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Graham A

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Everything posted by Graham A

  1. The only reason why these fake versions are ever even issued is due to the fact that the UK waits for a record to build up airplay on the Radio before releasing a track. These fakes kill the sales of the original version when it is released. They only get away with it because the EU Law allows them to make cover versions. It states that if the original version is officially released in just one of the member countries than they are free to issue these covers. Since most other member countries use the system whereby a new record on the Radio is on sale, they are not plagued by these cover version. However the record companies in the UK got bitten hard with On Air On Sale, when some artists released records using this method and because they entered low having no airplay, where deemed flops by the big radio stations and therefore not given airplay. So the principal was dropped. In practice it only needs adjusting so that records such as those clearly going to big hits, such as those released in the USA and other places (but mostly the USA) go straight to OAOS and the rest get airplay. Let's also be clear that a fake version is a cover, simply to make money using session musicians, who probably record several different versions of the same song under different names. These names are also made to be found quickly by a search engine from someone looking for the original artist. They are often purchased by people thinking it is the original artist and is made to sound like it is especially for the sample player used by sales sites. It should be pointed out the money made from these is big, sufficient to cover the registration fee for the OCC inclusion in the charts, which is why they chart in the OCC chart now and didn't a few years ago. The company(s) that made them quickly caught on to the fact paying the fee for the chart was worth it. So registered the tracks. I believe that some companies give different names for the same track for both iTunes and Amazon. So on iTunes the same singers will be called one thing and on Amazon another. This can mean sometimes they chalk up two purchases for the same record.
  2. Shouldn't this act come under "L" section? LAZY B Danish musical "project" of Søren Nystrøm Rasted, formerly of Aqua 26 Aug 06 Underwear Goes Inside The Pants 30 4 wks Total Hits : 1 Total Weeks : 4
  3. Graham A posted a post in a topic in UK Charts
    Then it was probably a working practice that had continued since the days when the BMRB was doing the chart. The BBC was full of these for many years. The BBC could have in fact broadcast the chart on Sunday, it didn't see the need, since it gave TOTP the first opportunity to broadcast the new top 30 on Thursday. By the 1980's Radio One had lost much of it's audience to ILR, plus was still on the AM band, when most people chose to listen to stereo radio. The Tuesday run-down was just a DJ giving out the chart positions for about 5 minutes. Blink and you would miss it! So most people found out what was doing well from TOTP. This all changed with the introduction of the Network Chart. With the BBC playing a week old chart on Sunday, the public got bored. So the BBC had to scrap old rules and get the chart broadcast after it came out. The BBC had the Tory party dangling the wee will cut off the licence fee and privatise Radio One if it lost too much audience. So that was another pressure. It's simply the case that the BBC had to be dragged kicking and screaming forward, most often by ILR and ITV, to do what they should have been doing long ago. You have to remember that the BBC powers that be didn't like pop music and thought the charts were a "commercial" for record company products. This is why the run down was restricted to a voice over and not playing any records. DJ's were told also not to mention the chart positions of records not in the 30 or 40 depending on what part of the chart was to be aired by the station. Oddly it was this attitude of the BBC elite that has put them in deep water over the Savile case, because they didn't care if degenerates were in charge of pop stations or presenting TV shows, just as long as News and Current affairs programs were of the highest standards. The switch over to the Sunday Chart did however mean that TOTP was broadcasting the old chart, so it lost an advantage that it never recovered from.
  4. Graham A posted a post in a topic in UK Charts
    The actual answer is to do with printing. The chart was ready for Sunday which means that Radio One could broadcast it for then. Published for Tuesday means that "copy" as they call it in the print trade would be ready for Tuesday. This means that if there was a bank holiday on Monday that the "copy" could not arrive on time (to prepared for the press) and therefore the page would not be ready to go to the printers. PS I should say that the "copy" would be a typed up copy of the chart. This would have to be then typeset to make the page.
