or, WHY THE CHARTS ARE NOW COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY USELESS, EVEN MORE SO THAN THEY WERE WHEN PEOPLE ACTUALLY KNEW WHAT WAS AT #1.
Before I was even a teenager I had a school notebook in which I would write down the Top 40 Singles in the UK as counted down by Mark Goodier on BBC Radio 1 on Sunday evening. It is quite amazing to realise how many of these often transitory and seemingly inconsequential three minutes have stayed in the mind, but a cursory glance at this book in my late teens revealed that the more interesting names that would later be scattered around my record collection were usually found at the lower end of this chart.
We all know that the charts are somewhat meaningless as a gauge of quality but there's a coldness and logic about the format that automatically commands respect: it is undeniably the will of the people writ large. There was also a moment of genuine thrill in the early part of the 21st century when a local band named Moco scraped the lower echelons of the Top 100 on the back of some good reviews. For a moment the gap between the industry largesse and the dudes seen rolling around the local pub in front of 45 people was temporarily reduced. Even though Moco probably sold less than 1500 copies of their single at a time when the music industry was in one of its occasional pituitary funks. Here it is though, for posterity.
Since this occasion the rules on chart eligibility have changed to firstly include downloaded copies of the designated singles and then, before long, the ability to download any individual album track meant that any song on a downloadable album could end up at #1. This is why groups of campaigners for 'real, non-manufactured' music were able to upset the applecart by electing Rage Against The Machine to #1 over the simple pop thrills of Joe McElderry, and less wankerishly, why John Otway was able to get his 50th birthday wish of a second top ten single with 'Bunsen Burner'.
The situationist potential of the charts reduces with time as the charts retain less of a psychic grasp on the public consciousness. More simply put: the charts mean nothing and rigging the thing is a precious waste of time and energy, as amusing as it would be to have somebody like Anal Cunt forced into the nation's ears at Sunday tea-time. We could even have all of I Like It When You Die as the entire Top 40.
It's sad that this battle has been lost precisely because the opening up of chart eligibility theoretically was supposed to allow any old shit a go at the charts. Momentarily it worked: then-unsigned punk trio Koopa organised their fanbase sufficiently to become the first 'unsigned' band to reach the Top 40. However, these appeals and demands and cries to organise oneself shows the fundamental lack of unity, not existence of it, and how ultimately powerless it is for more than one week at a time when faced with the remorseless sense-battery of commercial radio.
The reduced appeal of the singles charts perhaps go some way to explaining why even the lower end of the charts resembles a major label advertorial. Where freaks once roamed on the selling out of their hastily deleted 7", ghosts of banal sentiments past loom at the window on the vicissitudes of commercial appearance: step forward 'Bring Me To Life' by Evanescence, 'Somewhere Only We Know' by Keane, and 'Bittersweet Symphony' by The Verve, appearing at #87, #86, and #59 respectively.
A quick count reveals at least 95 of the top 100 songs to be on major labels. The ones that I can identify as not being are Matt Redman at #12, a heavily campaigned-for Christian artist releasing a single for an anti-slavery charity. Arctic Monkeys are a strange anomaly at #22, being a guitar band with a new single in the charts, though they have major distribution and media on their side.
When an artist hits, they hit big, and often. Ed Sheeran has four singles in the chart. Emeli Sande is at least the featured artist on four, as is Rihanna. Adele has three. Rizzle Kicks have three. LMFAO have three. Nicki Minaj has three. David Guetta has three. Bruno Mars has three. Jessie J, Coldplay, LMFAO, Jennifer Lopez, and Pitbull all have more than one. It represents a real triumph for the grasp of commercial radio and television and the strength of the relationship that major labels maintain with them. Doubly so, considering that it is often considered that we're all supposed to be online with artists such as Harry Pussy and Whitehouse within just as close reach.
This piece isn't so much an argument for the violent overthrow of the ranking system or major label structure as it is a snapshot for anybody who was wondering what is still going on out there. The charts have always favoured those with commercial muscle because that is its function: to map that dispassionately. Besides, the independent community generally focuses upon the the longer format and live performance because it is still where prestige and the ability to make a living (just about) lies, reducing the single to a position of forced fetish product, given the relatively high costs of making such an eminently disposable format seem paradoxically worth owning forever on hard copy.
