R2OK!

clott south · Guest

I was wondering whether us, as Radio 2 listeners have any real influence on the charts these days. Myself, as a 40 year old, rarely, in fact never buys a single anymore. I prefer to enjoy the new music played to me by Radio 2 and then go out and by the CD album based on the quality of the first two or three singles released. There are very few artists these days, even those who have been around for a while, whose album I will buy the day it is released.

Are the charts these days really just for the yoof and do they really mean anything when an "artist" can go straight in at Number One, do its entire sales quota in the first month then drop into obscurity almost as soon as it has appeared? What about music downloading? Let's be honest, why would anybody want to download, even for 79p or whatever it is when music is easily available on file sharing networks, not that I'm a party to that sort of activity. And if this sort of piracy is killing the music business should we really care? CDs have been too expensive for too long now.

What about the accolade of being number one? Does it mean anything when someone such as Westlife are guaranteed this status when their fanbase of pre pubescent girls is sufficiently large enough to ensure this.
X Factor winners are guaranteed the same due to nothing more than the popularity of the show. Thankfully, most of them disappear just as quickly as they emerge.

So many questions.....what do you all think?

Ian Robinson · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 3:20 pm Post subject:

I think Radio 2 listeners certainly have an influence over the Album Chart, but very little on Singles/Downloads. It's because of the rise of CD album sales in Supermarkets.

Behind Geddon's Wall · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 3:56 pm Post subject:

I believe that we certainly have an influence on the album charts, as outlined above. For example, I bought the Nelly Furtado Cd based on the singles that I'd heard on the radio. I have bought albums for the past 30 years or so, and bought some very goodones. Singles (45's) I only bought if I suspected that they were too good for the chart and had no mass appeal.
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Cherskiy · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 5:49 pm Post subject:

I have ab zero effect on the singles chart, and have done so since about 1993 (the last time I bought a single - CD or 45 - and even that was second hand, albeit signed). I have probably had some miniscule effect on the album charts over the last twenty years.
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mcl · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 11:52 pm Post subject: Re: The Music Charts