The 9513 Last.fm Chart Update (9-6-09)

Since most weeks have either George Strait or Sugarland as the top artist, this week we’ve reached a nice compromise. Both artists tied for the #1 spot, with 24 listeners. Right behind them was Reba McEntire (23) and Trisha Yearwood (22), with the Dixie Chicks, Alan Jackson and Kenny Chesney rounding out the Top 5. The rest of the Top 10 includes Johnny Cash, Garth Brooks, Brad Paisley and Miranda Lambert, representing country’s past, present and future pretty well. Elsewhere on the list, Chris Young makes a strong impression with 13 listeners, putting him on par with Dolly Parton, Jamey Johnson and Radney Foster. Lucinda Williams and Neko Case led the Americana side of the charts with 14 listeners. Though, if you counted all incarnations of Ryan Adams (Whiskeytown with 10, Adams with 9 and Adams with the Cardinals with 3), he’d rank pretty high as well.

Sugarland’s Enjoy The Ride was the Top Album for the week with 14 listeners who apparently wanted an album that didn’t have the duo covering ‘80s pop songs. The Dixie Chicks’ Fly and George Strait’s Twang had 12 listeners each, and Carrie Underwood’s Carnival Ride was the only other album with double-digit listeners with 10. The rest of the Top 10 includes two more albums from Sugarland, two from Lambert, and the latest releases from Taylor Swift, Hayes Carll and Reba McEntire. Basically, something for everybody. Shania Twain’s The Woman In Me jumped to #14 with 8 listeners and Carrie Underwood’s as-yet-unreleased Play On had 7 listeners. I have to believe some of those listeners were the same people. Kathleen Edwards’ Asking For Flowers also had 7 listeners, and I’m going to go out on the limb further and guess that the Edwards listeners and Underwood/Twain listeners are mutually exclusive.

McEntire is holding on to the #1 spot in the Top Tracks list. This week, “Consider Me Gone” that is the most-listened song, with 9 fans. Four of her other tracks are also in the Top 10. The #2 spot went to Darius Rucker’s “Don’t Think I Don’t think About It” with 8 listeners, along with Carrie Underwood’s dance-pop… thing… that’s apparently country because Carrie Underwood is country y’all and any song she sings is automatically country even if it’s co-written by the guy who produces Dr. friggin’ Dre and makes Pink and Beyonce sound like neo-traditionalists by comparison and… anyway. Also, “My Way To You” by Jamey Johnson had 7 listeners, but he was never on American Idol, so screw him. The batch of songs tied for #11 includes a couple by Lady Antebellum and Sugarland, as well as Trisha Yearwood, Kellie Pickler and Joe Nichols, so maybe some new names will start creeping in when the Reba stranglehold lessens.

Freebie Of The Week: This is one of those cases where I’m not sure if this artist is country, folk, indie rock or whatever. But if “Cowboy Casanova” is considered country, then I think I’m on solid ground by saying that Leiv Reed is at least in the ballpark of country. He’s a Norwegian singer-songwriter and guitarist who’s been very gracious about putting plenty of free music on Last.fm. There’s not quite as much free stuff as there once was, but he’s got more than a dozen songs available. Some are instrumentals (“A Sunday & Two Hours) and others (“And We Float” and “The Road” being the most popular) show off his vocals and a pretty minimalist but talented group of musicians. Is it allowed to include him as an Americana artist, or is there an already-existing Norwegiana market that hasn’t made its way across the Atlantic?

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

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