There are plenty copies of "Are you lonesome tonight" in my local HMV...

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Is the bubble bursting?

The news recently is that anyone who missed out on a copy for their box of any of the singles is that un-numbered copies of all of them will be available to buy in April.

That's it.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:12 (twenty years ago)

Why is this bothering people so? Is it bothering you, Mark? Maybe it isn't bothering anyone that much, I've gotten that impression tho.

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:13 (twenty years ago)

Maybe mark is a VIRAL ELVIS MARKETEER.

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:15 (twenty years ago)

Oddly enough, all 17 of these singles can be found on one greatest hits CD which will only cost you a tenner!

― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:17 (twenty years ago)

xpost

if he isn't he should be ;)

i just looked at the top 40 on BBC Radio 1 website. i wish they would publish approximate sales figures for every entry. why do they assume people wouldn't be interested in that? or perhaps they are just ashamed? it should always have been available for perusal tho. not even Music Week ever listed sales figures dammit.

― Stevem On X (blueski), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:17 (twenty years ago)

I've been trying to antielvis these past few weeks. I'd say hey dash out and buy Eminem's single, but there's no need now.

Sales figures have always been kept on the QT.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:19 (twenty years ago)

Record Mirror used to have an arrows system, where one arrow meant a song's sales had actually increased that week, and two arrows meant they had increased by more than 50%. This would please my adolescent mind.

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:22 (twenty years ago)

but 99% of the singles sell most in the first week.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:23 (twenty years ago)

Well, I don't know. This was 1987.

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:25 (twenty years ago)

if sales figures were shown for singles, everyone would know how badly the industry is doing. if we released an ilm band single and only promoted it on this board, we'd probably generate enough sales to go top 50.

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:25 (twenty years ago)

We should do this. I will sing it. I will dress up as Annie.

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:27 (twenty years ago)

(actually, I think your theory is flawed as despite relentless promotion here, the re-release of 'Galang' failed to make the top 50.)

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:28 (twenty years ago)

Galang? What was that?

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:30 (twenty years ago)

Get to the back of the class, Elvis boy.

Also, the record industry ought to be pleased to let people know how few singles it sells - that way punters might start believing that their purchases might actually make a difference to chart positions, leading to a reinfranchised youth and increased sales hurrah.

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:31 (twenty years ago)

Was that MIA?

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:33 (twenty years ago)

point taken about 'galang.' i wonder how much downloading cut into things...

but last week 250 would have gotten you into the top 60, so there you go.

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:34 (twenty years ago)

Well, I went to find out what Galang was, and I found a "win an Ipod" comp. So if I win, hah! to you and your elvisboy taunts.

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:36 (twenty years ago)

Searching ILE for 'Galang' might result in more pertinent results than a general Google search. But the chance of inadvertently winning an iPod is low.

250 copies? Blimey.

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 17:07 (twenty years ago)

Mmm possibly, possibly. But Google was quick and productive enough...

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 17:11 (twenty years ago)

but even when the industry was deemed to be doing well they didn't publish sales figures. magazines publish grosses for films in the film charts so why never singles and albums?

― Alienus Quam Reproba (blueski), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 22:50 (twenty years ago)

During good years, because Record Companies did not want their artists knowing...

During bad, don't want anyone to know...

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 3 February 2005 09:11 (twenty years ago)

I think the extent to which sales figures are kept secret is being a bit exaggerated.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 3 February 2005 09:18 (twenty years ago)

Hands up who bought the re-released Galang? The album's going to stiff as well, because no one knows or cares who she is outside ILM.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 3 February 2005 09:30 (twenty years ago)

Much like Annie From Norway, alas. I don't hear "My Heartbeat" being played on daytime radio.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 3 February 2005 09:31 (twenty years ago)

And as far as the album chart goes, isn't it indicative of something that the LCD Soundsystem, retailing for a tenner with bonus singles CD, at a slack time of year with a relatively open field, still only managed #20 (did downloading do for their sales?), whereas - the Chemical Brothers at number one? Come off it! I'd be surprised if more than 10,000 people bought that album.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 3 February 2005 09:33 (twenty years ago)

heartbeat - delayed till 28th Feb .. so could be why radio aint playing it yet ..