Funnily enough, when I began writing this piece, I did not begin with the intent of sniping about the charts or confirming what most of you suspected but had not bothered to check out out of the simple desire to not be depressed. Quite the opposite. My intent had been to look at the bottom end of the charts to see whether it was full of off-pop, pop that aims to match the structure and style of its more popular brethren but somehow fails, or to see whether it was full of unheard-of gems and bands like Moco that had risen beyond the position the industry could reasonably expect of them.
So, here is the countdown from #100 to #91 in the charts as compiled 4th March 2012 by the Official Chart Company.
100. Beautiful People, 'Turn Up The Music'
Not much information really exists on this song, other than to say that it is in fact a Chris Brown remix. Perhaps that's another sad-or-as-yet-unexplored consequence of open chart eligibility: remixes of songs forcing their way into the charts as a way of exposing the original to a wider audience. Imagine an anthemic synth version of 'Two Towers' by Lightning Bolt ft. Tinchy Stryder! It could work! Let's get this happening everyone!
99. Bruno Mars, 'Just The Way You Are (Amazing)'
A mere 76 weeks on the chart for Mars. Who is only just getting to this song? The kind of people who still lose their dial-up connection every time someone in the house wants to use the phone, I'll wager.
98. Bruno Mars, 'Marry You'
A mere 58 weeks on the chart for this one. Less memorable than its cousin one place below, though no less saccharine for it.
97. Beyonce, 'Halo'
A mere 97 weeks on the chart for this one. I can't bring myself to hate Beyonce but come on everybody, nearly two years? She has done stuff since!
96. LMFAO, 'Sorry For Party Rocking'
At first with LMFAO I was like 'ok, it's for kids, this is their music, let it go' but this is just BEYOND dismal. I think what annoys me the most is the way they look like they couldn't even be arsed styling themselves convincingly, as if they're saying 'oh, they'll buy any old shit as long as we work it like it's the shiz'. AND THEY WERE RIGHT!
95. Black Keys, 'Lonely Boy'
The kind of 'real rock' that pushes some ardent guitar wankers into pretending that they love 'artificial' pop music more than they really do, because to side with this is siding with white privilege and nostalgia for the unremembered in quite an overt and grotesque fashion. At first it seemed like an anomaly that this song would wind up charting at all in the UK, but it is formulaic and marketable alongside the White Stripes, so perhaps not all that surprising.
94. Monkees, 'I'm A Believer'
It would be churlish to complain about this in the wake of Davy Jones' death. Sometimes it takes a tragedy to make somebody aware of a body of work they may have been unaware of, and besides, 'I'm A Believer' is a fucking TUNE.
93. Skrillex ft. Sirah, 'Bangarang'
The saddest entry in all of the Top 100 is Skrillex and The Doors at #89. That whole 'is Skrillex dubstep' argument is hilarious. The answer was obvious when I got off the train at Wigan Wallgate and saw a 14 year old kid in nu-rock boots, a long leather jacket, and Skrillex t-shirt and realised without hearing a note that Skrillex is essentially 2012's Limp Bizkit and 'real' dubstep will always remain the preserve of people who know the names of the people who work in their local record shop back room, let alone the guy who actually owns the place. They are so far apart, it barely infringes trademark.
92. Whitney Houston, 'I Will Always Love You'
See #94, only with less enthusiasm.
91. Ed Sheeran, 'You Need Me I Don't Need You'
A pathetic 77 weeks on the chart for this one. I saw Sheeran play this live before he became astronomically popular. It was an industry showcase and in a raft of horseshit rock music, he stood out as being a bit more breezy and self-sufficient, effortlessly singing/rapping/beatboxing/playing guitar. Had I known what I know now, seeing the psychic wreckage wrought upon the daily workplace, I would have rushed the stage.
This is long. No apologies. I'll keep it short for the remainder of term.
