Getting a fair amount of attention this week: a website campaigning for people to download enough copies of old songs to get them to number one in the UK singles chart, focussing on cases where a single has 'undeservedly' reached number two. Leaving aside the fact that this is apparently being run as a publicity stunt for a download store, their particular campaign has idea an awful start by choosing "Roll With It": everyone already owns it, it was beaten by "Country House" which lots of people still prefer, "Wonderwall" is better anyway. There can't be many songs that were more famously number two, but it's still not a lot to go on. It will be interesting to see where they get to if they carry on down that route for any length of time, as well: "this week, download Out Of Your Mind"?
The switch to a chart that allows downloads, meaning that much less outside help is required to provide the stock for those taking part in these campaigns to go ahead, has spurred a number of such efforts. Morrissey fans are attempting similar, and of course we've already had Billie Piper's return to the charts via Chris Moyles.
And all of this is a great thing. Partly because it's doomed to failure of course: if it there was any risk of an Oasis/Morrissey top two next week thanks to people posting on messageboards I would be a bit iffy on it, but it never works that way. It's a great thing because the occasional harmless hijacking of the lower reaches of the UK charts by outside influences is one of the things that makes them so fun to watch: fantastic stories like John Otway and Brighton and Yeovil football clubs spring to mind from recent years, plus that whole business of The Alarm pretending to be a new band and it working despite not fooling anyone for very long. I don't want to see the charts turned over to these people completely, obviously, but I don't want an end to it either.
And it means that, against all odds, people still care. The complaints in that John Otway link about his song being missing from Woolworths charts (the writers seeming to miss the point there that they make up their own chart all the time, 'airbrushing' many a hit in the same manner) seem kind of quaint now. HMV run their own chart too, just shifted to Fifty Quid Man instead of teenage girls, and you'll be hard pressed to find an online store that displays the top 40 rather than their own sales chart. You no longer get your 3 minutes on Radio 1 or Top Of The Pops as reward for a position. Yet people still care! Deeply enough to hold votes and start up campaigns, looking to teach a lesson to the chart watching public, whoever they are. Amazing.
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1 comment:
Roll With It isn't even in the top 200, and you need to sell about 600 singles to get there these days. A bit of a failure then.
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