DanChartFan

On the subject of bundling albums to prevent cherrypicking wasn't it Pink Floyd who sued iTunes to force them to do that to their albums as the original contractual agreement for the albums was that no singles would ever be made from them? And at the time didn't the article say that many other acts/artists/labels might ask for the same once the precedent had been set? Apologies if I've got this wrong.

I had no idea they had donated the profits, soz. And yeah I was getting a bit carried away when I said abt bird becomin the biggest seller too. But I do genuinely think it can get xmas number one, as I said before where I live it's generating much more excitement and word of mouth promotion amongst everyone I know than Rage did last year. If people end up 'not bothering' than it cd be because others are sayin it won't work, if enough people do believe it will work than it really could.

So Rage wasn't commercial? Well someone certainly made some bucks from it. Mr Cowell owned it according to one rumour I heard. As for the Bird Is The Word campaign, I've just become the 320000th member! At this rate there could be several million by xmas! (Biggest seller of all time maybe?) And so what if there are multiple imposter campaigns for the same song, surely that's spreading the cause to even more people and there are already (in my experience anyway) more people getting excited about this than there were abt Rage! Tell everyone that you've heard that the Bird is the word!

Oh damn! I knew I should've looked up the release schedules. I do think MyChem will have a big seller though, Black Parade has picked up many more fans than they had before who shd buy Danger Days too.

Unless someone unveils a new classic xmas song then I can't see one gettin to xmas #1 with or without a campaign. Then again isn't Sir Cliff releasing something new?

Hope MyChem can still top the album chart when Danger Days comes out in late Nov even without Tescos help.

Nah it shows everything thats right with family guy, which is why f g has reached the masses in the last 2-3 years havin previously been something of a well kept televisual secret. I'd love this in the charts, it probly has been trickle sellin 4 a while anyway so why not? And by the way there were loads of campaigns last year too, but as someone said people gradually move to the more popular ones which then get mentions on radio/tv etc.

One thing seems to be evident from this thread, that people DO still care about what's number one (or at least xmas #1), which I thought was the real victory of last year's campaign! (Admittedly as we've all chosen to be on a chart forum then perhaps that was a given). Think about the numbers though, nearly half a million backed each side, so nearly a million people cared about the outcome (and that doesn't count those that backed an outsider!). OK so I know I'm going off topic with that but I think that's a very heathly market of music fans that aren't really being engaged in the chart as much, ordinarily, as past generations used to be, partly due to more choices of type of medium (Radio, TV, the net etc) and more choices in each medium ( e.g. abt 30 DAB stations vs 2 or 3 decent analogue pop stations in most areas, a few more maybe in London) meanin far more fragmentin of audiences making them much harder to target and also much more music being available to buy. So being one of the few things with any proper audience coverage these days it's not surprisin that X Factor reaches much more of the music buyin market than anyone else and gets big selling singles. To me the X Factor single has unfair advantage and as such it's cool that via fb or a similar site David can take on Goliath so to speak (though in last years battle Goliath also won in that the X Factor single sold rather more than it was originally to based on the previous few years diminishing returns, almost as if Mr Cowell had deliberately stoked the market's proverbial fire a bit). The problem to me is that David can only beat Goliath with a clever choice of weapon, and I'm not sure that this idea is it. As previously mentioned it would get no airplay or promotion due to it's practical problems and people wouldn't necessarily buy a 'track' they could never really play again (whereas I still play the Rage single occasionally even tho I didn't know it till the campaign and it's a lil heavier than most of my taste). In response to the Fairytale of New York idea I don't think many would buy it now as people have been downloading it every xmas since 2003 and most have surely kept the file rather than paying again each year, not to mention the CD being available abt 3 years in a row (HMV old single stand by the third time). Likewise Mariah or most other xmas singles. The Rage campaign was surely boosted by the fact that a lot of people had never heard it before and perhaps didn't know what to expect until they played it after they had downloaded it, probly many wdn't ahve bought it if they'd knwon the lyrics and style beforehand (not that I'm slating it but it's not to a lot of people's tastes). My suggestion for a campaign would be Victoria Wood's Freda and Barry, most people know it but don't own it, it's very funny and a gd song, it wd defo get airplay if the radio people supported the idea and wd probly start gettin listener requests too as more people picked up on it, and I believe there is a version with a new lyric from the last couple of years which cd maybe be chosen. And it wd be cool for Vic to return to the top spot, I say return because technically she shared #1 with the Stonk in 1991, the shared billing being very evident from the record sleeve design split down the middle. P.S. sorry if this is a bit ramblin.

