The 9513 Last.fm Chart Update (7-26-09)

After about 11 months in existence, The 9513 group on Last.fm added its 100th member this week. It’s a nice milestone for something that started as an idea on the forums. Thanks to everyone who’s a member and is contributing to our charts. If you’re not on Last.fm and want to be a part, all you have to do is go to http://www.last.fm/download to get the “scrobbling” software and set it to whatever music-listening platform you prefer (iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc.). Once that’s done, any song you play will be added to your statistics, and if you’re a The 9513 group member, it will get added to our data as well.

Currently, our members are really digging Brad Paisley, who is the #1 Artist for the second week in a row. The numbers are a bit closer than last week; with 26 listeners, he was only one ahead of George Strait and two ahead of Sugarland. Five other artists–Johnny Cash, Alan Jackson, Keith Urban, Dwight Yoakam and Trisha Yearwood–had 23 listeners. One interesting cluster of singers is at #19, where Dolly Parton, LeAnn Rimes and Taylor Swift are all tied with 18 listeners. No matter what kind of country music you like, you’re bound to like at least one of those three. Steve Earle (14 listeners) and Todd Snider (12) lead the way for Americana singers.

Now that we’re growing larger, it’s nice to see some new names popping up in the bottom of the charts. The Be Good Tanyas are up to 6 listeners, for example, and even The Baseball Project (probably the most niche-y band you can find) has 3. We’re also seeing a rock influence, with Bruce Springsteen (14), Coldplay (13) and U2 (12) showing up in the middle of the charts. I’m fine with Coldplay being on the charts, and I likely contributed to their place on the charts this week. However, if they or Radiohead start showing up as the top artist like they do for 90% of the groups on Last.fm, we’re in trouble.

There are a total of 14 albums in the Top 10, thanks to ties, and Sugarland charted at #1, #3 and #5, with Love On The Inside being the top album with 14 listeners. Also in the Top 10 are Swift’s Fearless (13 listeners), Carrie Underwood’s Some Hearts (12), Dierks Bentley’s Feel That Fire (11) and Darius Rucker’s Learn To Live (10). Rascal Flatts ended up at #15 for Me And My Gang (9 listeners), which is a pretty good showing for a band that doesn’t generally show up all that often in the upper reaches of The 9513 charts. Of course, I’d almost prefer Radiohead being #1 on our charts than I would Rascal Flatts, but a little variety makes things more interesting. Right at the bottom of the chart, with 5 listeners, is High Hopes & Heartbreak by American idol alum Brooke White. Anyone who’s heard it care to offer a review? Is it better than most Idol albums? Admittedly, that’s a pretty modest goal, but still.

The Top Tracks charts was pretty competitive, with no particular song standing out. Let’s see what happens when Jamey Johnson’s new song becomes more widely available, because I’m guessing “My Way To You” won’t be stuck at 186th place for long. In the mean time, Paisley’s “Welcome To The Future” and Sugarland’s “It Happens” tied with 9 listeners for the #1 spot. Five songs had 8 listeners, including “Don’t Think I Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It” by Rucker and “Dead Flowers” by Miranda Lambert. Another Lambert tune, “Famous In A Small Town,” rounds out the top 10 with 7 listeners, along with Martina McBride’s “I Just Call You Mine” and Billy Currington’s “People Are Crazy.” There were 18 songs tied for #11 with 6 listeners, and five of them were Lee Ann Womack songs. So all the Womack fans need to try a little harder to get her to dominate the Top 10.

Freebie Of The Week: I know we have a few Canadians in our group, so here’s a free EP from Great Lake Swimmers, one of the country’s better folk groups. They’ve released a new album, Lost Channels, this year, and they recently were featured in a Honda commercial for a song, “See You On The Moon” (originally recorded for a kids CD). This EP is a couple years old and contains live versions of songs from the first two full-length albums. “Various Stages” and “Moving Pictures Silent Films” are the standouts. GLS has filled out into a full band, but the debut album, which is basically singer/writer Tony Dekkar with very sparse backing, is worth tracking down. It was recorded inside an abandoned grain silo, so the original version of “Moving Pictures” features crickets chirping in the background.

To see this week’s charts and join our group, head to http://www.last.fm/group/The+9513.

Join us on:
Last.fm | Twitter | Facebook | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr