The Hit Parade

To be exact, tracks on all formats of 'Books' are 'Wrapped Up In Books' and 'Your Cover's Blown' - see what they've done there? CD and DVD formats have two additional tracks. Speaking of B&S, the '3..6..9' EP has an unlisted hidden track but I don't know if you want to mention that. Isobel Campbell has also appeared in the album charts as part of a duo with Mark Lanegan.

It was definitely there on Monday when Vidcapper sent me the link (the upload date was 14th Feb) but it's now been "removed by the user" {for reference it was at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWq9A0wU1cU }

I was going to say Depeche Mode was a double A-side, but 'Lillian' was on a different single. Can't say I noticed at the time, admittedly. I did notice the Elvis one though. I presume that was a pure mistake, as 'My Baby Left me' was an unofficial release and probably wasn't sent to them. Also, when 'Liquid Lives' by Hadouken! became their only T40 hit, they played 'That Boy That Girl' by mistake. Another obvious one: 'Smack My [female dog] Up' by the Prodigy - they played an instrumental B-side instead. And 'The Big Man Meets The Scream Team And The Barmy Army Uptown' by Primal Scream et al was only played in an instrumental version.

Yeah, I've got a bit of a backlog of comments to add to the last couple of parts but nothing too major TBH, this is all very impressive. Quick question though - is there a policy about death dates for group members? I notice that Adam Yauch has one but John Lennon hasn't, for instance.

Actually for a brief period the chart - not the BBC's broadcast of it, but the chart itself - was sponsored by Coca Cola so for a couple of weeks Wes did have to namecheck them at the start of show, in the same way that a sports reporter talking about the Coca-Cola Cup would have to. The BBC had a rethink just in time for right-wing newspapers to blame the nanny state. 'Come Together' by the Beatles was also officially banned because of the Coca Cola reference, though possibly for other content as well. But it was one side of a double A-side so the other side could be played (I presume that was what happened on chart rundowns but it's before my time). By 1995 the Smokin' Mojo Filters version wasn't banned though.

But only the first time it charted (and it wasn't named either). When the live version was a hit in 2004 Wes did play a radio edit of that version, presumably because we'd already had Eamon and Frankee at the top of the chart by then.

I sort of think the opposite actually - I think he's one of those people (like Michael Kiwanuka, say) who make music that's perfectly OK and would sound fine if you just heard it gradually but because he was launched with all this hype you expect to be wowed or at least for there to be something distinctive going on, and there isn't. Whereas say I don't particularly like Jessie J but she's a big, bold attention-grabbing sort of star that will provoke strong opinions.

When JK & Joel first took over it was part of the format not to play new entries below 20 in full, but they gradually changed that because it was so unpopular. R.E.M. were also victims of that policy.

Aw, I was gonna say that. In fact, Oasis even continued to release fourth formats after the format limits were cut to 3, so whatever they were selling on 12" was "wasted" chart-wise. They did quietly start releasing DVD singles in the early 2000s with tracks not on the CD or vinyl versions, though. Anyway, multi-formats are older than that - it was of course 32 years ago last week that the Stranglers were complaining about being beaten to the top by The Jam's 12" sales, and then Frankie Goes To Hollywood and the other ZTT bands started releasing masses of formats. I suppose that's where the four format limit came from. Apparently "Heroes" by David Bowie was released with the same disc in several different sleeves, not that it was much of a hit anyway.

Just to be pedantic, I'm not sure I buy into the concept of this thread entirely - at least, I don't think the next single being less popular makes the deletion look foolish; if the later song was more popular there'd be no need to delete the earlier one surely? And I don't class 'Chasing Cars' as a late deletion anyway - it wasn't deleted until November 2006, five months after release which is pretty late for a physical single in my lifetime - it would certainly have been much later than the physical singles were selling in any significant quantities. All of that said, I'm surprised nobody's mentioned 'You're Beautiful'.

Drake isn't as famous as Lady Gaga, but I'm not sure which I'd call the bigger act in record sales these days.

Yes, but he didn't invent the phrase (and wouldn't get royalties for the title even if he had). The song 'Funky Dory' is so called because it samples Bowie's song 'Andy Warhol' (as in holes) which is from the Hunky Dory album.

The OCC have tweeted You probably could have guessed that by now, but I spoiler-tagged it anyway.

Well, David Bowie might have liked it because he made some money off it. Otherwise yep, I reckon it's pretty much just you.

I haven't even got a television but I've read this thread so I know why the Rihanna song is high. ...Well, I know in the sense that I can see where it's getting promoted. I don't really understand why people are buying a lame album filler because it's being played in the background while some actors pretend to be police officers, but I'm kind of used to it.

I would presume that it's selling about the same amount on both iTunes and Amazon, but is more visible on Amazon due to the lower overall sales as you mentioned. That seems to be the case with most of these social media campaigns. AC/DC was an exception for obvious reasons.

Stephen Duffy is surely the Bowie fan to blame for the track. I did actually listen to 'Radio' last year for the first time in, well, about nine years actually. It's not that bad a song but Robbie himself is even more annoying than usual on it, deliberately singing out of tune. 'Angels' on the other hand is hardly a song that needs more exposure or publicity so I'm hoping this campaign falls flat on its backside.

To be fair, the first three Bloc Party albums only had singles added to them (though the Silent Alarm re-issue also added a DVD) so you could quite reasonably acquire the single alone if you wanted to - to me just adding a single to an existing album isn't quite the same thing. It did mean though that after this had happened three times I didn't buy the fourth album when it came out. And sure enough they did add a whole EP to it, admittedly also available separately.

Very rarely because I don't buy from there. Only occasionally if I have particular reason to check whether something's on there, or when the David Bowie album was streaming on there.

Doesn't that depend on how "Les Sex" is pronounced? ;)

I don't think Rihanna's label would have any direct interest in promoting Calvin Harris, but my theory is that his label would only give permission for him to appear if he were credited because *they* wanted to break him into the US market. I don't think Cheryl has ever been famous anywhere Calvin wasn't.

3rd of March seems to be "Blimey! I didn't realise they were still going" week in albums.

Well, Marcus Collins from X-Factor did have a hit with a White Stripes song. Surely part of the reason the Voice songs seem fresher is that it's a newer show.

I presume however they wanted to do it, they'd have to wait for the shops to install the technology, which would cost money.

Ah, that makes sense now, thanks.