The Big Miscellaneous

Up Now and Get 'em Boy....

1. The Fallen – Franz Ferdinand
2. Fever for the Flava – Hot Action Cop
3. Jailhouse Rock – Eilert Pilarm
4. The Bunyip – The Nobodies*
5. The Weight – The Band

Swoop!  And just like that, Franz becomes huge.  After dropping to #2 last week, The Fallen bounds back up to #1, this week, making it the first non-consecutive #1 on my charts.  In doing so, it also became the biggest song of the year in terms of weeks, as only one other song spent three weeks at the top, and that one didn’t have any weeks at #2.  In terms of points, though (which, to a degree, I hold in higher respect than weeks), it comes in a few points shy of the leader, Feel Good, Inc..  Fever, last week’s top dog, stumbles slightly into second.  The bottom three are all songs that I heard repeatedly thanks to some personalized CD gifts I made for family:  Pilarm’s Jailhouse Rock is a hoot, The Bunyip is a somewhat scary childhood memory, and The Weight had the good fortune to start an album that had both of them on it.

*I don’t actually know who performed this song, so it's credited to the Nobodies.  In the name of decency, the lead singer asked to not be named separately.

Whoap!

1. Fever for the Flava – Hot Action Cop
2. The Fallen – Franz Ferdinand
3. Like a Surgeon – Weird Al Yankovic
4. Bad Moon Rising – Creedence Clearwater Revival
5. Mao Tse Tung Said – A3

Not much to explain this week: The Fallen drops to #2, but it ain’t done yet.  Nashville guitar-rockers Hot Action Cop grab the top with Fever, but they won’t stay forever.  Everyone else is just hanging on.  The miniscule information provided by the songs in the bottom three make me want to just limit the list to a top two or three.  The others are hardly worth mentioning. I'm contemplating.

Who Gives a Damn...

1. The Fallen – Franz Ferdinand
2. Bad Moon Rising – Creedence Clearwater Revival
3. Cecilia Ann – The Pixies
4. Lump – The Presidents of the USA
5. Swingtown – Steve Miller Band

Second week and counting:  I love Franz Ferdinand’s You Could Have It So Much Better, and to a slightly less degree, I also love CCR.  They easily hold the top two spots this week.  The post-Thanksgiving drive back to Madison put the Pixies in third place (with their third charting song), and a few alternative listens gave The Presidents and Steve Miller there first chart placement.

What's wrong with a little destruction?

1. The Fallen – Franz Ferdinand
2. Bad Moon Rising – Creedence Clearwater Revival
3. Overload – Zappacosta
4. That Thing You Do! – The Wonders
5. Don’t Know Why – The Rutles

When the week began, I had a good feeling that Zappacosta was going to hold on to the top spot for a second week, as it was a CD player constantly for the first few days.  But then, something happened.  On my way to Wausau for Thanksgiving, I made a stop off at the local CD store and got two new CD’s: Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Chronicle and Franz Ferdinand’s You Could Have It So Much Better.  I started my trek with CCR, which turns out to be great drivin’-to-Wausau music.  Then, I decided to give FF a try, having never heard them before.  It was great and enjoyable, with a string of impressive singles right off the bat, followed by some better than average stuff in the middle, and a nice finish.  It didn’t even leave my CD player until early this week, when it was replaced by CCR and the Pixies briefly, before being put back in.  It’s pretty much a shoo-in for number one again next week, although, truth be told, my premonitions about this have not always been correct.

The Time of My Life....

1. Overload – Zappacosta
2. That Thing You Do! – The Wonders
3. Don’t Know Why – The Rutles
4. Only You – The Flying Pickets
5. Super Snooper – The Oceans

Two new songs sneak into the Top Five, pushing last week’s top three into the bottom three positions.  So, we won’t talk about them.  Fountains of Wayne kind of makes their way into the #2 spot with That Thing You Do!.  It’s credited as The Wonders, as it’s the theme song from the film of the same name, but it was at least written by Adam Schlesinger of FoW, and gave them enough money and props to enable them to record their debut album.  And that debut album allowed them to create the much better follow-up Utopia Parkway, which then led to the brilliant Welcome Interstate Managers. Plus, I have always loved that song.  And the #1 song may be relatively unknown, but it was on one of the biggest albums of the 80’s: the Dirty Dancing Soundtrack.  It’s a kind of throw away single that no one pays attention to, but I always had a soft spot for it.  And with the purchase of the soundtrack on CD last week, I probably became the second person in the world to have bought the album for that song specifically (after Zappacosta himself).  In the end it was a great purchase because I listened to the whole album repeatedly all week, but it’s Zappacosta who retains the glory.

