This week was a nice last hurrah for a few artists I had my eyes and ears on. The most notable of those would be Brother Ali and The XX, both of whom charted well in their final week at numbers 2 and 3 respectively. Props, too, to the Black Hollies (#5), Rain Machine (#9) and Antipop Consortium (#23) as they make their last appearances before going off into that good night.

On the flip side, Julian Casablancas made a strong debut for us up at number 6. Listening to his solo debut made me dig back into The Strokes, which has me pining for the (fjords) wonderfully simple times when I discovered their music. Oh, those were the days, when men were men, women were women and many other nouns were still themselves.

Oh, and some guys from that place where they shot Lord of the Rings are number 1. Consider that the closest thing to a popular backlash they’ll get from me, I can’t bring myself to hate (Unlike Patton Oswalt, apparently. See “My Weakness is Strong” for more info.).

Other notes:

Del and Tame One are still hanging around, and bully to them for it!

Noah and the Whale keeps on pressing its somber mood on us, but apparently we like it that way as it charted well again this week.

The Clientele seem buoyed (I can’t believe I actually spelled that correctly. First try!) by the aforementioned (last week) ringing endorsement of our PD, Patrick. Jolly good show, lads!

Do you know what "chart" means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by an ‘orrible @*$%… me.