  5. This is the show details that I have for the first TOTP: TOTP 1964 1-1-64: Presenters: Jimmy Savile & Alan Freeman (13) THE ROLLING STONES – I Wanna Be Your Man (NEW) CLIFF RICHARD & THE SHADOWS – Wishing Well (film) (12) CLIFF RICHARD & THE SHADOWS – Don’t Talk To Him (film) (21) THE HOLLIES – Stay (6) GENE PITNEY – 24 Hours From Tulsa (crowd dancing) (5) DUSTY SPRINGFIELD – I Only Want To Be With You (4) FREDDIE & THE DREAMERS – You Were Made For Me (10) SWINGING BLUE JEANS – Hippy Hippy Shake (3) THE BEATLES – She Loves You (and charts) (2) DAVE CLARK FIVE – Glad All Over (1) THE BEATLES – I Want To Hold Your Hand (film)
  6. Graham A posted a post in a topic in UK Charts
    I remember Bruno Brookes saying that the rundown (coming direct from Gallup HQ) often only just reached them before the show went on air. It was remarked several times that it nearly didn't get to them for the start of the show. As for the use of the computers in the late 1980's it was very expensive for any company to train staff in the use of a BBC Micro. At the time I was wanting to use them for DTP work. They were slow and very poor at doing a simple task. Later on Amstrad brought out the desktop PC, but apart from some spreadsheet software and Word Processor, there was little else even these could do till the software companies caught up. I should also point out that most people had no knowledge of computers at all. And unless you were a secretary certainly didn't know how to use a keyboard. Plus if you wanted to do a training course in how to use a keyboard at say a local college, you would be taught on an old typewriter, still using an old ribbon and using a piece of carbon paper to make copies. That's how backwards the UK was in the 80's. It wasn't till the PC became linked with selling things and the use of the bar code to identify the product could the chart be computerised in the way it was. For example most of the big supermarkets could have told you how many cans of beans they had sold, but not an individual record. This was because they classed anything not food as "none food stock".
  7. With the exception for Boney M, the BMRB chart had a quirk of removing records that were falling off in sales. This was done deliberately by BMRB itself. This practice was certainly done in the 1976 and 1977 charts, so it might have still been occurring in 1979. The Christmas records do tend not be purchased after the event. But back then shops would have stopped ordering copies quickly, so a big seller would soon dry up.
  8. Frank Oz sang the title!
  9. They had to up their gain after Hot Gossip made them look like Pan's Grannies!
  10. Who would have thought it? The official charts are compiled by the Only Way is Essex! :rofl:
  11. Graham A posted a post in a topic in UK Charts
    There's nothing to stop anyone burning an MP3 album to a CD. Most laptops and computers can do that. I bet the market for blank CDR is not falling.
  12. Graham A posted a post in a topic in UK Charts
    Ah! But can you prove that happens, where's the evidence? Especially when you consider that most Radio Stations will concentrate on the top 40 records, plus play things that that they know will be hits, such as those released in the USA or acts with a track record. I myself use to use streaming services that are free, but found that the content would "drop" out. I used them to record the tracks, but it was mainly old material that I didn't want to pay 99p for. I gave up in the end since you had to name the files add the material and get the album cover. Otherwise Windows Media Player and the ipod just show a musical note. Plus if you have an "official" track in the same folder then all the other tracks carry the same picture. So if you have say a David Essex album track in with your Spotify songs, then they all show David Essex even if they are Lily Allen songs. And trying to change them is a nightmare.
  13. Graham A posted a post in a topic in UK Charts
    Exactly! ;) Illegal downloaders haven't just started in the last year. They might have effected the odd album, such as the overpriced iTunes exclusive of Beyoncé's, but they haven't grown in numbers. Indeed with restrictions by internet providers they might be less of them around in the UK at least. Streaming is probably killing the Radio audience, I'm not convinced it's effecting the download market in the UK. Can you even stream to an ipod?
  14. Graham A posted a post in a topic in UK Charts
    Last week on Amazon I download £16 worth of individual tracks! Downloading an album is much cheaper, if they are only £10. But the problem is like many people I don't want to download or buy tracks that A: I don't want. And B: that I already have. Single track downloaders are tempted to download by reducing the price, mostly down to 59p. But many sites charge 99p for tracks and that's a rip off. The whole concept is still based on the album. Even the MP3 single track is presented as an album. Record companies are not going to give up on the album. If the shops won't sell them, I can see the record companies doing so. It's always baffles me why Record Companies need places like iTunes to sell them? Why don't they just bypass the middleman and sell them direct. Taking iTunes profit. Your not telling me a big company like Universal can't afford the technology to get a website and sell them? I would also dispute that the digital format increased last year. As for the CD it will probably make a comeback. But not anytime soon.
