The Big Miscellaneous

Como!

1. Little Rock – Reba McEntire
2. It’s My Party – Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin
3. Spanish – XSFAT
4. Out of Touch – Hall & Oates
5. Chihuahua – DJ Bobo

Bobo drops and Reba stays.  XS returns, Dave and Barbara slide on in, and I finally got my H&O CD back.  Peace out.

A Little Something New...

1. Little Rock – Reba McEntire
2. Chihuahua – DJ Bobo
3. Against All Odds – The Postal Service
4. Such Great Heights – The Postal Service
5. Ignition Remix – R. Kelly

Not much to report here.  Such Great Heights finally falls, but not without grabbing the top spot on both the points list and the weeks-at-peak list. Little Rock rises to become only the second no-contest country #1.  And everything else just kind of hangs around.

Made to Be Broken...

1. Such Great Heights – The Postal Service
2. Pretend We’re Dead – L7
3. Little Rock – Reba McEntire
4. Chihuahua – DJ Bobo
5. Ignition Remix – R. Kelly

And thus, a new king is born.  The Postal Service grabs it’s fourth week at #1, thereby surpassing the competition and easily becoming the biggest song ever!  And L7 jumps up to the #2 spot, probably because I forgot how much I loved it, having not heard it in a year or so.  The only new song on the list is Little Rock, which carries a bit of nostalgic weight with it.  Chihuahua remains at #4 for a second week, and Ignition hangs on for third week, and it’s second at the bottom.

Everything is Perfect From Far Away

1. Such Great Heights – The Postal Service
2. Against All Odds – The Postal Service
3. I Turn My Camera On – Spoon
4. Chihuahua – DJ Bobo
5. Ignition Remix – R. Kelly

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  As expected, the Postal Service retains the top spot this week, with Heights barely edging out Against for the top spot.  Camera stays at #3, mainly off of the strength of its lead in on my CD copy, the aforementioned Heights.  Chihuahua, the stupid but infinitely enjoyable dance number, jumps up to #4, and pushes R Kelly to the bottom of the list.  But don’t count any of these artists out yet: Chances are good that a majority will still be here next week, based on current listening conditions.

But We'll Stay...

1. Such Great Heights – The Postal Service
2. Against All Odds – The Postal Service
3. I Turn My Camera On – Spoon
4. Ignition Remix – R Kelly
5. Common People – William Shatner

This has got to be the most Sean-heavy list ever.  Tracks 1, 2, 3 and 5 are all from albums that Sean has burned for me in the past few weeks, and they are all great in some way.  Shatner is doing a delicious cover of a Pulp song, R Kelly charts with not only a great song, but one of the few remixes that improves more than ten-fold on the original.  Spoon’s chart entry made it from A) Placement in a Veronica Mars episode and B) Being right after the Postal Service on one CD.  And finally, the Postal Service cements their standings on the charts, by being Heights’ third week on the chart (second at #1), and being only the fourth artists in chart history to have the top two songs of the week.  The others were Bowling For Soup (twice, 2/14/05 & 2/28/05), the Status Quo (for two weeks starting 4/18/05) and the Pixies (for two weeks, 7/18/05).  Based on history, that means we can expect the Postal Service to stay there next week.

PS – As a matter of interest, this is the first multiple-week-chart-topper of the year.  Exactly one year ago today, the first ever multiple-week-chart-topper had it’s last day as a number one: Pretend We’re Dead.

Music - The Year in Review

Some basic chart data of my favorite songs of the year, whether I liked them or not.  Let’s start with the points breakdown, wherein 10 points are awarded for a week at #1, 2 points for a week at #2 and so on.  The biggest songs of 2005 were:
1. Feel Good Inc. – Gorillaz (48)
2. Anniversary Waltz, pt. 2  - Status Quo (42)
3. The Fallen – Franz Ferdinand (40)
4. Where is My Mind? – The Pixies (36)
5. Pretend We’re Dead – L7 (34)
6. Don’t Know Why – The Rutles (30)
7. Here Comes Your Man – The Pixies (28)
8. Fever For the Flava – Hot Action Cop (28)
9. Trucker Hat – Bowling For Soup (28)
10.  Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band (reprise) – The Beatles (28)

Now, the biggest songs of the year by weeks at #1, with ties broken by total weeks on the chart:
1. The Fallen – Franz Ferdinand (3 weeks at #1, 5 total)
2. Where Is My Mind? – The Pixies (3, 4)
3. Feel Good Inc. – Gorillaz (2, 8)
4. Anniversary Waltz pt. 2 – Status Quo (2, 5)
5. Pretend We’re Dead – L7 (2, 4)
6. Fever For the Flava – Hot Action Cop (2, 3)
7. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise) – The Beatles (2, 3)
8. Immanence – Stuart Davis (2, 2)
9. He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask) – Alice Cooper (2, 2)
10. Don’t Know Why – The Rutles (1, 5)

How about the biggest songs at each peak, based upon weeks at peak, with ties broken by total weeks on chart:
Biggest #1: Feel Good Inc. – Gorillaz
Biggest #2: Trucker Hat – Bowling For Soup
Biggest #3: Ice Cream Baby – XSFAT
Biggest #4: Tie between ICU – They Might Be Giants and Song For the Dumped – Ben Folds Five
Biggest #5: Tie between Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles and Who Are You – The Who.

