Charty Chart Chat: It's Catch-Up Time

Have you been jonesing for top 50 charts and weekly Charty Chart Chat analysis? Well, after the chart department's annual two-week holiday (this time to Cape Cod, where the weather was great except for the occasional thunder shower), the ever-vigilant and sometimes intrepid chart staff are going back with their time machine to recapture the recent past by compiling top 50 and specialty charts for all four weeks in September.

Today we focus on the charts for the week ending Sept. 7. On Friday there will be an additional Charty Chart Chat for the week of Sept. 14. Another two charts will be compiled next week and CCCs will appear on Wednesday and Friday for the weeks of Sept. 21 and 28 respectively.

As for the top 50 chart for Sept. 7, the previous week's #1 album — Caribou's Andorra — stayed there for a second week. Okkervil River's The Stage Names jumped a spot to #2. M.I.A.'s Kala jumped 27 places to #3 and The New Pornographers' Challengers rose 19 places to #4. Spoon's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, in its 10th week in the top 50, rose a spot to #5. The Doers' Gaiety dropped a deuce to #6. Russian Futurists' Me, Myself And Rye held steady at #7 in its seventh week on the chart, while Torngat's You Could Be made an astounding jump of 41 spots to come in at #8. Tegan And Sara's The Con tumbled seven spots to #9.

The #10 album belonged to Montreal-based trio, The Luyas. Their independently released debut is called Faker Death and it took the prestigious Chart Sizzler Award that's given to the top chart debut of the week. The Luyas received airplay support from nine stations across the country: #5 at CKDU (Dalhousie); #15 at CHMA (Mount Allison); #20 at CIBL (Montreal); #2 at CFRC (Queen's); #11 at CHUO (Ottawa); #22 at CHRY (York); #9 at CJAM (Windsor); #3 at CKXU (Lethbridge); #18 at CJSR (Alberta).

There was quite a competition for the Chart Sizzler title, as there were 15 new entries in total. The runner-up debut was Animal Collective's Peacebone EP at #12, followed by Liars' self-titled album at #14, Coathangers' eponymous album at #17 and Kinski's Down Below It's Chaos at #19. Other notable new entries included Hot Springs' Volcano at #22, Talib Kweli's Eardrum at #29 and Pink Martini's Hey Eugene at #41. The last two entries also debuted on their respective specialty charts, as Eardrum entered the Hip-Hop chart at #2 and Hey Eugene took the final spot on the Jazz/Blues top 10.

Speaking of the specialty charts, there was little change at the top of them, and only one had a new #1. Vieux Farka Toure's Remixed: UFOs Over Bamako, which features remixes of material from his debut self-titled release from earlier this year, jumps up four spots to claim the #1 spot on the World/Folk top 10. This isn't too surprising because the original album held the #1 spot on that chart through most of February.

Justice's † remained at #1 on the Electronic chart, while Papa Mambo's Crooked Cha holds #1 on Jazz/Blues and Common's Finding Forever remained atop Hip-Hop.

Finally, 3 Inches Of Blood's Fire Up The Blades held off the competition to take top spot on the Metal/Punk chart. In the 13 weeks that it's been in that top 10, Fire Up The Blades has been #1 for 11 of them, only dropping to #3 and #2 during the charts for Aug. 17 and 24.