Graham A

Actually the reason for the chart being issued a Tuesday is because they used an old system which including posting diary's to the chart compiler. Record shops would post the sales information to the chart compiler and it wasn't sorted out and checked till Tuesday. But it was for the whole week Sunday to Saturday as it is now. These days it is ready for use sometime before 4pm Sunday. I doubt that it could be issued at lunchtime Friday for an afternoon chart, as it would need checking and the returns would not start coming in till midnight Thursday to Millward Brown. Without checking errors would be common. Apparently they once had packets of KP Salted Peanuts top of the chart! Before somebody noticed it!! Moving the chart issue date will not bring back Top of The Pops. With the scandal around it still coming up the BBC management will not want it every week at least until the scandals has died down. I can't see Radio One moving the chart show to Friday. It's a big club day that, why mess with it? They could move it to Saturday after 9pm, by lunch the number one would be announced, many of the MTV stations broadcast the top 40 Saturday. Lots of ILR stations used to broadcast their top 40's at that time, so it's tried and tested. It would give the opportunity for the BBC TV to do some kind of Saturday chart show too, perhaps a live link up with Radio One? All this fuss though. All because the OCC sucks up to the record industry! And the argument about stopping illegal downloading is just bullshit....

The reason many records have passed over the million mark since they were first released is that they were made available to purchase by the introduction of the download. Prior to that the record company had deleted the track as it was too expensive to keep it in circulation. The problem with streaming is that some of the streaming costs are paid for by advertisements. People have to buy a download or a CD etc. They don't have to pay for a streamed record. Since some users of streaming sites don't pay a fee to the site to use it. Instead they have to listen to adverts. This means that a site might cater for advertisers over the artists they pay money too. It follows too that a link could develop between artists who makes records that suit certain large funders of advertisers on streaming sites. Many acts themselves have links with commercial companies. It wouldn't take much for a very commercial track, linked with a particular product, to soon became a big seller or should I say most listened to record. Though I don't like streaming being included in charts at all. If it has to be done, plus while people still purchase records, then it should be done on the basis that a person pays for the streaming service and not by proxy through adverts. This should certainly apply to the million seller, plus a unit added should be at the cost of the average price of a download. Not on the royalty figure!

I'm not predicting anything for the future. It's you that's doing that. Even in that you say "there is no need to carry hard drives around with you and pay £1 for each song when you can get it easier and cheaper via streaming" but as I said this MIGHT not follow on. A new technology could interfere with the process or there could be a sociological change which has nothing to do with the music industry that changes how music is listened to or performed. As an historian I can show you how the development of education for all as affected the world since many countries increased the school leaving age past 12. Indeed this process created the teenager who listens to popular music. However like many things the education of people aged between 12 and 16 and beyond has also increased some nasty side effects on the population. Most of these were present in the past, but never in large numbers and the process is still continuing. The recent increase of the school leaving age to 18 in the UK will play out in the years to come having more nasty side effects and a just few positive ones. Unfortunately at the moment few people believe that education for people aged 12 to 18 is actually attacking the societies we live in. Quite the reverse actually with huge amounts of cash being thrown at the problem to make education solve the problems that it is actually creating. One of these side-effects might be to make certain young people believe that the music they like is being damaged by the companies that offer streaming. This view can be right or wrong, as it simply doesn't matter if those that believe it to be true think that way. Streaming would then go out of the window like the 78 record. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying this will happen as you can't tell what movements education will create. But it has done in the past, from punk to mod to dance. It created the gay scene too and loads of other movements too. But makes no bones about it sending kids to school past the age of 12 is what started them all. If you want to know more about the both positive and negative effects of the Education Culture just search Google for Reflected People by Graham Appleyard and you will find my blog. As for you first question a sale is a sale - streaming is simply Radio airplay without the radio and presenter to choose the records. Radio Airplay is not allowed in the UK chart even though many millions are listening to the record. Of course they might not like the record they are listening to, but since a 30 seconds of play on streaming site counts to the chart then it's possible that someone listens to a record for even longer than that and still doesn't like the record. So it cancels it out any argument not to exclude Airplay. Not that I would want that in the chart either! In any case the sales chart was never about what was popular it just had that effect. Small fan bases could push a record into the chart on sales of the record that wasn't seen as cool or popular. The streaming chart doesn't actually do this. It could if it wasn't restrained from doing so by the rules imposed by the OCC. In fact the rules themselves actually stop it from being popular. Streaming has also slowed down the records entering the charts. Though new ones that are being streamed only is simply down to the record companies in the UK not releasing the said records. Though downloads did slow down the charts too. That was largely down to the restrictive practices of the record companies and the monopoly of Apple that prevented lots of download sites appearing. For example it took ages to get shut of DRM management and the transition to MP3 by download sites. Yet even now the number of download sites is small and the pricing thus fixed at a price way above what it costs to pay for an album. If you download ten tracks individually for example, it costs a lot more to do so then if those tracks were on an album.

