They only sell records that have charted

Freakytrigger on the collapse of Woolworths and their former chart influence brings back memories.

I think their domination of single sales actually predated the complete collapse of the market a little; certainly 2000 and 2001 sales were an order of magnitude higher than those a few years later and with a new-number-one-every-week turnover that must have made stocking the big sellers quite lucrative.

Anyway, as suggested that was where their singles charts of their own invention came in. Despite stocking a top 40 (or possibly even 75?) they wouldn't put anything new in below 20 and were rather selective with those. Well before online midweek charts, a trip to Woolworths was an almost infallibale acid test for chart-friendliness.

Generally whatever I was looking for wouldn't be there, but in the unusual event of the likes of Turin Brakes actually getting a single stocked there (at 19), they were top 10 bound in the real world for sure.

I never actually bought a single at Woolworths in objection to this shocking anti-indie bias, a stance which if widely shared was obviously going to be self-reinforcing. I was glad not to be in one of the towns where it was the only available source of singles, anyway, and a level playing field in terms of basic availability is a major plus to its replacement in power by iTunes et al.

And their particular manipulatory mantle is not dead, but has merely been taken up by supermarkets and their album charts, hence the post title.