Sunset Rubdown Chart Champs Again For Third Week

07/21/09 1:53pm

by Chris Burland (CHARTattack)

This column has mentioned the cyclical nature of the the campus charts many times.

Every year during particular periods, the charts follow predictable general trends. Autumn is a period of the most chart contributers, followed by early spring. Christmas and the middle of the summer are the slowest time for chart contribution. Some stations start compiling biweekly charts. This means that the turnover on the chart is less pronounced.

That's been true of the past three weeks, where the top three albums have remained the same with one position change. The top four albums have also received similar total points, making it one of the closest races in the history of CHARTattack's weekly charts. (The numbers in the parentheses are the raw numbers from this week).

Sunset Rubdown's Dragonslayer (1117) holds onto the #1 spot for a third week, followed by Sonic Youth's The Eternal (1064) at #2, which flips places with Dinosaur Jr.'s Farm (1040). Wilco's Wilco (The Album) (938) rises five spots to take over the #4 position, dropping Dirty Projectors' Bitte Orca (880) down a place to #5.

The biggest jump this week was made by Reverie Sound Revue. Their self-tited release leaps 19 positions to stick at #6. Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest drops a position to #7, and Eels' Hombre Lobo rises eight positions to #8. Tortoise's Beacons Of Ancestorship falls two places to #9, and the Vancouver's Punk As Fuck Volume 2 compilation holds steady at #10.

The relative stasis of this chart is also indicated by the the lower number of new entries. There are only seven debuts this week, led by Ohbijou's Beacons arriving at #23.

Belle And Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch has started a musical project that will culminate with a motion picture due to be filmed in 2010. The group/collective is called God Help The Girl. The self-titled debut by the band debuts at #26 this week. The Danks' Are You Afraid Of The Danks enters the chart at #40.

Eight albums re-entered the chart after at least a week's absence. The highest re-entry was the eponymous release by Years at #29. The returns of a couple veteran albums are also notable.

Julie Doiron's I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day returns at #39, registering 19 weeks on the chart. Great Lake Swimmers' Lost Channels reappears at #37 in its 17th week on the top 50 chart, and Neko Case's Middle Cyclone re-enters at #48, logging 15 weeks.

Joel Plaskett's Three is the only other album in this neighbourhood of time served. It holds on to the #22 position in its 16th week on the chart. In total, there are 10 albums with at least 10 weeks service on this week's chart.

There's been little change at the top of the four of the five specialty top 10 charts. Tiga's Ciao! remains #1 on the Electronic chart for a fourth week. Grand Analog's Metropolis Is Burning continues at #1 on the Hip Hop top 10 and Coalesce's Ox holds #1 on the Metal/Punk chart, each for the past three weeks. Oumou Sangare's Seya returns at #1 on the World/Folk chart for a second week.

The only new #1 is Steve Lehman Octet's Travail, Transform And Flow which rise three places to grab the #1 spot on the Jazz/Blues top 10.