CHARTRIGGING

Indie labels, who feel that the current plans to introduce downloads into the UK chart from this week are open to abuse, intend to make their point by rigging this week's big top 40. Guy Holmes, from Gut Records, explains:

"It's not a slight problem - it's a huge problem," Holmes told BBC News. "I know of two different labels who are considering buying records online because they believe it's the only way they can teach the chart people that the security of the chart is no longer there."

The UK Chart people reject this, of course:

"We're pretty confident on the security front and obviously haven't taken that issue lightly," said its director Omar Maskatiya, adding that any cheating will be dealt with. "We will treat hyping in the digital world in exactly the same way as we do for physical formats."

In other words, they'll turn a blind eye. A while back - many, many whiles back - we asked them if they'd be taking any action over the story in the Louis Walsh biography about the time he showed Boyzone that their "fans" was a large pile of singles in the back of his car. They never even replied.

Of course, the most amusing thing about all this is that there are still people who believe that the charts have any integrity at all. The only real difference made by allowing downloads into the chart is that if people want to rig the chart now, they won't have to ruin their rear axle by buying physical records. Ever since they started introducing rules about what actually counted as a single, there's been nothing approaching a fair, equal chart.

music charts downloads