Charty Chart Chat: Spoon Are Back On Top For A Third Time

Last week's column noted that August tends to be a topsy-turvy month for #1 albums. That continues this week as Spoon's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga returns to the top spot for a third time after jumping three places. Last week, Metric's Grow Up & Blow Away sat at #2. This week it drops to #7 and is replaced by the latest effort by that group's lead singer, as Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton's What Is Free To A Good Home? rises 11 places. Tegan And Sara's The Con improves by four spots to #3 and is followed by Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Is Is EP, which jumps 15 places to #4. Russian Futurists' Me, Myself And Rye drops two places to #5, while They Shoot Horses, Don't They?'s Pick Up Sticks remains at #6. Sitting after the aforementioned Metric CD at #8 is Okkervil River's The Stage Names, which rockets up an incredible 29 places. Immaculate Machine's Fables drops four spots to #9.

The Chart Sizzler Award goes to the #10 CD, The Doers' Gaiety, which received almost all of its airplay support from stations in Alberta and B.C. Gaiety topped the charts at CJSR (Alberta) and CITR (UBC) and reached #3 at CJSF (Simon Fraser) and CJAM (Windsor). It was #5 on CJSW (Calgary) and #6 on CKXU (Lethbridge). The runner-up new entry is Architecture In Helsinki's Places Like This, which enters at #13. Further down we find United Steel Workers Of Montreal's Kerosene And Coal at #27 and Papa Mambo's Crooked Cha at #28. Other notable debuts include Imperial Teen's The Hair The TV The Baby & The Band at #37, Stars' In Our Bedroom After The War at #41 and Common's Finding Forever at #44.

The specialty charts saw almost wholesale changes at the top, as four out of the five have new #1s. After a few weeks bubbling under the Hip-Hop top 10, Grand Analog's Calligraffiti debuted two weeks ago and jumps two places to grab the top spot this week. The Red Chord's Prey For Eyes had been charting on a couple of metal charts for a few months and only hit the Metal/Punk top 10 last week, before rising to #1 this week. Gaudi + Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's Dub Qawwali vaults to #1 on the World/Folk chart in its second week. Muhledy's Active Sleep debuts at #1 on the Jazz/Blues chart. The only returning #1 is Justice's † on the Electronic top 10.