I don't think I made my point clear enough. If the streaming is the future you make the main chart the - entire chart - streaming. You leave the sales chart as a sales chart. People once said the vinyl record sales were dead, but we know they are now picking up sales. So don't fall for the hype that sales charts are dying. They might be being murdered, but they are not dead yet. There are lots of things that could affect the future of streaming. You saying it is the future is not a given thing. All it shows that you along with lots of other people have a bad view of history and therefore the future. You only have to look at movie predictions of the future to see how wrong things can get if you follow your line of thinking. For example the airwaves should be full of private aircraft, or cars powered by fusion flying around the sky. Oh and in 2005 if you said that the download will be the future and it's how people will consume music for years to come. You can see your argument about streaming being the future as insane too. More young people watch YouTube than stream records. That's not included in the UK chart, because YouTube is competition to the BBC services and the BBC (who fund the chart) won't allow it. It's another example how something can be stopped by something completely alien to it.

Streaming should not have been introduced to the sales chart. It's a sales chart not what people listen to. If the sales chart doesn't reflect what music people are enjoying then you simply switch to streaming totally. Then leave the sales chart to die a slow death, even to those with a small fanbase. Predictions based on figures from the present however don't have much bases in fact. The future is very difficult to predict. Many people have been caught out in the past on all sorts of issues, because they base future predictions on current knowledge. To give some examples. You might recall a prediction about 1999. Back in the early 1980's a TV presenter tried to work out what the world would be like in 1999. He used an astrological computer to get information, as the original prediction about 1999 was based on Astrology. It came up with a bad disease spreading around the world centred on Africa. The conclusion at the time was due to the cold war and germ warfare. That is the kind of thing you get working with statistics and the straight line approach that many people have from modern education about future events. In reality the computer simply predicted AIDS as nobody ever thought that the cold war could end like it did. This is not an isolated thing; back in the 1st Century an astrological event was predicted as a birth of a King. Because that's what they thought at that time. Instead it was the birth of the Christen religion. Alternatives to your view that streaming will continue to grow could depend on technological changes, musicians attitudes to how they get paid and loads of other factors. The main reason that streaming was introduced to the chart was to stop the BBC Radio One top 40 looking like the iTunes chart for the week. The BBC not liking a chart that looked like a commercial company and being one of the main funders of the said chart. Popularity had little to do with such actions. A more popular chart would have included the views from the video sites such as YouTube, but the BBC would have objected to them being included. If a song is only bought by a 10,000 strong fanbase then it would not join the million seller lists for the most popular records in the UK. And the million seller list would remain static. But there is nothing wrong with the list remaining static. However there is something wrong with adding a record that has been listened to a million times. For as I say the people only have to listen for a short period of time and you can do that if some site offers a preview of the top 40 records each week. With loads of people going down the top records, play 30 seconds of each record and occasionally playing in full the ones they like. If 10,000 people do that, you will have million sellers in a few weeks especially if the records hang around the top 40 like they do now. Because every top 40 record counted not the ones that people just played in full. You only have to look at the ridicules figures for streams of records that show in the current charts to see that counting them towards the million sellers list is stupid. Then you have to take into account that people listening to these records in some case have not even forked out any cash at all to do so. In which case the record's revenue (taken into account to qualify for the chart) has come from adverts from the likes of Cola companies. None of the previous records that have made the million sellers got there from commercial firms adverts, at least not directly. The whole idea of popular music is to listen to it. That's why people make it. They don't want it to be forgot about next day. Just because for the first time in history we can actually count the people listening to the music doesn't mean they should add that to those where the public of the past spent a great deal of money buying the records that they wanted to listen to.

It's stupid to count them for weekly sales too! Streaming is a listen to track which nobody owns. People listen to the million sellers all the time from the past. But those listened to where not recorded. What makes it worse for streaming is that you don't even have to listen to all the track, so the contribution could be to sales could be just a casual person listening to the song because it's popular, then finding out they don't like it! However if you fork out money for a record you probably do like it, hence why in the past people bought records in huge numbers and the term "a million seller" was born. It stood out from the rest of the records that were on sale and was a special achievement. However does this still apply to a million seller? The status of the million seller has been somewhat downgraded in the past few years since downloads came along. Since downloads are cheaper than the records prior to the introduction of the format. So a record that sold 1 million copies precisely. In the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's made more money than a download record selling the same. Also before downloads, records were deleted so a record selling a huge amount couldn't stay in the shops long and often the record company restricted sending copies out of the big sellers to open up the market for new tracks. This changed with the download market and records now continue to sell. This means that over a long time even a modest selling record in the day can still have the tag "million seller" applied to it. However streaming is even worse for paying out and so a 1 million stream of even allowed streams is as low or lower than the download, so the status of the term "million seller" become pointless.

