The Bicycles Outdistance Thom Yorke During Dog Days

August is known in Major League Baseball as the dog days due in part to the length of its 162-game season and the fact that the weather starts to take its toll on teams, especially in hot weather spots like Texas, St. Louis and Atlanta. In a certain way, there are similar dog days for campus radio programmers. Through 13 years of hosting radio shows at several different stations, I always remember wanting to skip out on my programming responsibilities on many a hot August night.

So looking at the #1 albums for August over the past six years, we find two specific trends. Whenever there were five weeks of reporting in the month, there was more than one band dominating the #1 spot. But when there were only four weeks of charts, one band remained at #1 throughout the first three weeks of the month. Last year, Wolf Parade's debut EP almost ran the gamut by remaining at #1 until it was replaced by Sufjan Stevens' Illinois for the last week of August. In 2004, Wilco's A Ghost Is Born sat at #1 until The Sadies' Favourite Colours took its place. The Weakerthans' Left And Leaving dominated the first three weeks of August 2000, only to be topped by Kinnie Starr's Tune-Up in the final week. Four different bands battled it out at #1 over the five weeks of August 2003: Mogwai, Radiohead, Ox and Constantines. Sonic Youth and The Flaming Lips flipped back and forth at #1 in August 2002, while Built To Spill, Eric's Trip and Stereolab each sat at #1 in August 2001.

So, with these trends in place, and with August 2006 being a four-week month, it would seem that Thom Yorke's The Eraser should remain at #1. But that didn't happen. Bucking the trend is The Bicycles' The Good, The Bad And The Cuddly, which moves up one place to top the chart this week. The Toronto band are on a label called Fuzzy Logic Recordings along with one other group, The Midways, so this is a truly independent record — the first to top the chart since Ox's Dust Bowl Revival did the trick in August 2003. MSTRKRFT's The Looks jumps up one spot to #2. Shout Out Out Out Out's Not Saying/Just Saying moves up two places to #3 while Sonic Youth's Rather Ripped remains at #4. Oneida's Happy New Year ascends a place to #5, while Yorke's The Eraser tumbles to #6. CSS' Cansei De Ser Sexy jumps five spots to #7, dropping Peaches' Impeach My Bush to #8. Sufjan Stevens' The Avalanche moves up seven places to #9 and Junior Boys' In The Morning EP makes a double-digit upsurge of 13 places to grab #10.

The Chart Sizzler Award goes to The Dunes' Socializing W/ Life, which debuts on the top 50 chart at #22. The runner-up new entry is Silversun Pickups' Carnavas at #31. French Kicks' Two Thousand hits the chart at #33 and Erase Errata's Nightlife arrives at #35.

There were two new #1s on the specialty charts. Unsurprisingly, Jurassic 5's Feedback jumps three spots to grab the #1 spot on the Hip-Hop chart. Cheb I Sabbah's La Ghriba: La Kahena Remixes returns to #1 on the World/Folk top 10 after a couple of weeks' absence. The Ready Or Not 2 compilation holds steady at #1 on the Jazz/Blues chart, MSTRKRFT's The Looks digs in at #1 again on the Electronic top 10, and Strapping Young Lad's The New Black remains atop the Metal/Punk chart.