  15. People call me nuts for doing the Real Chart :rolleyes: It all falls apart this idea on the basis you can get people to agree on things. And you will get any experts to agree on anything. The NME charts for example are just the sheets of paper you see in each issue. There's no-way to tell if it was more accurate than one put out by any paper. Since methods of doing them and even the days it was done are different for each publication. I doubt if there are even the calculations used to compile a chart from the 1960's even for the Record Retailer. So you can't "crunch numbers". You can't get an accurate chart from combining several charts together. All you can do is get the people who compile chart books to include the NME charts from the present cut off point to the introduction of the BMRB chart in 1969. I should point out that when the 1969 chart came about, the NME refused to take part in it. So it was largely NME's fault that it took so long to get a full national chart. They were part of the negotiations for new charts of 1969. Sadly they couldn't agree on things, which bodes well for The Historically True UK Chart Canon Company. People have some wonderful ideas, but getting bodies and experts to agree is a nightmare. You could finish up with two sets of charts, that still nobody likes, as different factions pull out of THTUKCCC and slag it off! You only have to look at the NHS formation and the battle they had with doctors. Now most doctors are it's biggest defender! If you want the accurate list of 50's and 60's number ones you know where to go ;)
  16. Everyone will tell you that I'm not a fan of the OCC. I can say however that they inherited the situation in regards the use of the 1969 charts. The OCC wasn't set up till after the first Guinness books came out. In a way OCC canon was set up by Finchingfield's "chart historians/experts/critics" in the form of Jo & Tim Rice, Paul Gambaccini and Mike Read. It was they that decided to use the Record Retailor chart instead of the NME chart, simply because it was bigger than the top 30 of NME. A problem that they clearly had to address in later editions, after much criticism was levelled at them over not using the NME chart. There are lots of these chart books out there, so dropping the RR charts wouldn't solve the problem. Thankfully the NME charts are now published too. It would also be nice to have a book that listed both the official and NME lists together in one volume. But sadly that book would be expensive to make these days and wouldn't have a good market for it. Exclusion from the Canon of the pre 1952 charts I can well understand, seeing they are not based on what shops and record sellers sold. The OCC being made up by Record Sellers (in part) themselves.
  17. The re-entries thing was a problem for BHS due to the increasing size of the printed edition. However with an online edition space is not such a problem. There is no need to combine the entries. Each entry could be listed as a separate entry, assuming that you have the information. Since you don't list labels, the word "re-entry" could be used, to show it is.
  18. On avoiding it looking like the GBHS. The only thing that strikes me as obvious is adding the dates of birth to the artists. I think it's useful to know the year when an artist has died though. And try and simplify the description. To country of birth. Keep the bits such as a real name, if they are members of other bands/acts who have charted etc. An example of two much like the book and a suggestive alternative: "ABC British male vocal/instrumental group led by Martin Fry, with an ever-changing cast over the years. At their chart debut, other members included Mark Lickley, David Robinson, Stephen Singleton and Mark White). Robinson was replaced by David Palmer in 1981, Singleton left in 1984 being replaced by American Fiona Russell-Powell (known as Eden) and David Yarritu." "ABC British male vocal/instrumental group." Footnote I don't know if any of the members of ABC were members of other groups or had hits on their own. The other aspects of the design have been used in other chart books so I think you are fine on that.
  19. Can't wait for the rest. :funky: However you might want to be careful. You don't want to make it too like the GBHS, otherwise you could get accused of ripping off their work.
  20. Graham A posted a post in a topic in UK Charts
    TOTP doesn't need to be TOTP of the past. And you can do a lot in half and hour say on BBC 2 between 6.30 and 7pm. Bang next to news or local news. The chart could be the midweek, but I wouldn't put much emphasis on it being a chart show. Perhaps with just the number one shown and the odd new entry act at times. I think the main emphasis should be on new UK music, perhaps even acts that have just be signed or have made their own records. For example the likes of Lucy Spraggen before she went on the X-Factor. It could even tie in with the BBC talent thing that the BBC go on about. More about driving the charts rather than reflecting them.
