Chart wrongs righted in name of charity
Source: Music Week

A new website launches today, aiming to exploit new chart rules in the 
name of charity.

The site, www.itshouldhavebeennumber1.co.uk, aims to give singles that 
missed the top spot a second chance to top the charts.

Oasis’ Roll With It, which lost out on the number one slot to Blur’s 
Country House in the famous Britpop singles battle, is the first single 
to be given the site’s support.

Visitors to the site between now and February 12 will be able to 
register to receive a reminder to return on February 12 to download the 
song. Under new chart rules, introduced on January 1, all downloads 
count towards the singles chart, irrespective of a physical release.

All profits generated through sales will go to the Nordoff-Robbins Music 
Therapy charity.

The site, which is powered by 7digital, also allows visitors to suggest 
singles that they would like to see reach the number 1 spot.

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IMO this is an issue the official charts company is going to have face - 
chart manipulation is not going to go away otherwise.

While I can't see it ever getting close to manufacturing a #1 (since 
only 2 songs, both new, have topped the charts on downloads alone), it 
will surely affect the top 20, maybe even the top 10 in rare cases.

Of course, this is also partly related to the historically low level of 
singles sales - if 100k were needed for #1, rather than 30-40k, I doubt 
such attempts would even be contemplated.
-- 
Paul Hyett, Cheltenham (change 'invalid83261' to 'blueyonder' to email me)