last.fm to influence the charts?

From The Guardian, Wed 22 August 2007.

Hey chart fans, Music Week, the industry bible (in an old-fashioned print sort of way), will begin printing charts from data generated from last.fm. It seems the ‘industry’ is creaming itself about the stats that we are producing voluntarily as we listen to music on our computers and iPods etc.

It is the site, say aficionados, that discovered Arctic Monkeys long before their much discussed emergence on MySpace. It noted the popularity of Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy, the bestselling single of 2006, weeks before it became the first ever number one based solely on download sales.

Now its influence on the music industry has been officially acknowledged. Music Week, the influential trade title, will this week publish a chart based on the internet listening habits of the social networking site Last.fm, the first time the magazine has included data from an online supplier.

This could be interesting. The Postal Service’s ‘Such Great Heights’ was the most-listened to track in last.fm for aeons before the site went supernova and was bought by CBS, and it’s still in the upper etchelons. This could prompt a re-release or a remix for well-deserving but underexposed tracks such as this one. Linkin Park and Muse are currently atop the pile. Yawn.

Alas, the most-listened to artists  are similarly conservative: The above two round off a Top 5 lead by The Beatles, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Radiohead. Oh dear.

Can I suggest that you download and play some of my mixes on repeat, so that I can get into the charts. A dream fulfilled!

New Madonna Track

It’s called The Beat Goes On and it prominently features Pharrell. It’s breezy and N*E*R*D-like, but certainly not a killer track. It appears Ms Ciccone is moving from the disco to the radio-friendly R&B area.

It has leaked, so while I won’t post it here, you shouldn’t have any great difficulty finding it. Especially using Google Blog Search. Enjoy!

Image from Popcrunch. (Don’t know if it’s the proper artwork or not.)

Spider Pig

 So, I come home from Brazil having been disconnected (happily) from newspapers/web/TV/etc, turned on the Mac and checked the charts. Spider Pig by Hans Zimmer is in the UK Top 40. I don’t know what this is.Then I discover that it’s a track from the Simpsons Movie soundtrack and is just over 60 seconds of an odd version of the theme from the really old Spiderman cartoon, but it’s about a pig. And people have decided to cherry pick this track from the album available for download. Enough people to send it into the Top 40. Class.And even better, enough people in Ireland decided that it was genius enough to send it to number three! And number four is Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey. Say what you like about the Irish, but we are a funny bunch of fuckers.Here, for your perusal, are the lyrics to Spider Pig.

Spider pig

Spider pig

Does whatever a spider pig does

Can he swing

From a web

No he can’t

He’s a pig

Look Out

He is a spider pig

If you feel like purchasing Spider Pig, you can do so here.In slightly more sane news, Robin with Kleerup’s fantastic ‘With Every Heartbeat’ has made number one. I’ve been raving about the track since I first heard it last December and I’m happy to be proved right!

More lovely ABBA covers

Well, one more at any rate.

I’m literally leaving the house to go to Brazil, but I wanted to quickly share this rather lovely version of Super Trooper by winsome Scots, Camera Obscura. It’s on the Dermot O’Leary Saturday Sessions album, if you want to hear more. Or why not get Camera Obscura’s last album, which is just delicious.

Enjoy!

Download Super Trooper by Camera Obscura.