timelord2014

Yep the marketing strategy of releasing CD singles at a discounted rate (99p/£1.99) first week began around 1993 but it was 1995 that it went into overdrive. The 7 week ramble to No.1 became the the '7 days or bust' route to No.1 . I was working in Our Price at the time and each week was a new race between te record companies. Most singles had received several weeks of airplay too. In Week 2, most CD singles went up to a hefty £3.99. The steady climb to No.1 was no longer acceptable. It was all or nothing in Week 1. As a result the number of new entries each week in the Top 40 pretty much doubled (averaging between 10 and 14 most weeks). At one point in 1997, half the Top 40 were new entries! The problem was most of these new entries would fall down the chart the next week or drop out completely. In terms of sales, it was a winning strategy. There were multiple 'million sellers' between 1995 & 2000 compared to the first half of the decade. The downside though was that it made the singles chart fairly meaningless to the casual observer and difficult to keep up with. There were some tracks that bucked the trend - 'Robbie's Angels, Aerosmith's I Don't Want To Miss A Thing etc, but these were the exception rather than the rule.

All time classic has to be Bruno playing full uncensored version of 'Killing In The Name' in 93 by accident!