Islands Walk On Elephant Shells

With the annual Pride celebration hitting Toronto this week, I could be controversial and out the sexual orientation of band members who are on the top 50 chart for the week ending June 20. The biggest stumbling block would be that I don't have a clue whether most of the folks on the chart are gay, bisexual, transgendered, straight or abstainers. The artist at #24, Lesbo Vrouven, may be named in reference to a sexual orientation, the island of Lesbos off Greece's west coast, or maybe neither. All I can tell you are the Canadian acts by putting an asterisk beside their name on the chart.

Islands' Arm's Way remains #1 for a fourth week. But the album received 1,352 points last week, compared to Portishead's Third, which had 750 points at #2. This week, Islands' total drops to 768 points while Tokyo Police Club's Elephant Shell takes over second with 689. Support for Arm's Way has dropped almost in half, but it still hung on to #1.

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's Lie Down In The Light rises an amazing 33 places to #3. It's followed by The Wet Secrets' Rock Fantasy, which trades places with Constantines' Kensington Heights at #4 and #5, respectively. After a couple weeks of dropping, Flight Of The Conchords' self-titled album sees a resurgence of interest and moves back nine places to #6. Fleet Foxes' eponymous release enters the chart at #7 in its first week, pushing No Age's Nouns down a spot to #8. Hey Rosetta!'s Into Your Lungs… remains at #9, while Pete Samples' The Jumper Cables jumps 27 spots to #10.

The aforementioned Fleet Foxes receive the Chart Sizzler Award after beating out a number of strong chart debuts. Ten stations placed the album on their charts, and it hit #5 on CILU (Lakehead) and #7 on both CFRU (Guelph) and on CHUO (Ottawa). The second highest new entry is Lake Of Stew's Ain't Tired Of Lovin' at #17. It's followed by Atmosphere's When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold at #26, Clinton St. John's Black Forest Levitation at #27 and the self-titled release from Women at #28. Orchestra Baobab's Made In Dakar enters at #31, while other notable debuts include Walter Meego's Voyager at #35, Shearwater's Rook at #43 and Bob Wiseman's The Legend at #45.

Some of the specialty charts have been experienced general upheaval — most notably the Electronic top 10, which doesn't usually have a lot of turnover. This week it has four new entries in the top six. Pete Samples enters at #1 and is followed by Health's Disco at #2, Ladytron's Velocifero at #5 and Ronin E-Ville's Big Dirty Hi-Fi at #6. This number of new entries wasn't matched by the other four specialty charts combined. Atmosphere's When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold returns at #1 on the Hip-Hop chart, while The Cool Kids' The Bake Sale arrives at #6 and Metermaids' Nightlife debuts at #10. The Jazz/Blues chart sees Elizabeth Shepherd's Parkdale move up two positions to #1, while Bill Dixon's 17 Musicians In Search Of A Sound: Darfur squeaks in at #10. The other two charts have no new entries, though each has a number of re-entries. Kataklysm's Prevail remains at #1 on the Metal/Punk chart, while Orchestra Baobab's Made In Dakar holds on to top spot on World/Folk.