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Download-only Single Becomes UK Number One
Stuart Gibson writes "As predicted, the Gnarls Barkely single 'Crazy' has reached the number one spot on the official UK charts, based solely on legal downloads. The CD version of the single will not be released until tomorrow. This is the first single to be eligible for the honour as, until last month, download sales would only be counted if the track was also available to be bought as a physical copy."
Now we have proof that crappy music will remain popular regardless of the method of distribution.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
Oh, wait, they're actually counting downloads people *paid* for? :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
So you don't want to know about UK News? Tough, I don't give a rats arse about US news but I still get it delivered to me from news sites. Also, it is entirely justified to post this on Slashdot- if we in the UK count downloads as a "real" method for purchasing music- how long will the traditional sale of CDs last?
It may interest you to know there's a pretty substantial non-American Slashdot membership.
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
I didn't mean to make it sound like I was against the British. Even if it was a US song I would still be wondering the same thing
echo YOUR_OPINION >
i think it's relevant as it's another example of the music industry only just catching up with the demand of the public. i'm glad they've decided to treat music downloads slightly more seriously and hopefully this will allow slightly more mature musical tastes to become more prevelant in the media in general. the singles chart has long been a joke to anyone other than 13 year old girls, it's time for change.
legal downloads of music/film/tv is the way in which music will be sold in the future. the thought of having to go all the way to a shop where there's only an x% chance of finding the album/song you're looking for will seem laughable in a decade's time... at least, it will be should the music industry not drad its feet as it always does... so perhaps we'll still be exactly here.
the biggest impedement to the music industry is the music industry.
I was under the impression that UK music charts were so rigged by the industry as to meaningless.
who used in in one of their BBC radio 1 channel branding idents (which was very cool) where they animated real objects in various real life scenes (street lights , cars , scaffolding, people) to the soundtrack like a VU meter
very cool effect and it worked perfectly with the track, i remember when it first aired people asked me "have you seen that bbc advert" and "i love this track", played often its not suprising the tune did well, this is just like any other adverts that have cool tunes, if its a good tune people will buy/seek it, good music conquers all
AJ
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Radio 1 on the BBC channels (who own the station). Most people would have heard it from the ad and not the terrible station.
This is the first single to be eligible for the honour as, until last month, download sales would only be counted if the track was also available to be bought as a physical copy.
Readers must note that download-only tracks are not eligible for the UK chart, the rule is that the physical version must be released within one week of the download version. So, it's just a way to get an extra week in the top ten.
And, this song's success isn't solely down to internet hype or hoopla over downloads... it was used on an eye-catching BBC Radio 1 advert that received heavy play on the BBC's channels. Sadly I can't find a link to it, but UK readers will surely know which one I mean. Here's a link to a different Radio 1 ad that uses the same technique.
And it'll be called "It's all about the ponies". It'll be a download record amongst the 1.7% of the female readers on slashdot!
Oh, wait, they're actually counting downloads people *paid* for? :-)
They aren't. Nobody paid for the download; its simply available on their website. In fact, if you go there it autoloads and plays, so you get counted toward the total.
I call that cheating. And its driving me crazy. Driving me craaaazy.
Hmm...needs more cowbell.
__
Elephant Essays - Custom created research papers and essays.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
Anyone else think its a bit tricky how if you go to their website the song autoloads and plays, so you get counted toward the total?
I call that tricky. And its driving me crazy. Driving me craaaazy. Driving me craaaazy.
Hmm...needs more cowbell.
__
Elephant Essays - Custom-created research papers and essays.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
Apple sold one billion songs.
That's a 'b'
Billion.
Nine zeroes.
Big number. More than a lot. Like, really big number.
Just before iTunes launched everyone said "who's going to pay for something you can get for free?"
Then Apple sold one billion songs.
That's a 'b'
pwnt
Next.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
here you go
Zane Lowe Gnarls Barkley advert/ident
very cool, if only more adverts where like this, but then it wouldnt be on the BBC
I assume you mean the music from when you were a youngster, funny that hey.
Shame so many people cannot see past the type of music they listened to as a youngster to see all the great music that is still being produced now.
Thank you dictionarybot.
Crazy by Gnarls Barkley has been tipped to make music history this week by becoming the UK's first number one single based on download sales alone.
Download SALES. Not downloads. Visiting the website a trillion times wouldn't change the ranking on the charts.
The book in my sig is already the #1 bestselling book on Amazon, despite having not been released yet.
