Tuesday, February 07, 2006

THE PHYSICAL BEING COMES TO AN END

Although it has a fin de sciele air to it, the announcement that in future download-only singles and albums will qualify for the charts is more of a tidying up. Up until now, labels have snuck out a very limited-edition CD or 7" release if they wanted to mainly download track to be counted - interesting the way labels struggle to find ways of breaking the rules their own organisations draw up, isn't it - and so this is just the charts dropping pretence.

However, there's still a degree of fudge to the new rules - download only releases have to be followed within seven days of the digital release - in other words, the day after the only chart they qualify for. And if the physical product is deleted, the record can only appear in the chart for two more weeks. This is to keep the high street shops happy. In other words: there's going to need to be another tidying up before very long.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A post about downloads. Hence, note the obligatory photo of Arctic Monkeys and caption "they use the internets, you know"

*Rolls eyes*

Anonymous said...

Don't worry. This is only an intermediate phase while the journos catch on to this internet downloading thing. As with all things meedja, we have to wait for the journos to catch up before what everyone knows is printed in the press.
It might not be long before the hyping of anything BUT internet downloads will be labelled the Vinyl Revolution where middle-age journos will reminisce about how cool CDs were before they worked out they could get an album off the internet faster (if not cheaper) than going to HMV or (more likely) and waiting for the recording company to send them a free review copy through the post.

Nostalgia isn't going to be what it used to be.

Post a Comment

As a general rule, posts will only be deleted if they reek of spam.