CMJ ISSUE 1371 WEEK 46

I hope everyone out there is getting ready for a great thanksgiving. This week saw VERY low numbers across the board but that did not slow Tv on the Radio from taking over at #1. The Preatures took #1 most added.

I hesitate to really talk too much about the chart this week or even over the next few weeks but I am more than happy to go over things if anyone has any questions.  I would like to tackle my favorite records of the year and also have a debate about Favorite vs Best. I think they are vastly different.

This week though  I want to look back to 7 weeks ago. Issue 1364. Specifically the ADDS.

Showing Radio 200 Adds Chart For Issue #1364

TW	TA	Artist	Recording	Label
1	100	FOXYGEN	And Star Power	Jagjaguwar
2	74	MINUS THE BEAR	Lost Loves	Dangerbird
3	69	S	Cool Choices	Hardly Art
4	68	BASS DRUM OF DEATH	Rip This	Innovative Leisure
5	64	EX HEX	Rips	Merge
6	55	HISTORY OF APPLE PIE	Feel Something	Marshall Teller
7	53	BUDOS BAND	Burnt Offering	Daptone
8	44	VASELINES	V For Vaselines	Rosary
9	42	RURAL ALBERTA ADVANTAGE	Mended With Gold	Saddle Creek
10	41	BARR BROTHERS	Sleeping Operator	Secret City
11	38	EMPIRES	Orphan	Chop Shop
12	32	CHRISTOPHER OWENS	A New Testament	Turnstile
13	28	GERARD WAY	Hesitant Alien	Warner Brothers
14	26	DINOSAUR FEATHERS	Control	Ernest Jenning
15	24	HOMESHAKE	In The Shower	Sinderlyn
16	23	VAN ALLEN BELT	Heaven On A Branch	Nonstop Everything
17	23	GREY GORDON	Forget I Brought It Up	No Sleep
18	22	LAETITIA SADIER	Something Shines	Drag City
19	20	SOFT SWELLS	Floodlights	Modern Outsider
20	18	AUSMUTEANTS	Order Of Operation	Goner

These were the 20 records that were able to get on the adds list. I asked my stations to tell me every company that contacts them what all went for adds that week. Then I kept track of what happened. I thought It would be fun to look at . Lets see if It is. 

Overall according to my stations there were 44 adds being pushed at radio from 11 different companies.  The most that week was 8 adds and a few companies had only one add. 

I thought that those companies with less adds would do better over the course of each project. This was not entirely the case. The company with 8 adds got 3 of their adds on the adds list and over the course of the projects they charted 4 of them.  

There were 3 companies that had 5 adds each. Each had very different results. Two of those companies had all 5 of their adds chart, although neither had all of the adds on the Adds list while the third was only able to get one ADD on the list and only charted 2 throughout the past weeks. 

Lets take a look at that list again and see how they did in regards to charting. 

Showing Radio 200 Adds Chart For Issue #1364

TW	TA	Artist	Recording	Label
1	100	FOXYGEN	Peak at #3
2	74	MINUS THE BEAR	Peak at #21
3	69	S	Peak at #26
4	68	BASS DRUM OF DEATH	Peak at #21
5	64	EX HEX	Peak at #6
6	55	HISTORY OF APPLE PIE	Peak at #44
7	53	BUDOS BAND	Peak at #12
8	44	VASELINES	Peak at #50
9	42	RURAL ALBERTA ADVANTAGE	Peak at #54
10	41	BARR BROTHERS	Peak at #43
11	38	EMPIRES	Peak at #69
12	32	CHRISTOPHER OWENS	Peak at #67
13	28	GERARD WAY	Peak at #57
14	26	DINOSAUR FEATHERS	Peak at #82
15	24	HOMESHAKE	Peak at #42
16	23	VAN ALLEN BELT	Peak at #140
17	23	GREY GORDON	Peak at #182
18	22	LAETITIA SADIER	Peak at #98
19	20	SOFT SWELLS	Peak at #182
20	18	AUSMUTEANTS	Peak at #76

I think its pretty cool that all of the records that made the adds list charted on the chart. However I should note there are several records that did not make the ADDS list that went on to chart Higher than those listed above, I counted 10 in total.  The highest of those was a band called The Gromble and they peaked at #119.

The biggest overachievers, as far as chart position goes, were Ex Hex that outperformed all but the #1 spot ahead of them. And Budos Band that were only beaten by Ex Hex and Foxygen.  