Broadcasting behemoth VERSUS Faceless hack
0600:Dev, a new name to these ears, toils gamefully in the late graveyard (0400-0630). Whilst undertaking some preliminary research for this piece, I stumble across this in the blurb for his show of 1st February 2011: Dev found a musical burping & farting programme for his generic laptop computer. Its his favourite new toy. Though deeply gutted to have missed this, I am not to worry: the very next sentence reassures that I can expect to hear much more of this. Groan.
0602: First track and already a moral quandary: it features Chris Brown, he of the errant fists. Then again, Rihanna's newie is called 'S & M'. Always have a safe word, kids.
0614: The farting and burping machine is being put to good use; it is belching and gassing out the melody to the hits of the recently departed White Stripes. John Peel probably intended to do a similar thing when he returned from holiday.
0625: After a couple of songs, Dev is now farting out the melody of White Stripes' 'Blue Orchid'. Dev also can't be bothered to check out any new band music anymore and is now going to gigs on the strength of the name. Yeah, because it's quicker to get across London than it is to pull up a Myspace now and then.
0628: The news service has brought my attention to http://www.littlegossip.com – a repository for gossip and insults listed on a school-by-school basis. Some of Cambridge's highlights include that Alex Guttenplan is “possibly the biggest bender that has ever existed.” And they say the internet had too little in the way of unverifiable/unfocused screeds against the harmless.
0630: It has become very fashionable in recent years to bash Chris Moyles, almost a rite of passage for the average culturally-aware Guardian-reading 20-35. Stewart Lee devoted a ten minute routine on his BBC2 show to bashing Moyles' second book (The Difficult Second Book). His stock fell dramatically in 2010, when in a pique of self-aggrandisement, he railed against not being paid on time in spite of his salary being twenty times the national average. Though the actual incident itself is relatively prosaic, his Wikipedia refers to an “Auschwitz incident”. This is never a good sign.
My own interactions with Moyles and his art total one: at the 2010 World Cup, the BBC offered extra commentary options on the red button. You could take the antic yelping of Jonathan Pearce on the TV, you could switch to the curmudgeonly Alan Green, or you could take the 'banter' option of Chris Moyles and his sidekick Comedy Dave. This lasted sixteen seconds. Moyles screamed playground-level nicknames for each member of the Spanish midfield, complete with faux-bandido accent (only out by 6000 miles), offering a fairly compelling insight into what the opposite of comedy might actually be.
0645: The RAJAR stats are in for this quarter. How do I know this? Moyles and his team have gloated about his numbers going up since the show opened. They're laughing amongst themselves a lot but no one has actually told a joke. After this he curiously pretends to be above the data-collection industry (“ooh, you're up 1.4% with males aged 16-25 in Derbyshire”) before resorting to more listless boasting.
0650: “I bought loads of meat but it all goes off today!” One of his sidekicks (there appear to be five) points out that meat can be frozen. Nothing stops a Moylesologue, even the existence of technology that dates back centuries.
0655: Back to ratings chat, this time about his television show. No songs yet. Moyles doesn't like it when Lord Sugar crowds his Twitter feed with bragging. I decide to unwrap my grandfather's Browning pistol and leave it on the desk.
0658: Moyles: “I won't play Chris Brown because he slaps women about.” The Browning is re-wrapped and placed carefully in the drawer next to the antique hand-grenades.
0729: 11.2 million listeners for this show per week. Most of them, one would imagine, are listening whilst at work. The one advantage the Radio 1 has over every other pop format broadcaster on earth is that there are zero advertisements (seriously: who is listening to commercial pop radio?) - I've worked for firms that have had a local rival's name boom through the air just as a boss walks by. Radio 1 is a neat insurance policy against that ever happening.
However, it is evident that Moyles has actual fans, unless all of these texts and emails and phone-calls and cold hard statistics are fabricated. Caller Liz is a primary school teacher. She sounds intelligent and natural on the radio, her anecdotes light and clipped, but obviously 'real'. Every time Moyles makes a joke, Liz laughs, her whole body audibly shaking in delight. Cut to the Varsity guinea pig listening at home, arms folded, bereft of delight. If you're a fan of this man, please comment below outlining exactly what it is that attracts you and 11,199,999 others to the choice of Chris Moyles over silence.
