As promised, here is Ladysound’s first ever contest!

The Contest

On the R3-30 chart #145, an artist debuted who was in one important way (to the Ladies On The Chart feature) different from any artist I had looked at for Ladies On The Chart in the past.  That is, this artist is different from any artist who has been on the R3-30, the top half of the Billboard Hot 100, or the top half of the Neilsen SoundScan Hits Chart since I started the whole Ladies On The Charts thing.

To enter the contest, you need to name both the artist and the difference.

The Prize

Seeing as how Ladysound is currently funded out of my pocket, and I’d like to avoid having ads until it gets big enough that it’s actually expensive, I went to my local used-bookstore-with-a-$2-used-CD-bin and bought every $2 used CD by a female artist (it was a small bin).  This collection of CDs will henceforth be known as “the Ladysound prize pool”.  The winner of this contest will receive one (1) CD selected at random from said prize pool.  I’m not going to reveal the exact contents of the prize pool in advance, because everyone likes a little mystery.  I will reveal that there are six CDs in the prize pool, as follows:

• One urban contemporary soul album that is still shrink-wrapped
• One pop album by an artist from another continent*, still shrink-wrapped
• One country album
• One greatest hits country album
• One album which Wikipedia says is in the genres “Soul” and “Pop rock”
• One world fusion pop album

Yes, I know that’s a high concentration of country music, but I live in Alberta, so that was pretty much inevitable.

Given the nature of the Ladysound prize pool, the condition of the prize cannot be guaranteed.

The Details

1. You may only enter once.
2. To enter, email contests@ladysound.org with your guess/answer.
3. The contest will end when I post the Ladies On The Charts update next week (probably Thursday).
4. The winner will be chosen from the correct entries using the random.org list randomizer.
5. If there are no correct entries, the winner will be chosen from all entries using the random.org list randomizer.
6. The prize will be one CD from the Ladysound prize pool (as described above), chosen using the random.org list randomizer.

• Ida Maria was on Last Call with Carson Daly on Wednesday
• Amy Millan has announced her second solo album, Masters of the Burial (hat tip: Pitchfork)
• Kinnie Starr has a new record coming out in February 2010
• Kim Barlow announced her summer tour dates (and autumn plans) (hat tip: NxEW)
• Court Lajoie’s new album will be released August 15

(edited to add a link)

The latest episode of R3TV features Jenn Grant interviewing a wide variety of people (and a dog) with varying degrees of awkwardness.  It is awesome and you should go watch it.

The R3-30 last week (that is, chart 145), had two songs by women, thirteen by mixed groups, and fifteen by men.*  The top half of the Neilsen SoundScan Hits Chart had thirteen songs by women, six by mixed groups, and thirty-one by men.**  The top half of the Billboard Hot 100 had fourteen songs by women, six by mixed groups, and thirty by men.

And so, here are the histories to date:

R3-30

Billboard

Neilsen

* Just so you know, I think I may have been counting one of the artists on the R3-30 in the wrong category for several weeks.  I will check this and fix it, if necessary, by next week’s update.  So this count may be off by one.

** The artist who wasn’t listed last week is female, so last week’s count is now fifteen songs by women, five by mixed groups, and thirty by men.

I know I’ve been neglecting Ladysound recently, but that is going to change.  June was an unexpectedly hectic month, but July looks likely to be much less hectic, so I’ll be posting more.  Things to expect in the near future:

1. The weekly Ladies On The Charts update will be up later tonight.
2. Sometime tomorrow, I will post a round-up of things I wish I’d had time to post on this last week.
3. I will be announcing a contest (no, not the logo design one) as soon as I figure out what the prize will be.

Possibly not the most exciting announcements ever, but hey, now you know.  Increased posting starting this weekend.

Here’s a variety of things that I  haven’t gotten around to posting about:

• char2d2’s small vampires ep was released Tuesday and is currently Maple Music’s top seller.  Also, char2d2 has put up several cool videos.
• Church of Girl has announced their radio stars for June.  Congratulations to Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs and Kristi Rae.
• MEN is starting the North American leg of their tour.
• The Donnas are releasing a compilation to celebrate their sixteenth anniversary as a band. (hat tip: Aversion)
• Jenn Grant was interviewed on from CKCU 93.1FM in Ottawa (hat tip: NxEW)

Here it is, the first regular update with all three charts!

On the R3-30 this past week, there was one song by a woman, as well as thirteen songs by mixed groups and sixteen by men.  The top 50 of the Billboard Hot 100 had fourteen songs by women, six by mixed groups, and thirty by men.  And on the top 50 of the Neilsen Canada SoundScan Hits Chart, there were fourteen songs by women, five by mixed groups, thirty by men, and one that they apparently forgot to post.

Here are the individual graphs for each chart:

And here are the histories:

R3-30

Billboard

Neilsen

This isn’t exactly a new album, but I just learned that it’s available for free download, so what better time to review it?  (You have to answer a quiz to download it, but it’s easier than it looks.)

Donita Sparks was one of the guitar players in L7, an all-female grunge band.  Transmiticate is her first solo album.  There’s no shortage of steady beats and crunchy guitar, but the overall sound is slightly mellow (at least compared to L7).  The vocals are what pull each track together: simple-yet-interesting, and totally solid.  The lyrics are a teensy bit cryptic, in that great way that doesn’t hit you until the song finishes and you realise that you aren’t quite sure what it was about.  A high point is My Skin’s Too Thin, a catchy little relationship song that, unlike most relationship songs, is neither cloyingly sweet nor about a breakup.  You should totally give this a listen.

(If you’d like to hear another review, try this one on NPR)

Last week on the top 50 of the Billboard Hot 100, there were thirteen songs by women, six by mixed groups, and thirty-one by men.

This is only a slight change from last week’s twelve songs by women, seven by mixed groups, and thirty-one by men.

Remember: starting next week, the Ladies On The Charts updates will be once a week, with all three charts in the same update.  This will probably happen on Thursdays.

These are getting to be a bit much, so after tomorrow’s update, they’ll be replaced with a once-weekly update that will include all three charts.  Probably on Thursdays.

Since the Nielsen-posting folks didn’t post it correctly last week, I got last week’s chart through this week’s last-week’s-position numbers (they post the top 100, and none of last week’s top 50 fell out of the top 100, so this worked).  Last week’s numbers, then, were fifteen songs by women, six by mixed groups, and twenty-nine by men.

And this week had sixteen by women, five by mixed groups, and twenty-nine by men.

Here’s the history with the past two weeks added.