Ohbijou Regain #1 On The Chart In A Typically Stormy August

08/18/09 2:23pm

by Chris Burland (CHARTattack)

For the majority of the year, there's a relative amount of stability in the #1 position on the campus charts. The one exception seems to be the month of August, where there've been some epic chart battles in the past.

In 2001, Radiohead's Amnesiac battled with Built To Spill's Ancient Melodies Of The Future, Eric Trip's The Eric's Trip Show and Stereolab's Sound-Dust.

In 2003, Radiohead's Hail To The Thief dueled with Mogwai's Happy Songs For Happy People, Ox's Dust Bowl Revival and Constantines' Shine A Light.

August four years later was an anomaly as the self-titled Wolf Parade EP remained at #1 throughout the month.

But again in 2007, Spoon's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Interpol's Our Love To Admire and Caribou's Andorra all sat at #1 in August.

In the even years, things were less chaotic. The Weakerthans' Left And Leaving was #1 in August 2000. Two years later, Sonic Youth's Murray Street and The Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots split time at #1 evenly. Wilco's A Ghost Is Born ruled the #1 spot for August 2004.

The August two years later was an even-numbered anomaly with four different albums sitting at #1 (MSTRKRFT's The Looks, The Bicycles' The Good The Bad And The Cuddly, Thom Yorke's The Eraser and Sonic Youth's Rather Ripped).

Last year, August was dominated by Wolf Parade again as At Mount Zoomer remained on top of the charts for four of the month's five weeks.

This week on the chart, Ohbijou's Beacons recaptures the #1 spot it lost to The Rural Alberta Advantage's Hometowns last week. Hometowns falls to #2 this week.

Black Mold's Snow Blindness Is Crystal Antz moves up three places to #3 and could move to #1 next week. The Dead Weather's Horehound jumps 11 places to land at #4, while Wilco's Wilco (The Album) falls three spots to #5.

Sunset Rubdown's Dragonslayer drops a deuce to #6, followed by the impressive rise of Dan Mangan's Nice, Nice Very Nice to #7. Mangan's Kurt Vonnegut-inspired new album rose 42 places from last week.

The Famines' Free Love Is A Sales Technique seven-inch rises four places to #8, followed by Zeus' Sounds Like Zeus EP at #9. Extra Happy Ghost's How The Beach Boys Sound To Those With No Feelings rises 13 positions to sit at #10 this week.

The Chart Sizzler competition was a tightly fought five way race this week as the six positions from #24 to #29 were filled with new entries. Leading the pack is Bill Frisell's Disfarmer at #24 followed by Lightning Dust's Infinite Light at #25. Wye Oak's The Knot debuts at #27, Kasabian's The West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum at #28 and Chris Velan's Solidago at #29.

There were changes at #1 across the board on the five specialty charts this week. Huun Huur Tu and Carmen Rizzo's Eternal on the World/Folk chart, Blackguard's Profugus Mortis on the Metal/Punk listing and Black Mold's Snow Blindness Is Crystal Antz on the Electronic top 10 all moved from #2 to #1.

Mos Def's The Ecstatic regains #1 on the Hip Hop chart, a position the album held two weeks ago. This is the third week The Ecstatic has sat at #1.

Finally, the new #1 on the Jazz/Blues chart is an album re-entering the top 10. Two weeks ago Etienne Charles' Folklore debuted at #3 and fell off the charts last week before reappearing this week at #1.