It's time for the Christmas edition of the Vermont Music Update. Let's see what everyone is getting for Christmas this year. Here are the top albums by sales at the local indie shops (courtesy of Seven Days):
Buch Spieler | Montpelier
1. Capital City Concerts - Karen Kevra: The Music of J.S. Bach
2. Bobby Gosh - Spirit of Christmas
3. Diana Krall - Christmas Songs
4. Neil Young - Prarie Wind
5. Grace Potter & the Fuckin' Nocturnals - Nothing But the Water
6. Kristina Stykos - In the Earth's Fading Light
7. Patti Casey - The Edge of Grace
8. Bonnie Raitt - Souls Alike
9. Susannah Clifford-Blanchly - Middle of the Night
10. Bruce Chalmer/Fyre and Lightning Consort - Berakhot
Pure Pop | Burlington
1. Grace Potter & the Fuckin' Nocturnals - Nothing But the Water
2. My Morning Jacket - Z
3. Bright Eyes - Motion Sickness
4. Wilco - Kicking Television
5. Talib Kweli - Right About Now
6. Johnny Cash - The Legend of Johnny Cash
7. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - s/t
8. Nickel Creek - Why Should the Fire Die?
9. Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run (box set)
10. Atmosphere - You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We Are Having
Exile on Main St. | Barre
1. Korn - See You On the Other Side
2. Susan Tedeschi - Hope and Desire
3. Scott Stapp - The Great Divide
4. Johnny Cash - The Legend of Johnny Cash
5. Guns N' Roses - Greatest Hits
6. Green Day - American Idiot
7. System of a Down - Hypnotize
8. John Mayer Trio - Try! Live in Concert
9. Shakira - Oral Fixation Vol. 2
10. Diana Krall - Christmas Songs
So, it looks like jds over in Barre is getting some Korn and GNR for Christmas while Casey is getting hooked up with some Grace Potter in Burlington. However, the oddest list to me this week is the one for Buch Spieler.
How friggin' parochial was Montpelier last week? Seven of the ten albums were from local artists. It seems like a bunch of Montpelierites were listening to VPR Switchboard's "Best Music of 2005 For People in Menopause" last week and decided to pick up those hideous albums from milquetoast female Vermont hippies like Patti Casey, Kristina Stykos, Susannah Clifford-Blachly and Grace Potter.
The other odd thing about the Buch Spieler list is that the top three albums are Christmas albums. That alone isn't weird considering the calendar. The strange part is that I tried picking up a copy of the finest Christmas album ever last week at Buch Spieler; Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas. However, they didn't have a copy of it. But they obviously had enough copies of Bobby Gosh, Capital City Concerts and Diana Krall to get those albums to the top of the list.
Let's review...zero copies of Vince Guaraldi and a boatload of copies of Bobby Gosh, Capital City Concerts and Diana Krall. That just seems really weird to me. However, that's why write a stupid blog and don't run a music store. I really have no idea what people want.
One last note, it's nice to see Clap Your Hands Say Yeah make the top ten at Pure Pop. Maybe they are building a following in the area finally. It would be nice if they played a local show this spring or so. Oh, such dreams!
Now, let's look at what the folks over at the Vermont group on Last.FM were listening to last week. We are now up to 31 members or 0.005% of the population of Vermont. However, I seem to remember something from stats class that said that you need a population size of at least 30 in order for the results to be statistically significant. Therefore, we are now statistically significant; if not significantly smelly.
The top ten most listened to bands over the last week were:
1. The Shins
2. The
3. Sufjan Stevens
4. The Decemberists
5. Yo La Tengo
6. Sigur Rós
7. Bob Dylan
8. The Velvet Underground
9. The Beatles
10. Iron & Wine
The only band in my Last.FM account's top ten and the VT group's top ten is Yo La Tengo. However, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah was in my top ten and tied for eleventh in the VT group.
Yo La Tengo seems to consistently appear in the VT group's top ten list. I think they may have an album of new material due next year. Hopefully, they'll decide to include Higher Ground on their touring itinerary. When they played at the old Higher Ground a few years ago, the show was fairly packed. Not "Rusted Root Packed" but better than any other indie band I've seen at Higher Ground (although the Secret Machines show last January had a big crowd too).
As always, to be fair and open myself to as much ridicule as I give to the lists above, here are my top bands for the last week:
1. Palace Music
2. love letter band
3. Palace Brothers
4. Eux Autres
5. Sons and Daughters
6. Yo La Tengo
7. M. Ward
8. The Clash
9. Neutral Milk Hotel
10. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
My top track for the week was Oh No! Oh My!'s "Walk in the Park". It's a poppy number that is destined for a car commercial some day.
Oh No! Oh My! - Walk in the Park
5 comments:
Oh sweet Montpelier. Put the clientele of Buch Spieler and Bear Pond Books together and you wouldn't find a non VPR listener among them. The tastes are all too predictable (have you ever been in Bear Pond and not heard Bush bashing? not me).
I wish Last.FM could keep tabs on homemade cd's and the music that I stream (KEXP, HypeMachine, etc.).
According to the tracks that it could identify, my top artists for last week were: My Morning Jacket, The Decemberists, and Gang of Four. I listened to a whole lot more then that, but that's all you get.
And speaking of Exile on Main Street, it was crazy packed this past weekend. I didn't help their charts any, as I picked up Zeppelin III on vinyl.
See You On the Other Side!
And by the way, our shop has a webpage too: Exile on Main Street.
Aaaaaaaah ah! How's that Immigrant Song sounding? My friend had Zep III on tape when I was a kid and we would play Immigrant Song over and over. Loved it.
Thanks for the tip on Exile's website. I had searched for one a long time ago and couldn't find one. All I was getting was a bunch of links to some band called The Rolling Stones or something. I update the post with the link.
I agree with you about Montpelier. I love living here but it can be weird sometimes too. The community as a whole is largely counter-culture to the rest of the US. However, within its own community the populace is about as homogenous as any suburban US town. Even considering that though, it's a nice town to live.
hey there, I love Yo La Tengo & Clap Your Hands, I just left a comment on a previous post I came across. Anyway, if you dig both those bands you will dig Nemo:
www.myspace.com/nemony
They're putting out a record next Spring which is going to be fucking amazing. You can hear some of the old tunes on their myspace page. Love,m
you've got good taste in music :)..
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