And now, the biggest artists of the year by total points:
1. The Pixies (3 songs, 70 points)
2. Bowling For Soup (5 songs, 64 points)
3. Fountains of Wayne (7 songs, 62 points)
4. The Beatles (3 songs, 50 points) tied with
5. Die Prinzen (3 songs, 50 points)
6. Weezer (4 songs, 48 points)
7. Gorillaz (1 song, 48 points)
8. The Rutles (2 songs, 46 points)
9. The Status Quo (2 songs, 40 points)
10. Franz Ferdinand (1 song, 40 points)

Now, miscellaneous information:
Song that spent most weeks on the chart: Feel Good Inc. (8)
Number of #1 songs to date: 45
Number of #1 song to spend more than 1 week at #1: 9
Number of #1’s that didn’t debut there: 9.
Number of #1 songs to spend a week at #1 and no other position: 13
Number of non-consecutive #1’s: 2 (The Fallen and Fever For the Flava alternated).
Longest spread between a song’s debut and its reaching #1: 24 weeks (Super Snooper – The Oceans.  Intro-Inspection’s spread was even longer, at 52 weeks, but it reached #1 in 2006, thereby disqualifying it.)
Biggest artist to never have a #1 song: Fountains of Wayne
Biggest album: That depends.  All three songs by the Pixies were off of one album, but it was greatest hits – Death to the Pixies.  All but one of the Bowling For Soup songs were off of the same album – A Hangover You Don’t Deserve.  So, it’s one or the other.  I would say it is Bowling, but only because they had four charting songs off the album, besting the Pixies’ three.

Anything else you want to know, just ask.

Such Great Heights

1. Such Great Heights – The Postal Service
2. Paint It, Black – The Rolling Stones
3. Memories Are Made of This – Dean Martin
4. Crazy – Alanis Morrissette
5. The Final Countdown – NESMix

Almost back to normal.  Almost.  Such Great Heights makes the jump to #1 this week, a rarity in my charts to be sure, but not unheard of.  It’s a great, hard-to-categorize, minimalist love song, and I like it so much, I bought the album.  Paint and Memories charted through a few repeated listenings on my #1’s CDs, and Crazy and Final are still sticking around from last week.

Never Gonna Survive...

1. Crazy – Alanis Morrisette
2. The Final Countdown – NES Mix
3. Such Great Heights – The Postal Service
4. Light My Fire – The Doors
5. Pretty Fly – The Offspring

Every now and then, I have very little say in the songs that chart.  Take this week for example.  The top three were on CD’s that Sean burned for me, but Crazy would hardly have been my favorite track off of them.  Maybe third... maybe.  But Such Great Heights is easily my favorite.  But being as I was in Eagle River, and Crazy was played on the radio station every time I was in the car, it takes the top spot without being my choice.  And as the booth across from ours kept playing snowmobiling videos, one of which had Europe’s Final Countdown as a theme, it caused the song to hit #2, as the NES mix was the version that I heard most often in my head.  Such got heard multiple times by choice, at least enough to push the dreaded Light My Fire into fourth (as I never intentionally heard it).  And the Offspring just didn't fall off.

"He needs some cool tunes..."

1. Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) – The Offspring
2. Dope Nose – Weezer
3. Hash Pipe – Weezer
4. Come Out and Play – The Offspring
5. Buddy Holly – Weezer

Guess which two self-made “Best Of” CD’s I kept alternating between last week.  I’ll give you a hint: I’ve never made a “Best of Taylor Dayne” collection.

Two weeks of music...

12/26/05

1. Fever for the Flava – Hot Action Cop
2. One Tin Soldier – Me First & the Gimme Gimmes
3. The Bunyip – The Nobodies
4. Valley Winter Song – Fountains of Wayne
5. The Fallen – Franz Ferdinand

Aaah, Christmas.  Due to it’s inclusion on two of those holidays CD’s, plus my sister’s insistence on listening to it, Fever grabbed the top spot again.  Me First makes their first chart appearance with One Tin Soldier, even though I have loved them as a band for years:  One Tin Soldier is also only fitting, as that was the song that made me love them.  The Bunyip was repeated a few times for the benefit of family, and FoW kept me company on the way to visit the folks in Wausau.

1/2/06:

1. Intro-Inspection – Osymyso
2. Ganz Oben – Die Prinzen
3. Rich Girl – Me First & the Gimme Gimmes
4. 1985 – Bowling For Soup
5. Fever for the Flava – Hot Action Cop

It’s about time.  Osymyso had spent 3 weeks in the top three, and never made it to #1, despite being one of my favorite songs throughout the entire year.  Ganz Oben almost made the jump to #1, but was cut off, and ends up with a second week at #2.  Rich Girl was new to me, and Bowling For Soup got a little comeback.