0738: Sidekick #6263 has invented a game wherein he lists a British city and the rest of the team have to guess whether its population is higher or lower than the recent Moyles audience increase. What do you know? – they're all lower.
0757: The last twenty minutes have been completely incomprehensible.
0800: “What is mulligatawny?”
0845: This painful in-joke has been going on for about an hour now. Apparently somebody wrote in with the pseudonym Toby LeRone (geddit?) which fooled Moyles. Now they just keep repeating the name and loudly bellowing a fog of laughter.
0905: Earlier, the White Stripes' break-up was honoured by Dev's fart-o-tronic. Bon Jovi's hiatus announcement is being celebrated with 'Livin' On A Prayer' without Moyles interrupting it.
0917: In the chronology of the working day, we are now at the desk. We've been in the shower, choking down a piece of toast and stuck in an angry traffic jam. Now emails are coming in, Daphne in accounts has put a card on your desk to sign for Trevor's retirement. The work experience kid has made you the world's worst brew. Obviously there is only one soundtrack: Moyles rapping about going to the zoo.
0926: A song I like! Admittedly it's in the background of a trailer for a late-night show, but still, enough reason for me to post the video here.
0938: This is probably just me being a luddite but there has not been a song played all day with 'real' instruments. It's all drum machines and anthemic synths and auto-tuned vocals. Most won't care, but all of these pristine over-compressed recordings are making for a very undynamic listen. Very factory-line, functional radio at its worst. Is it meant to be ignorable?
0954: Roy Walker is in the studio for some reason. Either that or it is a very active soundboard. “I hate students”, Walker says to a caller, “get a life.” This gives me carte blanche to tell my Roy Walker story. A friend of mine was at the urinal in a Lytham pub called The Taps. Roy Walker is stood next to him, attending to business. Whilst thinking of a quip, said friend is beaten to the punch when a man walks up, stares at Walker's penis and says “what's Mr. Chips doing now?”
If you didn't watch Catchphrase then let me assure you: that was a hilarious anecdote.
1000:Fearne Cotton is as generally and widely derided as Moyles, though in this case the whole thing has a whiff of misogyny about it. A staple of ITV2 and a graduate of the early-morning yellcast format, what makes me uneasy about Cotton on television is a sense of underlying surliness; a refusal to hide a downness-in-the-mouth that made her interviews and interactions with Peaches Geldof, Mischa Barton, and especially Beth Ditto such an absolute non-event. Looking at her Radio 1 page, ALL of the photographs display a degree of hurt behind the eyes.
1005: A song with drums! Admittedly flat, fake-sounding drums. Cotton is a real rocker though but knows we just need to dip our toes before she blasts out some Acid Mothers Temple.
1011: Swerrrrve! Ke$ha is on. Or as I think of her, the antithesis of John Shuttleworth.
1014: “Here is an old song I like!” yells Cotton. It's from the second Razorlight album.
1036: When did My Chemical Romance turn into Wheatus? They were much better as Queen.
1045: Radio is a great compromise in the workplace. In a place where a bunch of people who are forced to co-exist, silence can be maddening. As David Foster Wallace points out in Host, it is hard to just speak into a microphone to no one (yet at the same time, everyone) and have it be of interest. Even interesting, smart, real-life people cannot do it. It is a skill which Fearne Cotton, with over a decade in showbusiness, undoubtedly possesses. It is the compromise and her lack of qualms about the compromise which make her radio programme ideal for the workplace because whilst it will annoy the student temp in the corner (me), most people will generally not be annoyed by its presence.
The restricted playlist eventually has a paradoxical effect in which time actually slows despite attempting to offer a distraction to this chronological advancement. Of course people have to work, and of course the nation's publicly-funded broadcasters cannot blast Merzbow at drive-time, but things could be better. Here is a stat from 2009: The ratio of total tracks played to unique tracks (the closer to 100% the more variety) played by the whole radio industry is 9%. That is not much different from simply playing one song over and over and over again. Charles Manson/Helter Skelter, anyone?
