It was announced in the papers today that Lady Gaga is the ultimate winner since the download rule first came in to play five years ago. Copies of her singles have sold in excess of one and a half million.
I have written on several occasions about what a significant development to the music business this was. Control being handed over to the artist rather than the manager and all that.
It continues to astound me that this rule still has not been abused. Abused is perhaps the wrong word, but subverted!
Why has nobody sat and downloaded 'Agadoo' hundreds of times, just to see if it goes in the charts? Choose a song and download it repeatedly just to see what you can do.
As I cannot be bothered to find the blog to link it, I wrote about the ‘hit campaign’ orchestrated by fans of John Otway when 'Bunsen Burner' was released. Otway sent out a CD of eleven songs and the fan had to pick a song that would be released as a single. A free concert at the Astoria followed; where it was announced which song had made it. The single was released, and eventually got to number nine in the charts on fan power alone. Woolworths, at the time the biggest influence on the singles chart (how strange that seems now) refused to stock it. The whole thing even made the news. If the download rule had been in place at the time, then Otway would have had a stab at the number one spot, given how his fans were pushing the campaign.
I gave up trying to rally people along a couple of years ago when I tried to get 'Fairytale Of New York' to Christmas number one, but apathy set in and hardly anyone downloaded it.
But here is a system that should be easily manipulated, without loopholes, and nobody even tries to subvert.
Welcome to 21st century England. We will just do as we are told!