  21. It wasn't that uncommon in the 70's and 80's for records to peak at 41 by being hyped into the chart. The practice was for somebody (not directly employed by the record companies involved) to go to the chart shops and purchase the records. Also if they could, pursued the shop to enter none existent sales into the BMRB diary. The hypers would get it into the chart at say 49 (days of the top 50) then put more effort in which could push to 41, then they killed the hype to see if it would take off. If it slipped back, then they would either give up or try once more. Generally I would say if it reached 41 and stayed 4 weeks in the chart, it was hyped and a flopped attempt. You could say that about any 4 week run that didn't get to close to the top 30, though during the 70's. It's one of the reasons that TOTP only used the top 30 chart. Past 30 and you could be assured of a reasonable amount of real sales. The practice was reported on in 1978 and it was shown that the practice did work, with both the Rah Band and Alessi having top ten hits by being hyped. Several records on the A&M label were reported as being hyped and in the list is a Peter Frampton record from 1977, who was on that label and fits in with the reported case from 1978. Before 1969 hyped records could get all over the charts. The practice of buying records into the chart became too expensive as the number of records stores expanded in the 90's.
  22. Graham A posted a post in a topic in UK Charts
    They flopped because there's no weekly TOTP to show them. iTunes buyers are too interested in the latest USA hits to buy Boyzone or Blunt. It's all a question of who the BBC can get for the money. Plus who's too busy when the show is recorded or doesn't want to do it. If TOTP was weekly it would have a backlog of material to show on the X-mas shows. More artists would probably be interested in doing the show, to promote their records. Both Blunt and Boyzone will have found memories of doing the show so will want to come on. But why should acts who never appeared before want to do the show? Just to sing something that has been a hit! Just for the money I suspect.
  23. Graham A posted a post in a topic in UK Charts
    I think if your not really a radio listener and just watch a lot of TV, then you would be saying about a lot of those big hits featured on TOTP: "who are they and what are they singing". That's how badly chart music does on national TV these days.
  24. The obvious answer is that the biggest dealer who was the main stockist for Brunswick would be ordering a lot of stock. The biggest dealer this would apply to is Woolworth's. As a matter of fact though my late uncle did buy some of the records featured in the book, he had kept them in the original sleeves and wrote the title on them, so I know that he bought them from the same store. That store wasn't Woolworth's but an Independent shop. The sleeve advertises the products sold, including all the major labels. So clearly there were stores that were supplied with a full range of various label products. I too have read that it was practice - for instance EMI records, could be only sold at places like HMV shops. Or if the shop wanted to stock EMI records they had to become a "dealer" for the label. And that the shop couldn't stock other labels. It's a bit like Car Dealers in that respect, you could only buy a Ford at a Ford Dealer. It also wasn't common practice to browse for records in a lot of shops. You had to ask for the record. So if you went into an HMV shop and asked for a song by Bing Crosby, the dealer could say we don't have it, but we do have the Frank Sinatra version. If you went in and ask for just the title you would get the EMI label version of the song, maybe which was most popular. But probably the version that the shop couldn't get shut off. One of the problems of using shipping figures is that it doesn't take into account the fact the public might be buying it faster than the record companies can ship it. On the other hand the public might ignore a record that is sat in boxes gathering dust on dealers shelves, which is top of the distribution list. With low sales figures of this time a number one record might shift 40,000 in total, in the shops, but seen as only reaching number 20 in this book. Whereas a number one record in the book might only reach number 10 in the Shop Chart, if one was available at the time. I think this might explain one of the reasons why too many copies sometimes go out to the stores using a Bing Crosby record as an example. Personally I would dispute that the Bing Crosby White Christmas was number one nearly every year after it's first release, in terms of actual sales by the shops themselves. I would put most of these figures in the book down to mangers ordering too many copies of the record for Christmas. If you look at the first chart of the year after Christmas, White Christmas drops out of the top 30 completely, as orders ceased.
  25. It might interest members to note the reason that Colin Brown stopped these charts in 1952 was because of the emergence of Rock and Roll. Colin hated that style of music. Somebody also told me that Colin had said that NME chart (after his) was made up rubbish, compiled by the women in the office of NME. I have also found that some of the Brunswick records (who marked records A and B sides) in this book quote the B side and not the A. This might apply to other record labels, but since they often don't show which is the A side it will be harder to spot. If you look at the new entries in the book they also come at the start of each month. I have been told that it was the practice to release all records at the start of the month. However Record Information Services imply that it is not as simple as that. With actual release dates being very hard to pin down. I'm still not clear when the monthly release ended. I believe Record Retailer had weekly issues for records when it started in 1960. Certainly by 1962-63 weekly release sheets for Record Shops had replaced the monthly ones. However I find it hard to believe that by 1955, records including the new 45's, where only issued at the start of each month. Especially with the weekly charts becoming more popular than the Sheet Music Charts.