1051: Fearne, stop trying to make a Turin Brakes comeback happen.
1118: OH GREAT ANOTHER SONG WITH NO BASS, REVERBED ROLAND-808 CLAP SNARE, EMOTIONAL PIANO AND A RAP ABOUT HOW I GOT TO THE TOP DESPITE THE OVERWHELMING ODDS. I bet this sounds great whilst browsing through a spreadsheet about fourth quarter performance.
1136: The new song by Lewis Hamilton's mum is on. NEEDLESSLY OVERCONFIDENT LYRICS. FILTER SWEEP. KICK IN. ANTHEM. All boxes ticked.
1216: This show is still happening. I cannot remember a time when it was not.
1223: Ah, the satisfying cracking sound of an actual drummer actually hitting a snare, how I have missed thee. White Stripes tribute time: people who say Meg White was a terrible drummer simply do not understand how music works and spend all their time in a state where this fact continually manifests itself as anger. I was never a huge fan of these two on wax but they could completely rip it live.
1239: Fearne has developed a bit of a catchphrase. When she likes a song, she claims not just to love the song, but all the songs on the album - “soooo many good songs on that record.” Nine times this show with not one qualification or elucidation. Just name a song that isn't a single and I'll give you £50. The radio equivalent of wearing a Ramones t-shirt bought from Top Shop and not knowing 'Beat On The Brat'.
1314: “There's a sign gone up around the offices saying 'no 3G dongles in the studio'. Very useful if you're here, keep your dongles well hidden.” WAAAAAAAAY. Have another lager and put that traffic cone back on my head.
1323: Why are all these songs about partying and having a great time and being on top of the world and conquering odds? Is this Guardian article true, that we're going through a 'blue' period? Or is it just sub-Kanye tosh?
1332: “Someone was saying to me 'why don't the radio newsreaders get smartly dressed like they do on the television?' and it got me thinking.” Open goal.
1349: Agony uncle Johnny stops by and drops raw advice science, such as 'communicate'. He's down with the kids. We know this because he calls all the callers 'bruv' and pretends to like them even though all of their problems are basically asking him to affirm their desire to cheat.
1400: Eight hours in. Brain is complete mush. This is a shame because I really thought I could cough up 1000 words for a project whilst doing this.
1406: Agony uncle Johnny should give Bruno Mars a ring. “I would catch a grenade for you / take a bullet in the brain for you / jump in front of a train for you / but you won't do the same.” Abusive relationship much? Martyr complex? Just sayin'.
1433: Time for another digression. I probably listen to about ten hours of radio programming live per week, not counting podcasts. All of it is from the New Jersey-based station WFMU. Why not something closer to home? Well. Apart from Resonance, nothing like this really exists in the UK. The station is entirely free-form, meaning DJs adhere to nothing but the whims of their own knowledge. There is no playlist and no agenda. There is no advertising. It is entirely listener-sponsored and receives no governmental subsidy.
In short, it is like every show is like the John Peel Show because everybody gets the freedom. Talk show hosts can choose to play records. DJs more associated with a music-based format can just sit and talk if they wish. There are no jingles, no news updates, no wacky DJs promoting themselves as media celebrities as they are all volunteers. It is an oasis of sanity in a desert of horror. There is no attempt to mirror the average working day through radio: drive-time could be anything from Fabio's avant-garde show Strength Through Failure or Billy Jam's hip-hop and beats show Put The Needle On or any one of the expertly-curated three hour shows from a number of people whose love music and sound is positively palpable.
I once worked a night job, 12-hour shifts in an ambulance control room. The building was in the middle of parkland, three miles from the nearest town. Work was solitary, yawning chasms of time would stretch endlessly between calls. So I invested in a dongle (ooh-err, right Greg?) and streamed WFMU. It would be a bit much to credit a radio station for maintaining my sanity, after all, I have willingly sat in front of Radio 1 for a day despite not being a fan of popular entertainment. But the music did not simply attempt to anaesthetise its audience; it made time bend, wrapping around the active and curious parts of the brain, setting off chains of thoughts and pleasant associations – as well as the occasional problem and difficulty (not everything on WFMU is an easy listen). And the phone would ring and I would deal with the call and at its conclusion I would look at the clock and it was much closer to the end of the day than I had anticipated. And I felt all the richer for it.