It would be easy for a new record to get the top spot over X-Factor, it would just need a slot on a TV show that would have as big ratings as that show. If it wasn't for Simon Cowell using the Mark Ronson track that wouldn't have been out at all. So there's the other problem. If nobody with a decent single even wants to release it Christmas week then how can a decent record make it. I thought the Rage campaign would have least convinced some of the artists that the public want to see a record at the top that isn't X-Factor. But it seems they are spineless on this. Perhaps because Simon's connection with Sony blocks them doing anything. Now if Adele had released a new record that week, Ben would have had no chance! Simon was very clever this year. He picked a track that hadn't been near the chart, so it was nearly to most people a new record. I think that's the shows problem it should have a new record written for the winning act, instead of the cover versions of sugar tripe that most of them sing. It would get less people saying not another year spoiled by X-Factor!

It's been aired on all the major forums about Dave's departure from this world, so if he has gone to Australia that news to me! You would have thought that he would have been contacted by now to say that people are saying you have died. I do live in hope that he will surface on one forum and say "the rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated".

I have some of the charts taken from the Superpop and Number One magazine on my blog site: MRIB Charts Dave Taylor is believed to have died in April of this year.

Spotted a spelling mistake on the 94 hit of Grace Jones - Slave not Slade. Query on two possible missing acts? 1: JUSTIFIED ANCIENTS OF MU MU 2 Catherine Zeta JONES. Of course "Zeta" might be part of her surname, but I think it sounds more like a Christian name than Surname, though I could be wrong.

Great work. Some extra information for the JALN Band. JALN stands for Just Another Lonely Night. They were the brain child of Pete Waterman.

Since the original version was released on a format that everyone could buy and then buy again and again, whereas now you can't really do that - then no a new version won't outsell the old. A fact that Mr Geldof seems to be unaware of by going on X-Factor last night and appealing for people (who have download it) to rebuy it and buy one for your friends etc. In the digital age the Main sites operate a cloud system and lock you out from buying the track again. Deleting the track doesn't make any difference. You can download the track from the cloud and you don't pay for it again after the first 99p. I would be surprised if the system was changed just for the sake of allowing people to buy another track of Band Aid 30. You could imagine lots of artists asking for that to happen so they could make more money! The Supermarkets might help add to the total sales, but only when the CD is out. How many people are going to buy the CD? When Geldof dies people will buy the Boomtown Rats tracks. If he dies near Christmas then some facebook people will campaign for the Original song to be top that year. If it makes it to the top depends on how the public will react to his death.

Frank Ifield was born in Coventry. In 1965 he made a film called Up Jumped A Swagman. He plays an Australian singer who moves to London to get his big break. This might be why he is seen as being from down under. He sang I Remember You in the movie too. It was his only film. It is on DVD.

A comment from a customer of Amazon... "From what we've seen from iTunes it's gone bonkers," Bob Geldorf told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Monday. "Within four or five minutes we had a million quid." Yet on Amazon Music at 9:30am - an hour and a half after the release - a search for "Band Aid" showed nothing. I At 2 pm It was nowhere in the top 100 songs or albums (updated hourly) nor did it appear on the New & Future Releases. About 2:30 pm if you search for "BandAid30" you can pre-order the CD. And if you search for "do they know its christmas" it will finally suggest an alternative search for do they know its christmas 2014". Why are you hiding it? Why don't you give ALL the revenue from sales of the song to the charity? Is it because you don't like the trite lyrics or some fit of pique that iTunes are getting this free publicity? Come on there are thousands of people dying out in West Africa and they need every bit of help. However Amazon must have taken notice and corrected the error and so the record now sits on top of the Amazon chart!

Amazon are NOT displaying the Band Aid 30 track in the top 100 bestsellers nor the new release section of the site. It is present but only if you search for Band Aid 30. A customer has already asked why the record is not on display. I suspect that Bob mouthing off about iTunes and giving them all the 99p has upset the boss of Amazon.

I can't see it making the Christmas Number one now. Apart from the fact it's crap they have released it far too early. There's stacks of records that will come out in the 3 weeks before Christmas, that could easily shift more copies than this. It's alright Geldof saying buy several copies, but if you want to do that you will have to buy the CD's. As once you have purchased a download from the same store you can't buy it again.

The Jasper book had some flaws in it! He was a vicar and he use to present a rock show on Radio Hallam called Celebration Rock! Playing the likes of Iron Maiden :D You can see the Network Charts on my blog site, PDF files of Number One Magazine, all free! http://therealchart.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06...100-charts.html

I never did write out the BBC chart as you could get them in a music paper such as Record Mirror. Now you can print them off from this website: http://www.worldcharts.co.uk/worldcharts/uk.htm I wish I had written down the local radio charts as you can't get hold of these at all.

