VanGaalen Hits Seven Weeks At #1

10/28/08 11:49am

by Chris Burland (CHARTattack)

There's a disturbing trend that has begun to spread through a number of Canadian campus radio charts that may signal the end of campus radio as we know it. Now all of this is pure speculation based on personal observation without any statistics to properly back it up, so take it as you will.

First of all, the number of charts being compiled and submitted for the top 50 national chart has slowly decreased since the beginning of this new school year. There's usually a cyclical rise and fall of charts, with an increase when university is in full session and a subsequent drop during the summer months.

This year, the frequency of submissions from some stations has dropped from once a week to sometimes only once a month. On top of that, the content of the charts is becoming less focused on new releases, with older albums appearing on a number of charts.

Some stations — namely CFUR (Northern British Columbia), CAPR (Cape Breton) and CHMA (Mt. Allison) — may not be receiving many new releases and are charting older albums like Woodhands' Heart Attack, The Weakerthans' Reunion Tour and Sunparlour Players' Hymns Of The Happy on their respective individual charts. CKDU (Dalhousie) even charted a two-year-old record, Oxford Collapse's Remember The Night Parties, even though the band released Bits a couple of months ago. These examples may be isolated cases, but record companies losing financial ground may be dropping smaller stations from their mailing lists to save money.

As has been the case for the past six weeks, Chad VanGaalen's Soft Airplane is #1 on the chart. With seven weeks there, Soft Airplane matches the number of weeks that both Wolf Parade's At Mount Zoomer and Black Mountain's In The Future sat at #1 earlier in 2008. But it still remains behind the record total set by Stars' Set Yourself On Fire, which remained at #1 for 11 weeks between November 2004 and February 2005. The only other album to break double digits at the top is the self-titled 2005 release by Broken Social Scene, which lasted 10 weeks at #1.

A quick look at the notable changes at the top of the chart sees Final Fantasy's Spectrum, 14th Century EP rise eight spots to #6 and The Pack A.D.'s Funeral Mixtape jumping three positions to #7. Also appearing in the top 10 is this week's Chart Sizzler Award winner, Mogwai's The Hawk Is Howling, which enters at #9. Other notable new entries include Fucked Up's The Chemistry Of Common Life at #25, Wire's Object 47 at #30 and Stars' Sad Robot EP at #33.

Moving up 19 places apiece are Marnie Stern's This Is It... at #14 and Bad Flirt's Virgin Talk at #24. Koushik's Out My Window ascended 14 spots to #35 and Lambchop's OH (Ohio) rose 13 positions to #27. Hexes & Ohs' Bedroom Madness at #29 and FemBots' Calling Out at #38 both dropped 18 notches.

There was only one new #1 on the specialty charts, as the Putumayo Presents: Acoustic Arabia compilation moved up two places to grab the coveted spot on the World/Folk top 10. Dandi Wind's Yolk Of The Golden Egg remains #1 on Electronic, while Josh Martinez's The World Famous Sex Buffet holds down the #1 spot on Hip-Hop. Rudresh Mahanthappa's Kinsmen continues to sit at #1 on Jazz/Blues, while Bison BC's Quiet Earth keeps the Metal/Punk chart's top position firmly in its grasp.