Tegan And Sara's Sainthood Repeats At #1

There are times when this column really stretches to find a new record being set or broken. Here's a whopper:

Tegan And Sara became the first set of twins to sit at the top of the campus chart last week. Of course, we would be hard-pressed to name another set of identical twins who have ever charted in the past 15 years.

Sainthood is the first Tegan And Sara album to sit #1. Two years ago, The Con remained at #2 for two weeks in August 2007. That album disappeared off the chart faster than any of Tegan And Sara's four other charting albums, though, suddenly dropping off the campus chart in October of that year.

The Business Of Art lasted 10 weeks in 2000, peaking at #10. If I Was You racked up 16 weeks on the chart in 2002, hitting #13 one week, and 2004's So Jealous only rose to #16 during its 12-week chart journey.

We'll have to see how Sainthood does through the sparse holiday period and beginning of 2010 to see if they can beat the longevity of If It Was You.

Let's look at the chart for the week of Dec. 6 to 12.

After Sainthood, The XX's self-titled album — which is being served up on a lot of music critics' top ten lists for 2009 — rises three places to grab the runner-up spot on the chart this week.

Tom Waits' Glitter And Doom Live jumps nine places this week to land at #3, while Do Make Say Think's Other Truths rebounds this week, rising two spots to grab the #4 position, followed by The King Khan & BBQ Show's Invisible Girl moving up a deuce to #5.

With all of this upward movement, The Flaming Lips' Embryonic, last week's #2, tumbles four spots to #6, while You Say Party! We Say Die!'s XXXX, another former #1, slides down three positions.

This week's Chart Sizzler Award goes to The Parkas' You Should Have Killed Us When You Had The Chance, which debuts at #8. This is the first top 10 debut since Embryonic arrived at #7 five weeks ago. The Parkas' new disc charted on 10 separate campus charts with three top 10 finishes: it was #2 at CILU (Lakehead), #3 at CJAM (Windsor) and #6 at CKLU (Laurentian).

There are a couple other high-charting new entries. Jello Biafra's The Audacity Of Hope arrives at #14, followed by Them Crooked Vultures' eponymous debut at #15. Lightning Bolt's Earthly Delights hits #23, Role Mach's Orffesques And Fuges arrives at #27 (totally on the strength of two #1s in the Vancouver area: CITR at UBC and CJSF at Simon Fraser) and Spookey Ruben's Mechanical Royalty finally debuts on the campus chart after being initially released almost six months ago.

Content on the specialty charts is a bit stagnant, especially on the Metal/Punk top 10. There's little change from last week on that chart, except for the new entry at #10, Pelican's What We All Come To Need.

Amanda Martinez' Amor is the only debut on the World/Folk chart, coming in at #8. The same holds for the Electronic top 10, where the only new blood is Digits' Hold It Close, which arrives at #9 and the Hip Hop chart where Philly Moves' Basics To Back It enters at #8.

The Jazz/Blues top 10 is the only chart with some decent turn-over. There are four new entries, led by Jason Adasiewicz's Rolldown's Varmint at #5.