This week, it’s a bit of a revenge of the nerds on the top of our charts. Owen Pallett, who you may have known as Final Fantasy (named after the well-known [in gaming circles] series of video games), came out of the wilderness to melt hearts and soothe ears with his electro-classical arrangements and strange but evocative lyrics. Of course, barring the game-based name, you may wonder about the "nerd" label I’ve slapped on Mr. Pallett. Remember, as Final Fantasy, this man named an album "He Poos Clouds" that was entirely about Dungeons and Dragons, the paragon of nerdiness. But all that aside (assuming one even needs to do that, since it would imply that there is something inherently wrong with this sort of thing…), What Heartland is is good music. It’s the kind of album you put on and drift off to, and that’s all that matters here.

Other notes:

I wonder if all my crowin’ about Kitty, Daisy and Lewis has started to take effect as their self-titled debut winds down its time in our New Music Rotation. #2 once again!

Animal Collective has continued to impress, and I think we’ll still see them up in the Top 30, thought not for the same record. Fall Be Kind is out, and a reissue of their third album, Campfire Songs (which we never had here) is taking over in the NMR.

Vampire Weekend may have splashed into the Billboard Top 200 at #1, but it still sits in the middle of our charts at #16. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. And, on that note, I’d like to mention that although Vampire Weekend has been getting all this positive popular attention, we’re still the only station in the area playing the record, and as long as that’s true, we will keep playing it. That is what we are, at our core: the station that plays what you won’t hear anywhere else.

Last shouts-out to JEFF the Brotherhood (for their simple and headbangin’ rawk), Timothy Cushing and Blakroc.

You shut up! You are the chart! I am the author! I OUTRANK you!