Everything Goes Right As Vivian Girls Debut At #1

10/06/09 1:02pm

by Chris Burland (CHARTattack)

Dylan got it right: "The times, they are a changin'."

As I mentioned last week, there used to be a lot more continuity amongst individual campus radio charts, with many of the same bands appearing on a variety of top 30 charts in different regions. This week, with 33 stations reporting, the #1 album received the lowest points total since the early days of the weekly campus chart in 1996.

Vivian Girls' Everything Goes Wrong received 636 points to enter the charts at #1 this week. The average total for a #1 album is usually between 800 and 1,200 points. Occasionally the big Canadian indie blockbusters can get over 1,500 points in a week.

Still, let's not belittle Vivian Girls' achievement, Everything Goes Wrong is only the fourth album to debut at #1.

Back in June 1999, Tricky Woo's Sometimes I Cry was the first to do this trick. In October 2005, Broken Social Scene's self titled arrived at #1, as did Joel Plaskett Emergency's Ashtray Rock in May 2007. Vivian Girls are the first foreign act to accomplish a debut #1 album on the Canadian campus charts.

In fact, it was a topsy-turvy story for the top five albums this week. For the first time in recent memory, none of the top five albums from last week remained there this week. That wholesale change in the #1 to 5 is an unprecedented event.

Last week's Chart Sizzler, Why?'s Eskimo Snow, jumps nine places. Vic Chesnutt's At The Cut slides up three positions to #3, followed by Arctic Monkeys' Humbug, which rises 11 places to #4, and Lightning Dust's Infinite Light, which elevates two spots to #5.

Kill The Lights' Fog Area moves upward 13 places to #6, while HEALTH's Get Color rises two spots to #8.

That's the first eight albums all moving up the charts, also a rarity.

The first album on the list to experience a downward slide is last week #1, Jay Reatard's Watch Me Fall (and I've been waiting a few weeks to say this... "He sure did!"). Right behind him, Two Hours Traffic's Territory tumbles eight places to #10.

The Chart Sizzler is the #1 album, so let's take a peak at the also-rans among the high debuts. Five other albums in the top 20 are new entries, which reflects the turbulence on this week's campus chart.

The Ettes' Do You Want Power debuts at #12 just beating out Spiral Beach's The Only Really Thing, arriving at #13. You Say Party! We Say Die!'s XXXX enters at #15, while Bloodshot Bill's Git High Tonight arrives at #18 with the eponymous release from York Redoubt debuting at #20.

There are 12 more debuts this week, most notably, Silver Starling's self-titled release at #37, Cuff The Duke's Way Down Here at #43 and Islands' Vapours squeaking on to the chart at #50.

Joel Plaskett's Three rises three places to #34, raising its chart total to 21 weeks. Japandroids' Post-Nothing re-enters the campus chart at #31, racking up 16 weeks service on the chart. Sunset Rubdown's Dragonslayer moves up two spots to #29.

Two of the specialty charts saw last week's runner-up take over the top spot this week.

Speeche Debelle's Mercury Prize-winning Speech Therapy switches spots with Solillaquists Of Sound's No More Heroes on the Hip-Hop top 10. On the Jazz/Blues chart, Tayler Ho Bynum & SpiderMonkey Strings' Madeleine Dreams also rises a position and last week's #1, Jerry Granelli V16's Vancouver '08, tumbles down to #10.

Tinariwen's Imidiwan: Companions holds on to #1 on the World/Folk chart. Black Mold's Snow Blindness Is Crystal Antz remains at #1 on the Electronic top 10 for a seventh week, while Augury's Fragmentary Evidence continues to hold the #1 position on the Metal/Punk chart for a sixth week.