The return of David Whitfield's Answer Me was only as a tied charttopper with the Frankie Laine version of the same song. They tied because of relatively a poor sample size be insufficient to separate them, so in reality it may not quite have been a true return. Simarly Guy Mitchell's Singing The Blues was knocked off the top by the Tommy Steele version of the same song, then returned, then Frankie Vaughan's Garden Of Eden overtook it only for Guy return for one more week tied with Frankie. I remember the huge surprise of Mr Blobby returning to the top for xmas 1993, as everyone expected Take That to retain the #1 with Babe. Nobody was more shocked than TT's singer/songwriter Gary Barlow who if I recall correctly was alleged to have responded with some colourful language on air when he was told. I wonder whether the different compilers had different tie break rules, sample weightings or some such that affect the number of occurences of returns, I say this because when the BMRB/BBC chart was instigated in February 1969 the returns completely cease and even under Gallup (1983-early 94) there was only Mr Blobby which was exceptional circumstances, being xmas week, but once the Millward Brown/CIN/OCC era becomes established they begin to reappear. What does anyone think?

Hmm methinks the Radio 2 chart includes post 60s sales, The Beatles benefit from the various 7" reissues of later years, as nearly all their singles climb compared to 1973, and the Rolling Stones gain presumably on downloads, and I'm guessing that Jim Reeves trickle sold for many years. Most of the rest fall. I though recent research had 'discovered' that Ken Dodd actually ousold the Beatles but as they were on the same label their management covered it up as they felt the Beatles being bestseller would get more publicity.

Got a funny feeling the top of this chart will be quite 50s orientated.

What about 'Don't Stop Believin' ? I read somewhere it is the most downloaded track of all, and it's been popular for a couple of years now, plus of course the original (admittedly low) sales on vinyl. Also maybe 'Rockstar' which performed similarly in the charts a couple of years back before passing the baton to Journey. Also following the MJ frenzy nearly a year ago some of his tracks must have picked many thousands of extra sales. I'd also be interested to see revised figures for exisiting million sellers, some such as the band aid's, last xmas, bo rhap and mj's earthsong and take that tracks must be rather higher than the 2005 figures by now. My last though is brace yourself for when the Beatles tracks become available to download, they may get hundreds of thousands of extra sales eventually from them.

I have a file where I've calculated a unique 'single of the week' for every chart week ever, from Al Martino in week 1 to Professor Green this week. I reached 3000 on W/E 6th Mar 2010 when Jason Derulo was the new number one with 'In your head'. The discrepancy is because of difficulties arising in the fifties. If a tied position is reached (say the weeks number 1, 2 & 3 are previously listed so I go to a tied number 4) then I felt it only fair to list both singles for that week unless one had already been used. In this way I have (I think) 12 'extra' singles on my list. Also in the early days when there was only a very slow moving top 12 it turned out that on 4 occasions I had exhuasted the whole chart and had no single for that week (31/07/53, 11/09/53, 09/10/53, 20/08/1954). I figured that the gap weeks and tied weeks more or less balanced each other over all. Doing the maths, this week on my list is single number 3007 minus 12 extras = 2995 + 4 gap weeks = week 2999 this week (w/e 24/04/10). The other thing I can think of that may affect this thread as well as how my list pans out is that the OCC, and Guiness before them, skip a week (post NME and pre Record Retailer's launch) in early 1960 so are we counting that particular week? I chose to count it in. I've been toying with publishing my file on a webpage so I'd love to know if there's any interest in it here. Here's 1952 an 2010 to give you more of an idea of what I'm on about. 1952 SOTW 01. 14th Nov 1952 Al Martino - Here In My Heart *1 02. 21st Nov 1952 Guy Mitchell - Feet Up ^2 03. 28th Nov 1952 Jo Stafford - You Belong To Me ^2 04. 05th Dec 1952 Mario Lanza - Because You're Mine ^3 05. 12th Dec 1952 Bing Crosby - Isle Of Innisfree ^3= 06. 12th Dec 1952 Rosemary Clooney - Half As Much ^3= 07. 19th Dec 1952 Kay Starr - Comes-A-Long-A-Love ^3= 08. 26th Dec 1952 Nat 'King' Cole - Because You're Mine ~6= 09. 26th Dec 1952 Nat 'King' Cole - Somewhere Along The Way ~6= 10. 26th Dec 1952 Mantovani - White Christmas ~6= 11. 02nd Jan 1953 Louis Armstrong - Takes Two To Tango ^8= 12. 02nd Jan 1953 Max Bygraves - Cowpuncher's Cantata *8= 2010 SOTW 2993. 16th Jan 2010 Iyaz - Replay *1 2994. 23rd Jan 2010 Owl City - Fireflies ^2 2995. 30th Jan 2010 Glee Cast - Don't Stop Believin ^3 2996. 06th Feb 2010 30h!3 ft Katy Perry - Starstrukk ~4 2997. 13th Feb 2010 Jedward ft Vanilla Ice - Under Pressure (Ice Ice Baby) *2 2998. 20th Feb 2010 Helping Haiti - Everybody Hurts *1 2999. 27th Feb 2010 Florence + The Machine ft Dizzee Rascal - You Got The Dirtee Love ^2 3000. 06th Mar 2010 Jason Derulo - In My Head *1 3001. 13th Mar 2010 Tinie Tempah - Pass Out *1 3002. 20th Mar 2010 Rihanna - Rude Boy ~2 3003. 27th Mar 2010 Lady Gaga ft Beyonce - Telephone ^1 3004. 03rd Apr 2010 Justin Bieber ft Ludacris - Baby ^3 3005. 10th Apr 2010 Scouting For Girls - This Ain't A Love Song *1 3006. 17th Apr 2010 Usher ft Will.I.Am - OMG ^2 3007. 24th Apr 2010 Professor Green ft Ed Drewett - I Need You Tonight *3

