Swan Lake Make Their Case At #1

As Canada survives the winter's deep freeze, the country's campus radio programmers continue to wax poetic about the musical eccentricities of the collaboration between Dan Bejar and Spencer Krug in Swan Lake. Their Beast Moans album holds the #1 spot for a second week in a row.

Coming at them strong is Bejar's New Pornographers bandmate Neko Case, whose Live At Austin TX moves up two places to #2. Making a solid debut at #3 is Julie Doiron's Woke Myself Up, which easily grabs the Chart Sizzler Award for the week after becoming one of the highest debuts of the past year. Not since Destroyer's Destroyer's Rubies (what is this, a Dan Bejar love-in?) late last February has a Chart Sizzler debuted at #3. Doiron garnered some major support from many campus stations — including #1 rankings on CIUT (Toronto), CJSR (Alberta) and CHMA (Mount Allison), and #3 spots on CFCR (Saskatoon), CHUO (Ottawa) and CILU (Lakehead).

The rest of the top 10 includes Sonic Youth's The Destroyed Room: B-Sides And Rarites moving up a spot to #4 and Winks' Birthday Party moving up four places to #5. Tom Waits' former chart-topper, Orphans, drops four positions to #6. The Postmarks' self-titled release races up 15 positions to #7 while Blow's Paper Television slips down a spot to #8. Shotgun And Jaybird's Trying To Get Somewhere drops six spots to #9. Moving up strong into the #10 spot is Matt Mays' When The Angels Make Contact, which climbs 19 spots.

Outside of the amazing performance of the former Eric's Trip bassist, Doiron, there were quite a few other notable debuts this week. Berg Sans Nipple's Along The Quai entered the chart at #13, Clinic's Visitations arrived at #14, and The Shins' Wincing The Night Away came in at a surprisingly low #17. When this band's long-awaited new album was scheduled with little indie competition, I licked my lips about the possibility of a #1 debut on the top 50. So much for prognostications, I suppose, as I also predicted an all "New" Super Bowl this Sunday, with New England taking on New Orleans.

Of some special note, The Hidden Cameras' Awoo officially joined the prestigious 20-week club this week when it slipped back on to the chart at #50. TV On The Radio's Return To Cookie Mountain makes it 19 weeks on the chart by sitting at #44 for a second straight week. Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton's Knives Don't Have Your Back moves back up six spots to #25 in its 18th week, while The Dears' Gang Of Losers re-enters at #28 to also put in 18 weeks of service.

As has been the case over much of this past month, there has been an almost constant overhaul of the top positions on each of the five specialty charts. This week all five have new #1s. The tribute album to electronic music godfathers Kraftwerk, 8-Bit Operators, debuts on the Electronic chart at #1. The Clipse's Hell Hath No Fury moves up three spots to grab #1 on the Hip-Hop chart. Zapato Negro's self-titled live album jumps one place to top the Jazz/Blues chart. Forro In The Dark's Bonfires Of Sao Joao races up five places to grab #1 on the World/Folk top 10. Finally, Martyr's Feeding The Abscess ascends a pair of positions to be crowned the king of the Metal/Punk chart.