This station decided to only add EX HEX for whatever reason.  I guess you could make the argument that it was the only new record they liked and everything else would of been older stuff.  So what is worse.  

Well my answer would be this... this is worse. 

1. GERARD WAY Hesitant Alien

2. EMPIRES Orphan

3. TY SEGALL Manipulator

4. KASSIM RITE "Spaceman" [Single] Doing both. Not only did this station add a record that went for adds WEEKS ago but they only added 4 records.  It is my opinion that you are better off not doing ADDS at all if you feel like you do not want to participate in the way they have been done for years.  Most companies send out emails and have websites where you can get this information so adding something on the wrong date is very avoidable. Let's talk about this week now!  If we were waiting for Ty Segals armor to weaken then we will be waiting a bit longer.  There was an uptick in reporters this week and that only meant more stations playing Ty Segal.  The percentage of stations playing him even went up.   Death From Above 1979 made a nice move up to #2 but I believe thats as far as they go.  King Tuff, last weeks #1 add comes in at #5 and Alt J moves up to #7 from #66.  If i were a betting man my money would be on King Tuff to take over the week before CMJ.  One thing thats fun about the charts this time of year is all the stations that were off for the summer come back and want to play all the stuff from the summer, but that quickly turns to being replaced by new stuff so we should see a lot of turnover on the chart in the next few weeks.   This weeks #1 ADD was Foxygen and was the only record that had 100 adds this week. It will be interesting to see how this record does. The last one went to #2 so the expectation has to be a #1 record.  It is going to be tough as Foxygen does not have a secondary indie working the record to radio while King Tuff, Alt J, Ty Segal and the upcoming Caribou all have promotion companies behind them. If you look at every #1 from last year only one came from a band that did not have the extra push of a promotions company behind it. So it can be done with an in-house push, we shall see. So lets continue the conversation on Twitter.    And if you are new at being a MD and have questions just ask. Most of us are here to help!