So in general it does look like getting on the ADDS list is a very good indicator of future chart success. It also looks like overall your position on the chart does show how a record will do although not as much as I might of thought.  It is also hard to draw any conclusion from just one chart. 

CMJ RECAP ISSUE 1370 WEEK 45

A funny thing happened as we started to wind down the final four reporting weeks of the year we finished above 300 stations! I feel like we should throw a party any time this happens as it is becoming more and more rare.  I anticipate that the number of stations will fluctuate a lot with Thanksgiving and then the final 2 weeks of the year.

We do have a bit of a race for #1 in the upcoming weeks that should make the end of the year a bit of fun. Caribou takes #1 again, and this week have separated themselves from King Tuff who is firmly holding at #2.  However next week we could see 3 records vie for #1.

Deerhoof made a nice move from their #9 debut to #3. The one to watch though is TV on the Radio coming in at #4 after the add week. I have to think that TV on the Radio is as sure of a thing we have seen in a while.  But Caribou did gain stations this week so perhaps that continues to grow.

The ADDS this week saw Sub Pop do what they do so well on add as they planted another record on the top with Flake Music taking #1 most added. The biggest surprise / mystery of the week though has to be TV on the Radio getting an additional 42 adds and coming in at #7 most added.

It does amaze me how many stations decided to ADD the record when it clearly went for adds the week previous. It is almost like the one sheet that came with it went in the trash and the accompanying emails also were quickly discarded.  It might not seem like a big deal but imagine if those 42 adds were redistributed and a up and coming unsigned artist were able to crack the adds chart because of say one extra add.

I get the sense more and more that some stations do not realize how the promoter music director dynamic works.  So I thought I would try and shed some light on it.  Promoters are hired by either the record label or band to send the record to radio. The idea is that we will then, in exchange for the free music, get feedback and perhaps airplay on that said artist. It is a pretty simple dynamic that has been working for longer than I have been doing this job. So it surprises me when I don't hear from a station for say 3-4 months and they are shocked that they no longer receive records. Without the implied opportunity to get some feedback there is no point in sending records. With the number of physical copies that are sent out ever decreasing( for most projects I am told) it should be no surprise when the physical copies stop.

We had a nice discussion about this dynamic on twitter yesterday so please follow @theanimalarrg and check out the discussion.

The last thing I wanted to check out this week were the increased number of INVALID charts.

Invalid

CFRE	KRFC	KTUH	SCAD-Atlanta Radio	WCHC	WDCE	WESU
WFCS	WHSN	WKCO	WMUC	WNJR	WNSU	WOUB -AM
WPPJ	WSWI	WVUA

A chart can be Invalid for many reasons. The most common reasons for being invalid  are charting the same record more than once and or not reporting 30 records. 

Here is what one of those looks like. 

26FRONT BOTTOMSRoseBar None

27JPNSGRLSCirculationLight Organ

28TWIN PEAKSWild OnionGrand Jury

29- *- *- *waiting for CMJ verification

 30- *- *- *waiting for CMJ verification 

As you can see for whatever reason they decided to not report any records for 29 and 30 thus rendering the rest of the chart worthless, in regards to counting towards the top 200. One of the things that came up in the twitter conversation yesterday is why shouldn't a station be allowed to report just 28 or even 10 if they want.  My opinion can be found in that conversation but I am interested to hear what more people have to say about that.  

That is all we have for this week! 3 more reporting weeks left! Happy Early thanksgiving! 

CMJ ISSUE 1369 WEEK 44 RECAP

Oh hey there new #1 record!  Caribou finally made the move I thought they would of made weeks ago and took over #1. It was pretty close though as King Tuff still has more stations than Caribou, its just a matter of one moving up and the other moving down. I thought the big story though this week was the move of Deerhoof up to #9 in its first week on the charts.  That was until I looked at the numbers and Deerhoof is at best weeks away from competing for #1. If anything I think this weeks #1 most added Tv on the Radio has a better shot at #1 than Deerhoof does. My guess is that we see Tv on the Radio jump up and perhaps even pass Deerhoof next week. If I had to predict it out through the end of the year I would say Tv on the Radio is our end of the year #1.

Something fun to start thinking about is who is the #1 record of the year? This is based a lot of the time on longevity and when the record was #1.

