Darkness Vs Mad World for xmas no.1

Apparently, it started getting radio play in the UK after all this time and the label decided to release a single.

poop > The Darkness

I want 'mad world' to be a xmas no1 bcz it isn't a xmas song but jel makes a very convincing arg for it being rub.

None of the contenders are anywhere near "Sound Of The Underground".

the darkness. BAHAHAHAHAAH! they probably made no money on that because of the fuck me its being promoted to death boring shite blaugh fucker of a stupuid song.

i feel ... like .. the x-mas spirit has overwhelmed me. i can believe in good things for 2004. the darkness has been defeated by a cult song.

500 BEST CHRISTMAS NOVELTY SONGS ON THREE CDS - ONLY AT WOOLWORTHS sort of cash, tom? i think the song will be remembered like the mission's efforts to get the x-mas number one spot.

i feel ... so HAPPY. i went out bought mad world today as well!

I bought the shaped 12" picture disc of "Christmas Time".

:( :( :(

teehee.

i'll stop.

I hate how writing can be so ambiguous. Especially the way I do it.

i feel ... like .. the x-mas spirit has overwhelmed me. i can believe in good things for 2004. the darkness has been defeated by a cult song."
and
"tis the sure decline of the darkness. y'know with all the marketing behind it - its going to be remembered as the grand folly of emi. ha ha. "

ahhh... Paul / Sonny / 'cool kid' / griffin (whatever you're calling yourself today)... come on now.
you are, i am led to believe anyway, a journalist.
surely a small part of being a journalist is to have some sort of connection to 'reality' (try it, you may like it, its where us normal folks live).

now, i'm ALL FOR folks having themselves an opinion (god knows, i've got my own), and if you genuinely hate the Darkness' music, then that's cool and all power to you.
BUT, to keep spouting these pathetic lies about them, PURELY because of this ongoing problem you have with ME. well ,that's just stupid.

i know you don't like me, and i know why. that's your problem, not mine.. because its YO who looks like an idiot when you go on your weird message-board rampages against me and the records i release (the 'Ian Astbury discovered the BellRays' quote was hilarious in theh extreme. you hate me so much that you won't even allow me the job i do? grow up)

so, to put you right once and for all:

1) on the contrary, the Darkness will have done quite nicely financially out of the past week's sales i imagine (i stay out of the financial aspects of their deal). whilst, yes, the single 'only' achieved number2 (with a paltry 220,000 sales), the album went back into the top 10 and sold close on 90,000 copies in the last week alone.
whereas 'Mad World' sold a huge 5000 copies more than 'Christmas Time', whilst the Gary Jules album sold... errm... next to none.
(i'm sure even someone as out of touch with the eral world as you can figure out where the most money is between singles and albums, yeah?)

2) defeated by a 'cult' song. you're just plain weird.
explain what's 'cult' about selling best part of quarter of a million records.
on second thoughts, don't bother, you'll only embarass yourself.

3) the Darkness 'marketing' has been a mere fraction of normal major label marketing. the success of the band has been largely down to hte fact that people actually LIKE THE SONGS. like it or not, people really do like them. in fact, 1.2 million records sold means that quite a lot of people like them. (i'm not saying that just because a lot of people like something means they're 'right' as such, but the people who boiught it obviously think so, and who are you to tell them they're wrong?)

4) 1.2 records in the UK alone means that the 'grand folly of emi' that you speak of is actually a huge financial success (if one cares about that sort of thing

5) and the band are actuall signed to Atlantic, which is a Warners company. so i'm not sure how EMI fit into this at all.

tell me again about how the Darkness are manufactured? come on, i'd be intrigued to know exactly what it is i've been doing this past 18 months.

if you have a further problem with me... to my face, try it.

ian
must destroy

all i want for christmas is my two front pique.

i need crips and fizzy water. who'll go the corner shop for me?

Listen chief, we have nice polite conversations on here a fair bit but your constant quacking on about petty London indie label nonsense that almost no-one else in the world cares about is tedious in the extreme. That is all.