I definitely agree about MCR. To me at the time they were some noisy emo rockers that my sister played. But when they were played as number one it changed my life, I bought the album on the strength of it and have never stopped playing it! Also whilst I spent ages before hand telling everyone I spoke to about the Killing In The Name campaign, I still never quite expected it to beat Joe. Soooo gald it did though (I did feel really bad for Joe in a way but I knew he'd climb the next week). As for a couple of others already mentioned, Changes was virtually inevitable as I recall, especially after the crash, and I really thought it'd get xmas #1. It was the reason I bought a CD player as I'd been buying cassettes before that and was gonna stop buying music when they discontinued them. And Katie/Eva was pretty inevitable too because it had been all over the media about it being the 'first' supermarket only single, a sign of the future and all that. Don't think anyones done it since though. Another one I remember is Mr Blobby regaining number one at xmas 1993, no-one ever expected Take That to drop, as I remember it anyway. I rarely see a number one coming these days as I don't use itunes and I don't have a clue what grime is. Bring back rock and pop per-lease!! I never expected to feel out of touch with the charts at the ripe old age of 27 lol!

To be fair the only reason Rage were still in last weeks chart is because a large number of people misunderstood the chart weeks and downloaded on the Sunday too late for that night's chart, probably many where encouraged by the Network Chart (whatever they call it now) using live iTunes charts. So It's not suprising they have a massive drop now.

It's like they got together an thought how can we make the chart on network radio even more pointless than it already was. At least the rule preventing the 'network chart' havin a different number 1 to the official chart has been dropped for the first time since July 1993. If they did a very quick (half hour or hour) run thru of current standings on a saturday or even a sunday morning an then came back with the one changed chart for the main show it could work better but this i suspect would require an extra licence from the OCC and maybe would invalidate the Beebs. If it gets the youngsters listenin an buyin then i suppose it could be a gd thing. Actually speakin jus now of the old network chart havin different number 1s, does anyone have a list of the charttoppers and/or the cduk ones?

Not strictly on topic but ... someone mentioned a descrepancy in counting how many number 1 albums because of Leona's deluxe version of Spirit. If i understand correctly Deluxe/Reloaded or similar albums are handled separately and given separate chart positions in the weekly chart to the regular version. As such it IS a separate number 1 by the chart rules.

The hit40uk chart has for a few years now (2002?-) been compiled by the OCC anyway, so they have to find a way of changing it from the official otherwise they would be selling the same chart rights twice over if the charts ended being the same or very similar.

Downloads in the 80s? The computers of those days would have taken about a week to download a short music file. And they'd have sounded awful on basic 80s computer speakers.

Back on topic, I'm pretty sure the Gavin and Stacey one is the official one. In any case it'll be the one that gets number one for weeks.

Don't rely on the supermarket to keep stocking cheaper CDs. Working in Sainsbury's who are also struggling to get supplies it really does look like we mite stop stocking them or at least only stock major releases.

In terms of Mariah you have to factor in All I Want For Christmas sales from both ends of the year (assuming this is a true Jan 1 to Dec 31 (or so) year)).

Often the entertainment section was a it bit tatty too. Broken cases, missing inserts, scratched discs. And if you did find say an album you liked it sometimes turned out to be a budget version with crappy live tracks or rerecorded stuff instead of the real thing. HMV always guarantees a good quality product, and better service than virgin/zavvi although since the takeover zavvi's service has been improving whilst HMV's seems to have been hit. All academic anyway as come next year only HMV will remain. And whilst I'm on the subject I think WHSmith's will be gone by the end of next year too.

Does anyone have ratings for TOTP Xmas past? say the last 5 or 10 years? Don't think they were high enough to be in the charts on the BARB website before anyone suggests it.

It could a bubblin' under section early on the programme, giving say 20-30 seconds each for anything climbing or new between say 40 and 21. The exposure would then benefit those singles and the chart and industry as a whole. I recognise though that doing that this week would take the whole show cos of all the climbers!