Lets take a look at who was #1 this year going backwards :

CARIBOU-1
KING TUFF -3
TY SEGALL-5
SPOON--4
ALVVAYS-1
JACK WHITE-3
PARQUET COURTS-2
BLACK KEYS-3
THEE OH SEES-2
WYE OAK--1
MAC DEMARCO--4
REAL ESTATE--2
ST VINCENT--1
BECK--2
DUM DUM GIRLS-4
SHARON JONES--3
BLOOD ORANGE--1
ARCADE FIRE-1

Last year the #1 for the year was Vampire Weekend and I think a lot had to do with how long it was on the charts.

Out of the records listed above
Black Keys are still on there and have been for 25 weeks
Jack White for 23 weeks
Alvvays for 15 weeks
Spoon for 14 weeks

Will the longevity of the record matter more than how long it was at #1? Or even when it was #1? My guess would have to be Mac Demarco because of when it was in the year and how long it was #1. If Ty Segall would of been earlier I would of said that.

So yeah lets talk about it who do you think will be the record of the year.  Also another fun game is what will be the highest ranked #2 record of the year?

Follow me on Twitter @theanimalarrg and lets chat.

CMJ ISSUE 1368 WEEK 43 RECAP

Hello everyone, thank you for stopping by! This time last year Dr. Dog was our #1 record at college radio and we would only have one more number one record the rest of the year as Arcade Fire took over.

I started to look over the archives at college radio and found that the end of the year has typically ended with some record taking over and holding on until the end.
2005--My Morning Jacket, held on to the #1 spot for the last 4 weeks
2008--Of Montreal held the #1 spot for the last 5 weeks
2009--Tegan And Sara had the #1spot for 5 of the last 6 weeks
2010--Sufjan Stevens had the #1 spot 4 of the last 6 weeks
2011--M83 held the #1 spot the last 6 weeks

So not every year but a majority of years one record takes over towards the end of the year.  I would guess it has a lot to do with music directors getting hammered with school work or just that some of the best records are released at the end of the year.  So what will take over for the end of this year? We have already had 2 nice runs from King Tuff and Ty Segall leading up to this point. Could Caribou or Deerhoof take us to the end of the year? Or will it be something else?

While looking back over the years of #1's I noticed this weeks #1 record had 187 stations charting it out of 294 reporting.  The first thing that struck me was that yet again we had a week where we did not reach 300 reporters.  This year we have had only one week where we had over 300 reporters. Last year we had SIXTEEN.  Looking back even further I found that in 2009 Animal collective was #1 with an average of 280 stations charting the record each week. Crazy that there were more stations on a single record in 2009 than there are reporters now.

I believe I have gone over this before but it bears repeating. This year there have been 414 reporters to CMJ. Last year there were 449. So where are they going? I reached out to some stations that no longer report a few weeks ago and not shockingly I have yet to hear back. I have to imagine that CMJ is trying to get ahold of them too.

So what is the big deal? Less reporters means I can concentrate on those that are reporting on a regular basis right? In theory sure.  But let's look at how the landscape of college radio has changed over the years.

In 2005 there were an average of 441 reporters a week, with a high of 554 and a low of 176 ( first week of the year) Overall there were 678 stations that reported that year. There were fewer promotions companies at that time as well. So we had less records being worked and more stations to promote those records to.  This means each record had more opportunities.

Needless to say since 2005 the average has fallen every year.  We can take a quick look at the Average reporter per week

2005--441
2006--395
2007--364
2008--335
2009--303
2010--310
2011--277
2012--274
2013--269
2014--259

So we have on average now 259 reporters a week but now we have roughly double the promotion companies with some working upwards of 8 new records in a single week yet we still only have 30 spots on each chart.  Seems like it might be overwhelming to be a radio station music director.  This is why it is more important than ever to report on a weekly basis.  Every station matters to creating the best chart that can be created.

So on to this weeks recap.  King Tuff holds on to the #1 spot again. I thought this would be the week that Caribou took over but maybe they just don't want it enough. Kidding of course. But I would think they still have a very good shot to take over and could be that record that holds on throughout the end of the year.  Foxygen and Alt-J both took a slight step back. At the end of the year though there is really nothing holding a company from pushing until the very end.  Flying Lotus did jump up into the top 3 but with the same company working both Caribou and Flying Lotus and a second indie on Caribou I have to imagine Caribou being the priority.

The ADDS were pretty close with Deerhoof taking #1 by 3 adds over Panda Bear.  I would not be shocked if both of these records end up in the top 5 in the next few weeks.

Thank you for reading! lets talk about all this soon on the twitter. 

douglas