Animal Collective #1 For Fifth Week

Chad VanGaalen's former #1 album, Soft Airplane, resurfaced on the campus chart last week for the 21st time, making it the first record in more than a year to hit this illustrious mark and the first in the CHARTattack 2.0 era.

I did some digging and noticed how much faster it is with the new chart structure to do a more thorough investigation of the top 50 charts dating back to April 19, 1996. That's the date CHARTattack began publishing online weekly campus radio charts. Twenty-two albums have remained on the chart for 20 or more weeks since then.

The first was Sloan's One Chord To Another, which was on the chart for 22 weeks from June 22 to Dec. 12, 1996. It then resurfaced a month later and charted for four more weeks.

The New Pornographers were believed to hold the record for most time spent on the chart, with Mass Romantic racking up 25 weeks in 2001. But it now needs to take a back seat to One Chord To Another's 26 weeks.

The controversy doesn't end there. I originally thought Bran Van 3000's Glee spent 21 weeks on the chart between May and September 1997. The album was re-released on Capitol (with a few extra tracks added and a few questionable samples and French language removed) months later. The new Glee spent five weeks on the chart between March and May 1998, giving it 26 weeks on the chart.

Of the 22 albums that have charted for more than 20 weeks, only two aren't Canadian: TV On The Radio's Return To Cookie Mountain (which logged 21 weeks); and The (International) Noise Conspiracy's A New Morning, Changing Weather (which charted for 20 weeks). Only one band has more than one album on the list. The New Pornographers' Electric Version charted for 23 weeks in the middle of 2003.

There aren't any albums about to crack that barrier this week, but Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion sits at #1 for a fifth straight week. A.C. Newman's Get Guilty stays at #2 for a third week. It's quite tight at the top between these two titles with a point differential of less than 100.

Malajube's Labyrinthes sneaks up a place to #3. The Hylozoists' L'Ile De Sept Villes moves up two spots to #4. Faunts' Feel.Love.Thinking.Of. vaults 22 places to #5 in its sophomore week while Antony And The Johnsons' The Crying Light moves up one place to #6.

The self-titled release from Rebekah Higgs' electronic pseudonym, Ruby Jean And The Thoughful Bees, drops two places to #7. The Bicycles' Oh No, It's Love falls five places to #8 in it 12th week. Jenn Grant's Echoes rises a spot to #9 and Beirut/Realpeople’s March Of The Zapotec/Holland EP jumps six positions to #10.

M. Ward's Hold Time has this week's highest debut. The Chart Sizzler Award winner enters at #18 and is followed immediately by another debut at #19, DD/MM/YYYY's Black Square. The Bird And The Bee's Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future arrives at #25, while Mr. Scruff's Ninja Tuna lands at #29. The highly controversial Lily Allen's disappointing It's Not Me, It's You enters at #34, and Andrew Vincent's Rotten Pear arrives at #37.

There have been significant changes on the five specialty charts this week, due in part to the release of some fantastic new albums and the inclusion of more stations' charts.

Joshua Redman's Compass heads up the Jazz/Blues chart, while Electroluminescent's Measures takes over the #1 position on the Electronic top 10. Dragon Fli Empire's Redefine jumps three places to capture the top spot on the Hip-Hop chart and Obscura's Cosmogenesis leaps six positions to #1 on the Metal/Punk chart.

Novalima's Coba Coba remains at #1 on the World/Folk top 10. The usually dynamic chart also features three other albums that have remained there for more than 10 weeks. Amadou & Miriam's Welcome To Mali rises a place to #3 in its 12th week, the Buena Vista Social Club At Carnegie Hall live album re-enters at #8 in its 12th week, and Juno Award nominee Eccodek's Shivaboom moves up a spot to #5 in its 11th week.