Sure I would hope they would come to me, or one of the many other music promoters but often times those stations that are in need of our help do not know we are here to help them. In the cases we do get in touch with these new people not all of them follow our suggestions because really at this point that is all they are. Suggestions.
As far as I can tell there are no written rules when it comes to reporting to CMJ. Sure I know what you can and cannot do because I have been here for a hot minute, but how would a new MD or new station know. You can search and there is the guide written by Laura from Distiller and of course I have written many things here to try and help people but nothing from CMJ itself.
Let's just talk about ADDS for a second, once again.
I could go through and tell you all the adds that don't make sense. But lets just stick to the records I work.
Front Bottoms, New order (5) , Silversun Pickups (2), Maritime, Editors, Moving Panoramas (2), World is a Beautiful Place and I am no longer afraid to die (2), Son Little (3), Motion City Soundtrack, Arcs
All got adds this week. That might not seem like a lot but when you are actively pushing an artist that misses the ADDS chart by 7 adds then 19 wrongly added records means a lot.
This happens every week but this week the absurdity of allowing stations to ADD records that are not going for adds really got to me as one station ADDED a record that went for adds on October 5th. So that alone is not too bad as you can see from the above someone added Arcs this week and that went for adds on SEPTEMBER 7th!!! But what really got to me about this station was the fact that they had already been charting this record for a week before adding it this week.
So this station obviously has no idea what they are doing. It is not their fault. There should be either a system that prevents such mistakes on CMJ or at the very least a simple "Welcome to College Radio reporting" page on the CMJ site. If it were me I would just make ADDS that are not going for ADDS unreportable. There problem solved. I would rather have stations not doing adds or adding only 4 records than wasting spaces for records they already have in rotation.
I am frustrated with having to have this conversation weekly, given that there is an easy fix. I am starting to feel like the old man telling kids to get off their lawn and maybe I am, or maybe we just have this "problem" because there is no clarification from CMJ. At this moment everything I say and will ever say about ADD are suggestions. Suggestions that I think 90% of other promoters would back.
So why does this even matter? Well adding a record a week late is not the end of the world for sure. It usually just impacts the ADD week but what about the station that ADDEd ARCS this week. Not only does this not help Arcs. It ends up having an impact on so many other records. This station happens to be a big station so them just adding it now means that the Arcs will have a bit of extra time on the chart maybe robbing other records of time on the charts.
So in leu of there being an official page on the CMJ site let me try and help those of you that may not know. When doing adds check your promoters/ labels emails to see what is "going for adds" If you don't see it, don't add it. There is also a page on the CMJ site that says "going for adds" most promoters update this with CMJ so check there. And that is it. Your ADD order does not matter, if you add just one or if you add five does not matter. Just add the right records. This has nothing to do with the type of records you add. Just add them on the right week.
This has nothing to do with the charts. We can tackle that another time.
Now on to this weeks charts.
WE HAVE A NEW #1 Churches takes the #1 spot, pretty much walking up there and taking it. Surely just a placeholder until the next Beach House but lets enjoy this time away from our Beach House overlords. The next few weeks ( until the new Beach House whenever that may be ) will be interesting with a slew of records that should be jockeying for the #1 spot with Wavves, Protomartyr, Kurt Vile, New Order and lets keep an eye on Deer Hunter and Neon Indian but I would not be shocked to see Chvrches hold it for a while and I would also not be shocked to see 3 or for different #1's. We could finally see some volatility.
Joanna Newsom ran away with #1 most added with Fuzz right behind. Not sure if either of these will have a shot at #1. In the past Joanna has done well with ADDS but is never really a #1 contender but I hear this record is more accessible so maybe we will see a push.
We have 6 more reporting weeks left in the year! How many #1's will we have?
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