what is the poptimist position on this site?

[maura.livejournal.com]

http://www.itshouldhavebeennumber1.co.uk/

As of Sunday 7th January, changes to the chart rules mean that singles can make it into the charts from download sales alone - a CD release is no longer required. This puts the charts back in your hands and lets you decide what should be number 1 and when!

So, we decided to start this website so that together we can put right some wrongs. With your help, we plan to identify the songs we think were a number one hit, or should have been number one, but were kept from the top spot by some naf song, or possibly something just as good that happened to come out at precisely the same time.

We start Monday 12th February with Oasis "Roll With It". Released 14th August 1995, it made number two, pipped to the post in the famous Britpop battle by Blur with their single "Country House".

Register now to receive a reminder to come back on the 12th February and download "Roll With It". Downloads from the 12th will appear in the following weeks chart. Together we can generate enough sales to make it happen. Together we can re-write history by making "Roll With It" number 1 …as it should have been 12 years ago!

Comments

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

I think the poptimist position is to point and laugh. And possibly to remind the world that the Oasis album Don't Believe The Truth was not intended to be taken literally.

I remember Tom being mildly concerned about the prospect that what the download chart meant was next Oasis album = 12 'singles' in the top 15. Has this or similar end of world madness come to happen (soz I don't watch the charts I'm rubbish)?

[pot80.livejournal.com]

Could they have maybe picked a different song, and maybe not an artist that HAS had a few #1 singles?

[damnspynovels.livejournal.com]

How does this business work then? i mean... taking the Roll With It example, the iTunes store has two entries for it, both different lengths etc. Does it matter which one I buy?

Furthermore, what happens if all of a sudden, everyone buys track 4 from a random album, a track that was never a single. Does that count?

What constitutes an eligible download, even in the absence of a physical product?

What if a single, previously a physical product but since deleted, is only available to download as part of an 80s compilation or something? Does that count?

[damnspynovels.livejournal.com]

Also, and getting slightly ridiculous now I admit...

What if, using the Oasis analogy again for a moment, everyone all of a sudden starts downloading fan's favourite Acquiesce, readily available on any Oasis compilation download and what not, and originally a b-side to a single... does that count for the chart?

I hate Oasis by the way. But they're just the sort of twunts that would prosper from this situation.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

kudos on the avatar

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

Non-single tracks do now count I think. Exciting!

How do they stop some nutter downloading the same song over and over again? Or major lable dudes conspiring to purchase vast quantities of it?

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

I presume the same rules would apply as before - of they spot an unusual buying pattern (i.e. a few people buying lots and lots of the same song) they's just ban it from the chart.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Non-single tracks count.

However I gather that buying a whole album on download does not entitle each one of the tracks contained therein a tally towards the singles chart, IYSWIM. This is because £downloadalbum << 14 x £singletrack. If you spent the extra money on buying each track individually then yes it would count, but with a financial incentive to buy it as an album only diehard fans will bother.

[damnspynovels.livejournal.com]

Ok interesting...

So in the way that buying albums as a single purchase doesn't count for anything regarding the singles chart, I imagine buying a 'single' release (as in a four track thing or something) counts as ONE entry to the chart right?

However, if that's so, what happens if there's a single, that has four individual songs on it (like an Oasis EP or something). If I bought all four, it would be the lead song that would be registered for the chart right? But what if I just bought one of the other three? Would it be the b-side that is put forward for a chart placing?

This is all so complicated, yet so exciting!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

If you bought a physical single then only the lead track would count towards the chart, just like the old days.

If you bought a download single that covered 4 tracks that would count as an album* and therefore none of the tracks would count towards the charts - only if you bought them all separately. I'm not 100% certain about this.

*I know this because my band's single (4 tracks) was listed on itunes as an 'album'! This 'album' cost more than a single download but less than 4 x 79p.

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

No, a download single will count to the singles charts if it is no more than 25 minutes long & 4 tracks (or 40 minutes long if it's all remixes of one song).

All the rules in mindnumbing detail can be found here:

http://www.theofficialcharts.com/docs/NEW_Single_Chart_Rules_2007.pdf

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Aha. Glad to be proved wrong :)

[damnspynovels.livejournal.com]

that's crazy!

so we're ascertaining almost for a fact then, that the 'system' doesn't care where a song is coming from, if it's downloaded individual, be it an unreleased album track, or a single's b-side, it counts for the chart...

those are some crazy rules.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

See above - I got my wires crossed. That'll teach me to apply logic.