1434: Oh it's that Florence & The Machine song that everyone loves even though she stole it from Gang Gang Dance but everyone seems to be totally okay with that.
1452: Ricky from Kaiser Chiefs referred to something as 'the opiate of the masses' and said that he enjoyed Midsomer Murders for its 'soporific effect', both of which make Greg James perform a mental spit-take. If Kaiser Chiefs made better music then I would not need to feel so guilty about finding their singer such an effortlessly charming man.
1516: See 0917 - it is recapped. Which is a bit like a Coronation Street recap halfway through Hitman and Her. That's still on, right? I like to keep these jokes as relevant as possible.
1534: Jeepers, this show is boring. At least people hate Chris Moyles. This is just tan upholstery in front of beige wallpaper. Also, every song played has now been spun at least three times now.
1544: Noah & The Whale's new single sounds like Bright Eyes covering 'Lola' by The Kinks. In short, terrible.
So how does Avril know about this girl? There is no connection between them. The ballet girl never told anyone that she secretly fancied the skater-boy. Presumably they are no longer in touch, so how does the skater boy or Avril know that the girl came to the gig? Clearly the only way Avril could know about this girl is because her fantastic boyfriend has been going on about her. It was obviously of great importance to him. And Avril, overly pleased with herself for having landed a cool rock-star boyfriend (not that she judges by appearances and would presumably still love him if he was an out of work ballet dancer), is fuming with jealousy that her boyfriend had this (apparently) unrequited love at school. So much so that she has invented this scenario where the pretty-faced girl has had her life fall to pieces.
1554: 'Bittersweet Symphony' by The Verve rounds off the first and last Greg James show I ever hope to hear. I don't mind this song, but considering I was 14 and from The Verve's hometown, this song was practically the National Curriculum. The Verve were my first ever gig. 40000 people on a scrap of land at the side of the local golf course. Twelve lavatories. Ticketless hoards crashing the fence down. Spent the day hanging out with an Oasis tribute band from Grimsby called Morning Glory. Britpop, eh? Magic times.
1600:Scott Mills has become part of the R1 furniture, quietly transitioning from chirpy newcomer to veteran without a significant increase in cynicism or decrease in energy. Still, there's something rather 'local radio' about him. Thankfully he adheres to the same boring drum machine and synth format laid down for the last ten continuous hours, promising more of the same. Wouldn't want anyone to have a heart attack or something.
Scott Mills (r) and the rest of the Friendchips gang.
1621: Sushi chat. Guys, it isn't 1990 anymore. People are totally cool with the idea of raw fish. We've also figured out the pricing system in Yo! Sushi too. And if you don't like fish, get the katsu, the miso, and the edamame. For crying out loud. Didn't think I'd say this, but can we have some music now?
1623: I take it back.
1634: Champing at the bit to hear something raw and unrestrained and untrained and free. Mills plays percentage ball and drops another sub-Kanye synth + drum machine slow jam. Snore.
1645: One hour to go (Newsbeat kicks in at 1745). This section would be funnier if Scott and his cohorts had some comedy chops: one sidekick has been exchanging emails with a spammer and they're getting the Radio 4 continuity people to read the back-and-forth exchange. The sidekick is playing the Karl Pilkington role as best he can. Highlight of the day, though there is little competition from the previous 525 minutes.
1648: “D'Artagnan? Who is that? I thought it was Dogtanian.”
1700: The feel is very much that of winding down. Whether that is my brain leaking out of my ears or the show mirroring the working day I am yet to ascertain.
1745: It. Is. Over. I'm going to stagger to Sainsbury's and then come back and put on this song by the Nation of Ulysses as loud as I can get away with.
Scott Mills (r) and the rest of the Friendchips gang.