The Chart Time Tunnel: Stompin' Tom Connors

Ten years this week — when some thought it may be the last Christmas we would have with computers and electricity — Danko Jones' My Love Is Bold was once again the most popular album on the campus charts.

The disc rose a place to push Stereolab's Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night out of the #1 spot for the week of Dec. 9 to 16, 1999. The album had held the top spot on the campus chart for seven of the previous eight weeks. But all things must come to an end, as the album fell to #9 that week.

Beck's Midnite Vultures rose 10 spots to take over the #2 position behind Danko. Beastie Boys' Anthology: The Sounds Of Science rose seven places to #3, while SIANspheric's Else crept up a position to #4, placing two 'best of' discs in the top five. The debut disc from Handsome Boy Modelling School, So... How's My Girl?, jumped a single place, rounding out the top five.

Stompin' Tom Connors' Move Along With Stompin' Tom, which entered the chart at #10, was the week's highest debut. This debut marked the highest point any Stompin' Tom record ever reached on the top 50 chart.

Of course, this veteran Canadian musician has been releasing albums since 1967, and many of his best albums like 1969's Bud The Spud And Other Favourites, 1971's My Stompin' Grounds, 1972's Stompin' Tom And The Hockey Song and 1973's To It And At It received a lot of campus airplay 15 to 20 years after their initial releases on several campus stations I worked at during the '80s.

One can only imagine how well this first truly independent recording artist would have done on campus charts had there been the number of campus radio stations there are today — and subsequent charts compiling — during Tom's heyday.

Move Along With Stompin' Tom was Connors' 21st album and his first released after 1996 (and the beginning of the weekly charts). Connors' 2001 Sings Canadian History compilation outlasted Move Along With's four weeks by surviving on the chart for seven weeks, debuting at #27 and rising to #12 several weeks later.

Since 2001, two of Connors recent albums have appeared for one week before disappearing off the chart: 2002's An Ode To The Road (#46) and 2004's The Hockey Mom Tribute (#42).

Other notable new entries included Arto Lindsay's Prize at #18, Bill Laswell's Imaginary Cuba at #22, Rheostatics' The Story Of Harmelodia at #29 and Hawksley Workman's For Him And The Girls at #35. This was Workman's first appearance on the campus chart.

As is so fitting just before Christmas, the market was inundated with best of packages. Many of these were promoted at campus radio, who played them as new releases.

Along with the two afore-mentioned packages at the top of the chart, A Tribe Called Quest's The Anthology debuted at #23 and Skinny Puppy's The Singles Collect arrived at #31.