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

I think the argument is that now for the first time in the digital age, it's a true reflection of exactly what people are buying, with no arbitrary exclusions.

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

If there are multiple different versions of the same song they all count to one chart entry, I believe.

& yes, songs on compilations that have long since been deleted physically are eligible. Just about anything downloaded as a single track can count.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

there is no "should have been no 1" with oasis - there is only "should have been throttled to death"

[maura.livejournal.com]

hahaha

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

Why did I get the feeling, reading about that website, that it has been set up by someone connected with Oasis who is still holding a grudge against Blur?!! I think it would be great to start a rival campaign to make sure that Country House pips it to the post again!

[cis.livejournal.com]

I doubt they're directly connected with Oasis at all: I think they'll just be fans, who felt it bitterly when Blur beat Oasis. Gut feeling that surely fans care more about this kind of thing than Oasis' mates and promo dudes.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

I think this is a bad idea but if it does take off I can see it working out for 'God Save The Queen' and 'Groove Is In The Heart'.

Less so 'Everybody In The Place', 'U Got The Love' and 'I Wanna Give You Devotion' perhaps. I mean there really aren't THAT many cases where there's a huge number of people who all feel there's a song that was somehow 'robbed' of #1 status. So the novelty thrill may ensure #1 status for stupid Oasis and a couple of other bands/hits but it surely won't last long.

[cis.livejournal.com]

I approve! Even though no doubt everything they campaign for will be as hateful as 'roll with it' (and this concept of 'righting historical wrongs' is slaveringly misguided), I like the idea of strange interest groups mobilising to try and use the download system to their own ends. It's awesome that they care enough about the charts, even now, that they do consider them some kind of legitimating public record, and that they do believe that they have the consumer power to make a record number one, even if it has to be an organised collective action. Impressively ambitious, too, because any result that is not The Chosen Song at number one means their movement has failed.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if they actually MANAGE it more power to them! Getting a #1 is and always has been quite a difficult thing to do - the singles market doubled in size last year (admittedly from an all-time-low base), and you probably need c.50,000 individual people to ACTUALLY PART WITH MONEY in order to do it. This isn't like signing an Interweb petition!

I think the boat has sailed on this - Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles, who has a readymade audience of 10m people, pushed to get "Honey To The Bee" by Billie back in the charts, which (unlike Roll With It et al) is a song which most of his audience won't already have owned, and it got to number 18 or so. So being generous that's 10,000 sales out of 10,000,000 listeners, or 0.1%!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

(Cis obviously already knows the background to the Moyles stunt - this was for Maura, if she's getting copies of all responses!) :)

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

Tom OTM. "Honey To The Bee" is also a far better record than "Roll With It". As was "Country House", anyway.

FFS if we're going to exhume the britpop corpse for #2s, I have four words for everyone, all of six letters.

Common. People.
Slight. Return.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Is there a publicly accessible source that shows the actual sales numbers for chart singles?

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

No. Music Week reports some stuff each week, but that bit isn't online. Otherwise there are various online messageboards for chart obsessives where people report some of them, even though it's supposed to be confidential.

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

The singles market doubled in size last year but much of that growth was across a far wider range of titles - the 'singles market' is defined in terms of single track downloads, which includes any old tracks people choose to download. The number of singles sold required to hit number one is still at a very low level compared to even a few years ago. Although that low number is still around 30-50k, which I imagine will continue to defeat most download campaigns.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Oh OK, that makes sense - hurrah for the Long Tail.

Even 30-50 is still up on the rock bottom of 20k which wasn't too long ago IIRC.

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

Just checked - Mika sold 77.5k last week; the no.2 sold 30k but you'd only have needed around 9k to go top 10.

Although the week Mika went to no. 1 he got there with 30k, and Leona the week before was 21k, so if you choose the right week it's still pretty low.

kudos to Dom...

[(Anonymous)]

for the JUSTICE 4 SASH concept.

i have taken this subject to ILM i'm afraid (record-time personal dig frm TBTIILXH already)