The Acid Test of Fame

1. Don’t Know Why – The Rutles
2. Only You – Flying Pickets
3. Super Snooper – The Oceans
4. Holiday Road – Lindsay Buckingham
5. Welcome to the Dollhouse – Daniel Rey

Not a whole lot happened this week.  The bottom 4 all come from a resurgence of two favorite self-made CD’s.  And only the bottom two never made it on to the list before. Super Snooper, from the movie SuperFuzz, returns to the top five, giving it the longest span between first and last appearances thus far.  It was #2 the first week, then it made it up to the top spot in June.  It may only have three weeks on the chart, but they have been at all three top positions. Only You, an a cappella British hit returns to the #2 spot this week, having previously made it there in May.  And the Rutles finally grabbed the #1, with Don’t Know Why, which has spent the last two weeks at #3.  The Rutles previously had a #2 with Easy Listening in May.

Ditto.

1. Immanence – Stuart Davis
2. Mao Tse Tung Said – A3
3. Don’t Know Why – The Rutles
4. Girl I Can’t Forget – Fountains of Wayne
5. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles

I don’t quite count this as a frozen week, although it probably is.  Truth is, I listened to only one album this week, and that was the British #1’s.  And although I listened to Your Woman by White Town 1.5 times, I couldn’t justify sliding it into the top spot and simply sliding everything else down because I wasn’t actually listening to it on purpose.  So the list remains the same.

Looking Back With 20/20 Hindsight

1. Immanence – Stuart Davis
2. Mao Tse Tung Said – A3
3. Don’t Know Why – The Rutles
4. Girl I Can’t Forget – Fountains of Wayne
5. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles

It’s almost like a Greatest Hits: The B-Sides Collection.  Only one artist (A3) has never been on the charts before, mainly because the great album hit its peak for me last year.  Only one song has made the top five before (Girl I Can’t Forget), making it the second FoW song to spend more than 1 week in the top five.  The remaining three are all new arrivals, but they are tracks from albums that already produced top five singles.  Immanence is the second Stuart Davis to make it to #1, a scant 34 weeks after Rock Stars and Models.  Immanence is the track immediately following Rock Stars on Davis’ 2001 self-titled release.  Don’t Know Why is beautiful love song from Archeology, which also sourced the #2 Easy Listening in May.  And Sgt. Pepper is from the same album (obviously) that had two #1 songs (Mr. Kite & Reprise) in May & June, respectively.

You Don't Have to Leave...

1. Magic Carpet Ride – Steppenwolf
2. All Shook Up – Ry Cooder
3. Twister – “Weird Al” Yankovic
4. Fingertips – They Might Be Giants
5. Don’t Cha – Pussycat Dolls

A great, bizarre week.  Almost all of the week saw me taking a trip down memory lane  while listening to Weird Al.  Add an occasional TMBG, and you got 40% of the list. All Shook Up held on just fine, with a few listens early and a few more later, but it was Magic Carpet Ride that made it to #1.  How, you ask?  Well, for one, I heard it as much as any other song.  But this was a week of stress, fascination, and the new experiences: I spent nine hours on Saturday in different bars, with the final 5.5 being at one “redneck-ish” bar having a coon hunt celebration in the middle of nowhere, knowing no one, and witnessing obviously underage drinkers as well my first bar fight (seen, not acted in).  I also got the great lines “I brought my 16 year old daughter down here to show her people having a good time, and all she’s seen is people fighting.”  And from one of the central players in the fight at the end of the night: “You don’t have to leave, but you can’t stay here.”   And Magic Carpet Ride is not only somewhat descriptive, it’s one of few non-country jukebox songs I heard there.  I’d say it’s apt.

Lamest! Week! Ever!

1. All Shook Up – Ry Cooder
2. Don’t Cha – Pussycat Dolls
3. Ganz Oben – Die Prinzen
4. Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Deep Blue Something
5. Tell Me What You Already Did – Fountains of Wayne

Well, almost the lamest week ever.  The songs themselves aren’t bad, but this was really a fight between the five songs I heard twice.  I think I heard All Shook Up three times (maybe 2 ½), so it grabs the top spot that way.  Other than that, it was pretty much a coin flip.  I sang Don’t Cha to myself a lot… Tell Me isn’t as good as I had hoped…Breakfast was kind of accidental, and not really by choice… and Ganz ends up smack dab in the middle a good 19 weeks after it debuted and peaked at #2.  However, drab week or not, there were a few points of interest:

1) All Shook Up is the first number one to jump up to #1 from a spot other than #2.  Previously, five songs made the leap to #1 from the number #2, and the other vast majority "debuted" there.

2)The FoW song makes it their 6th charting song, so despite their lack of #1’s, they just grabbed the record for most songs.

3) All Shook Up (at least currently) is the eighth number one for one week in a row.  That ties the record with the string of eight from 1/31 (Never There – Cake) through 3/21 (Idiot Boyfriend – Jimmy Fallon).

4) Don’t Cha is the first charting song to be sung by strippers.

5) Although it got a scant 2.5 – 3 listens, All Shook Up does not hold the record for the fewest listens for a #1.  Everyday is Winding Road is famous to me (regrettably) for having been heard only once.  And although the Anniversary Waltz was a #1 for two weeks, it wasn’t heard a single time that second week.  It was a frozen week, though, so the song stayed.