Charty Chart Chat: Death Becomes Them

"Everything is great when you're dead. The family surrounds you. There are flowers on your head,"sings Motorpsycho drummer Hakon Gebhardt on "When You're Dead" on the band's 2001 album Phanerothyme. What at first seems a morbid song about death really is an uplifting view of a man not fearing death, but embracing its inevitability. This view of death may not sit well with the majority of humans who fear their mortality. Many songs about death speak of its finality; some more religious material focuses on the afterlife, giving the listener hope of avoiding that ultimate end. Rather than dreading death, Gebhardt imagines the great party that will take place, a gathering of family and friends to celebrate the life of the deceased, a much healthier view of death.

There are countless songs about death in the pop music canon, such as John Lennon's "My Mummy's Dead," George Harrison's "The Art Of Dying," Nirvana's "I Hate Myself And I Want to Die" and Alice in Chains' "Them Bones." Then there are the many songs that recount the deaths of others, like the traditional folk ballads "Tom Dooley" and "Knoxville Girl," and popular top 40 hits including Jan & Dean's "Dead Man's Curve," Ray Peterson's "Tell Laura I Love Her" and The Adverts' "Gary Gilmore's Eyes." Several artists have written whole albums with a death theme, including Nick Cave's Murder Ballads and the two volumes of The Pine Valley Cosmonauts' Executioner's Songs.

Throughout the top 50 Chart for the week ending September 19, there are no obvious album titles about death. In fact, there is a number of uplifting titles such as, Shine A Light, Love Energy, Happy Songs For Happy People and Operation Infinite Joy.

Off the top, there is a new #1 for the week as The Weakerthan's Reconstruction Site squeezed up past The Constantine's Shine A Light, which drops to #2. Remaining steady are Ween's Quebec at #3, Metric's Old World Underground, Where Are You at #4 and The High Dials' A New Devotion at #5. Frank Black And The Catholics' Show Me Your Tears jumps up one place to #6, while newbies Guided By Voices catapult into the Top 10 as their latest album, Earthquake Glue, rises to #7. The Dandy Warhols' Welcome To The Monkey House drops to #8, Broadcast's Haha Sound also drops to #9 and Hot Little Rocket's Our Work And Why We Do It moves into the #10 position.

The top new entry for the week belongs to Jim Bryson. His new album, The North Side Benches debuts at #28, beating out the Hamilton electronic compilation, Futur*Sonic Volume 1 at #29. The Parkas' Now This Is Fighting arrives at #31, Rufus Wainwright's Want One is at #36 and Martin Tielli's aforementioned happy album, Operation Infinite Joy at #38 also make solid debuts this week.

Finally, The New Pornographers' sophomore release, Electric Version has spent 20 weeks on the top 50 chart. They are four weeks short of their record-breaking debut release of 2001, Mass Romantic. After a look back at all of the charts for the past eight-plus years, the Vancouver super-group (that includes Neko Case and former Zumpano lead-man Carl Newman) are the first band to have two albums break the 20 week barrier. For you baseball enthusiasts, The New Pornographers are the Albert Pujols of the Canadian campus charts. Pujols is the first player in the history of major league baseball accumulate over 30 home runs, 100 RBIs and hit over 300 in each of first three full years of playing in the big leagues. Check back in a month to see where Electric Version will sit as the all-time length leader on the top 50 chart.