― mark e (mark e), Thursday, 3 February 2005 14:04 (twenty years ago)

Usually radio starts playing new singles six weeks ahead of schedule. But daytime radio does not appear interested in playing music by anyone who wasn't on the Band Aid 20 record.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 3 February 2005 14:08 (twenty years ago)

6 weeks ! damn. by which time every(radio)one listener is fed up to the back teeth of the track ..
oh, and you're spot on re LCD + Extra disc for a mere tenner .. thats what drew me in ..

― mark e (mark e), Thursday, 3 February 2005 14:11 (twenty years ago)

"Heartbeat" will not go top 25. And indie publications will still refer to it as "pop music".

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 3 February 2005 14:14 (twenty years ago)

oooo. but it is. it is. it is.

isn't it ?

― mark e (mark e), Thursday, 3 February 2005 14:18 (twenty years ago)

Well it "is" but in terms of 2005 it isn't. "Pop music" now has to be sincere, heartfelt, diarrhoeic in its pseudo-passion. Whether it's Steve Brookstein or Athlete or Usher, its straining for emotion has to be palpable, because all the "public" wants are People Just Like Us. Or else it's all you're-my-besht-mate alphabet soup - the Libertines, Kasabian, Rooster, Tory Busted. These days we demand plumbers rather than angels.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 3 February 2005 14:25 (twenty years ago)

Why is this the case? What has caused this paradigm shift, if it is a paradigm shift? When did people ever want angels and which angels did they want and why?

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 3 February 2005 14:30 (twenty years ago)

Ultimately it's all the fault of punk. Before then our idols were by default supposed to be untouchable, unearthly, Not One Of Us, Somehow Above Us, because if they had been One Of Us then there would be no point in their being an idol. The whole point being that S/He can do it and We can't. But after the purposive demystification and procedural unmaskings of punk, it became like the old man at the end of The Wizard Of Oz. Now we all know how it works - what do we do about it or put in its place? A paradigm for a socialist state, if extended to human activity per se? No...just an excuse for us to excuse and avoid our own mortality by choosing, not to worship, but to like, to identify with, our heroes, by lowering idols to the mediocre level of our own modest expectations by imagining that we could have a pint with them. Yet even with a Shaun Ryder or a Jarvis Cocker it is evident that some people remain determinedly Not Like Us. And how long were their chart careers? How long will Dizzee's chart career be?

So instead we snigger at Prince and Madonna for their over-hasty and over-compensatory demasking of themselves to pub level, and we settle for...Robson and Jerome, Michelle McManus, the Zutons. People who are anything but extraordinary, and therefore people we can safely love because we do not fear them, because for reasons of budgetary restrictions, both financial and emotional, we have abandoned ourselves on the reef of Make Do And Mend Pop.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 3 February 2005 14:44 (twenty years ago)

Funny you mention Jarvis. He is quite determinedly "just like" me in a lot of ways. So, show continues.

Maybe in my naivety, Pete was a kind of 'he's like me but screwing up royally because of the black' symbol. But does that work? Is that just me? Is this a case of 'on a pedestal Pete, we like it that way', whether or not he's more accessible than most?

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 3 February 2005 14:54 (twenty years ago)

Probably because we are infatuated about whether he will end up on a pedestal or in a coffin. My feeling is that this might be another case of the Keith Richards, viz. when he's 65 the doctors will realise that technically he should have died in 1923.

And then there's the Elvis thing...

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 3 February 2005 14:57 (twenty years ago)

Oh they all gone now.

So, is this Pete worship going to lead them all into Smack, or is this taken as a cautionary tale? Probably not after having pulled a glamorous girlfriend, even if it was just the once...

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 3 February 2005 15:03 (twenty years ago)

xpost- annie has been in quite a few 'tipped for 2005' features in magazines like time out and OMM, so maybe 2005 will be her breakthrough year.

― ppp, Thursday, 3 February 2005 15:08 (twenty years ago)

But she hasn't been in Heat or OK!, and apparently those are the tips which matter these days.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 3 February 2005 15:13 (twenty years ago)

Whereas Charlotte Hatherley has, just last week.

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 3 February 2005 15:20 (twenty years ago)

if she got her tits out a bit, she might be in those mags. she doesnt know how to play the media game, poor girl.

― ppp, Thursday, 3 February 2005 15:21 (twenty years ago)

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