The BHS was always an expensive book, but I think the main reason for it's decline was due to the fact that they messed around with the layout too much. For example re-entries were not listed etc. The chart fans like myself like that kind of data. Also a lot of people would only be interested in their teenage years. For a great deal of the population these were the 60's, 70's, 80's and to some extant the 90's. Once these decades were covered, many of the baby boom generation had all the information they needed. So they didn't need to buy another book. Many of the artists who had had hits in these decades, had stopped having hits after 2000. So there was little need to buy another of these expensive books. The BBC chart show is no longer relevant, most insiders now quote the iTunes chart for record placements. Some years ago lots of people were on forums complaining about the quality of the presentation of the chart show. They didn't like the fact presenters regularly got facts wrong, but also the lack of information that was given about the track, chart stuff etc. I suppose it might have it's moment in the limelight again. Like when Facebook people stopped the X-Factor record from going to the top. But the chart now is so manipulated, especially by the use of streaming, to stop a public takeover again.

Capitol Radio was doing top 40 charts in the middle 1970's, long before Radio One. By 1980 my own Station Radio Hallam was doing a top 50 chart based on local sales from 2pm on a Sunday running till 6pm. It was far les restrictive about the records played. I have a recording of Rhoda and The Specials The Boiler which features the sound of woman being raped! It lasts 5.24 minutes, recorded from the top 50.

Probably because Radio Luxembourg moved its "chart show" early on. The old Pick of the Pops was broadcast at 11pm, which also tied in with the Luxembourg show. The BBC have always been slow at coming forwards. They needed a kick up the pants every now and then and the Commercial Radio did just that. The BBC didn't like the idea of the top 40 for one thing, which was too American for them. Pick of The Pops also didn't actually run down the chart like today. It selected records to be played. Thus avoiding any records that were restricted in the playing of. By the late 70's the show was broadcasting the top twenty only. The main reason for this is that the top twenty was the only bit that the BBC could be certain it wasn't fiddle by the Record Industry. Though many times it was. Most commercial Radio Stations by this time were broadcasting local top 40's. They didn't care if records were fiddled. Radio One's chart was also out of date by the time of broadcast, has it had been published by Tuesday the week prior to the Sunday. They got around this by using the week ending date, which makes the chart look up to date even during the week when it's printed. The ILR stations got together to broadcast a top 30 at the same time as the out of date chart on Radio One. Radio One responded by playing selected records from the top 40, with the top 20 in full. Eventually they got rid of the news slot at 4.30 and broadcast the full chart. The BBC never considered broadcasting the full top 75. In fact DJ's were told not to even mention records outside the top 40. Years later the BBC switched to an up-to-date chart, broadcasting just after it was published. However Top Of The Pops then became the one broadcasting an out of date chart, so it killed off the show. The chart shows became so popular that TV broadcasters cleared the schedules for the Sunday spot, putting on religious shows instead. The broadcasters gave this slot the nickname of the "God Spot". But ITV realised they could put some decent shows on at this time and the God Spot vanished from the ITV channels. It stayed on the BBC, due to it's charter and restrictions.

Amazon can still make a top 100 chart out of them which seems pretty much active each week! Amazon CD bestsellers Lots of current singles in the chart!

The Association - Windy from 1967 - briefly made the breakers chart. Ozark Mountain Daredevils - Jackie Blue - US number one! 1974 Lulu - To sir with love 1967 The Osmonds - One Bad Apple 1971 - how was that not a UK hit with the cartoon series they had! Paul McCartney - Uncle Albert Sammy Davis Jnr - Candy Man - song from the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie, though not sung by him in the film. Harry Chapin - Cats in the cradle 1974, but the song was a hit later on for a group. Executive Suite - When The Fuel Runs out - Featured on a K-Tel album from 1974 - when the fuel crisis was on! Cherly Lynn - To Be Real - classic disco from 1979.

My Edition of the 7th Edition Guinness book, lists the only hit they had as an "early recording by the Sex Pistols". However later editions remove any reference or link with the Sex Pistols. I have to agree with the EMERSON LAKE & PALMER being listed separate. Adding references to Greg Lake and Robert Palmer. Enigma's Ain't No Stopping... Is listed sometimes as "Disco Mix 81". Exploited's third hit credits as Exploited and Anti-Pasti.

Great stuff again. Just one alphabetical question. This entry: KEN DOH British male production duo - Steve Burgess & Michael Devlin Sounds like a "group" name to me and should be in the K section don't you think? Also isn't Anita Dobson married to Brian May of Queen? Could be worth a mention...