Oh, and I've just seen the video for "Mad World"!!!!! Why have they got Neil Innes in to mime for that singing bloke on the record?!?!?!?!

EMI have adopted Marissa Merchant's pricing policy?

who is ian johno?

Ian Johnsen - Co-founder, Must Destroy

Coming from a background in record retail, Ian moved to Vital distribution who at the time was rapidly expanding owing to the success of Oasis.

His inevitable contact with Creation and Alan McGee led to him being offered a position within the label's production and manufacturing division, before it's demise a year later. Fortunately, a similar position was available at Alan McGee's new venture, Poptones.

A casual conversation with Alan McGee, led to him moving into A & R, having spotted a new up and coming band, January. He went on to sign The BellRays, Beachbuggy and Ken Stringfellow.

Whilst at Poptones he met future business partner, Alan Hake, who was also currently working in A&R where he had previously signed The Hives. On becoming redundant they started their own label, Must Destroy, fresh from the success of recent signings whilst at Poptones.

Their first signing was The Darkness with whom they released the first couple of singles, before signing them to Atlantic and with whom they still retain an involvement.

The key to the antagonism is the phrase ex-poptones.

Can one of you British folks explain to me the significance of the Christmas #1?

1. It's the number 1 selling record!!!!!
2. It's Christmas!!!!!!!!
3. Loadsa folks buy Xmas singles for pressies!!!!!
4. Any old crap can get to the top!!!! (eg Some mournful piano ballad from a cult movie from a couple of years ago!!!!!)
5. There's usually a bit of a competition between various wacky "Xmas" singles!!!!!
6. Cliff Richard invariably releases a corny seasonal song for everyone to battle against!!!!!!!
7. It's invariably the biggest selling week of the year for singles!!!!! (In fact the peak of singles sales in the UK was Xmas 1979, the no. 1 of that time being that jolly yuletide ditty, er, "Another Brick in the Wall pt. 2" by Pink Floyd!!!)
8. If the winner is any good, it'll end up on the usual "Now That's What I Call a Bumper Christmas Gramophone Experience!!!!" type compils for all eternity, and become part of the eternal shopping mall soundtrack to Xmas shopping less than a year later!!! (See Slade, Roy "Wizzard" Wood, Band Aid, Paul McCartney & Wings, Greg Lake, Jona Lewie, Shakin' Stevens, etc., etc., ....) Not a bad money spinner...

Possibly I am forgetting something.

I am not certain that it reached as high as #2, but if asked to guess I would say it had, and you seem to confirm that it did.

In 1987 I hated the Pet Shop Boys and their Elvis cover. I found it a blight on Christmas.

Possibly I have changed my mind, or softened my heart, since.

I am not sure what N. can mean.

ahh well. not to worry.

merry merry folks.

and yeah i don't like the darkness. but am i enraged to bitterness about it. no. i'm at a friend's place who loves the darkness and at the moment am staring at a poster of it.

jesus. this is so pathetic. i'm so happy i've met some interesting people who i can tell rather bizarre stories like this too who have fuck all to do with the music industry. its fucking childish.

o.k.

what else?

i bought the fucking of arrowe hill record at hmv. is that hatred? to the extreme. i didnt even blag it from tones.

o.k.

the cult song was in fact a cult song - the origins is one of 'cult'. yeah its not a cult song anymore.

anyhow.

merry christmas you grumpy fuckers of ilx

and fuck me i get facts wrong all the time. it comes from scanning music literature and not reading it. i don't give a shit when its on ilx but when its being published - yeah - like the cosmics review when i sasid they were dropped and instead of split. yeah i made sure it was corrected but am i too care that much about something i say on a message board?

and nick - fuck off - yer synchophantic ways disgust me man.

happy christmas.

and ian yeah, you know what, i hated you for a time because you made life unnecessarily difficult for me. but i got over it - why don't you.

merry christmas pashima.

fuck y'all.