The article says that the single *might* hit the number one spot. It doesn't say it *did* hit the number one spot. The person they were quoting said "mid-week sales figures are confidential," which means to me that we don't yet know that this single has in fact topped the charts. Maybe it will, though. Not sure why we should care.
That no matter how far we come along, there will still be people who can't recognize a joke.
Maybe it's just because I'm not British, but I just listened to this song on the group's website and it sounds pretty annoying.
#1 music is pretty much always crap though...
My friend is canadian and he says he makes up 33% of slashdot's international readership. Have you met him?
cause hard as i looked I could not find it on their homepage. Nor on the myspace page it was linked too... the download button would not work for me there
Interesting to hear the audio difference between their home page and their myspace page. Myspace losing the highs.
Also interesting that when I search iTunes for gnarls barkely I get no returns (?)
Song's not bad.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
You go to the record/video store with a particular album/film in mind? I much prefer to have a look and see what treasures reveal themselves.
It's likely that legal downloads will make up a significant proportion of purchases of film/music products in the future, but the stores themselves won't necessarily die.
Knarls Barkeley sounds like what basketball star Charles Barkley would name his dog.
I'm not much of a Cee-lo fan, but DangerMouse is the shit.
:P
I think you misspelt the empty string
"My friend is canadian and he says he makes up 33% of slashdot's international readership."
Man, that's one *big* Canadian!
No news to see here, move along...
There is a *very interesting* article on Joel on software (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/11/18.ht ml) on how it is essential for the Record labels to be able to control the popularity of its songs:
"...Here's the dream world for the EMI Group, Sony/BMG, etc.: there are two prices for songs on iTunes, say, $2.49 and $0.99. All the new releases come out at $2.49. Some classic rock (Sweet Home Alabama) is at $2.49. Unwanted, old, crap, like, say, Brandy (You're A Fine Girl) -- the crap we only know because it was pushed on us in the 70s by paid-off disk jockeys -- would be deliberately priced at $0.99 to send a clear message that $0.99 = crap.
And now when a musician gets uppity, all the recording industry has to do is threaten to release their next single straight into the $0.99 category, which will kill it dead no matter how good it is. And suddenly the music industry has a lot more leverage over their artists in negotiations: the kind of leverage they are used to having. Their favorite kind of leverage. The "we won't promote your music if you don't let us put rootkits on your CDs" kind of leverage.
And Apple? Apple wants the signaling to come from what they promote on the front page of the iTunes Music Store. In the battle between Apple and the recording industry over who gets to manipulate what songs you buy, Apple (like movie theaters) is going to be in favor of fixed prices, while the recording industry is going to want variable prices."
Never heard of him.
Read the Story of Commodore Computers www.commodorebook.com
I never could figure out who was Number One in The Prisoner. Now we know: Patrick McGoohan's nemesis was none other than ... Gnarls Barkely. Cool.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Not to mention a day late. Seriously, where is the good song?
My friend is canadian
/. and you still only have one friend?
You come to
I love my sig.
whocares, stupid, slownewsday,gay...
Is the public taking revenge at Taco et al for having us tortured with PinkDot yesterday?
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
Many have undermined the potentiality of Internet as an amazing delivery mechanism. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) like BitTorrent brings this to an unprecedented level. Today it is possible to distribute very large files at a negligible cost. This was evident with new comers to Linux world such as multimedia Tomahawk Desktop and their world reach via BitTorrent. This is a model, try it before you buy and places a great trust on you.
A recent survey found P2P music download is in the geographical area where most people buy legal music. What this means? It is try it before buy mentality. P2P and Internet downloads are not an evil or bad for business, its a great opportunity not to be missed.
It may interest you to know there's a pretty substantial non-American Slashdot membership.
You mean there are terrorists, north koreans, and other towelheads reading slashdot? I thought their letters were different and stuff.
I hope this is a step along the way to allowing songs into the charts that are heavily downloaded and - legally - not necessarily paid for. Until that happens, the charts remain an indicator of how heavily pimped a song or artist is.
:v)
Vik
Don't know what the big deal is. My kid can sing better.
If so, it's hardly an accolade. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Frog in case you were lucky enough to avoid it.
Then again, it may not.
Spoken like a true Anti-American - unable to even notice that they have something loged sideways up thier ass. At least we know we do.
The guy figured that "number one song" isn't really news for nerds and such (I would tend to agree, though not enough to warrent a post - been here long enough to know it's not my opinion that matters).
It might interest you to know that we know very well there are other people and the world doesn't revolve around you any more than it does us.
You might want to look in the mirror before you post like this again. You immediatly jumped to the "American are self centered idiots who don't think about *me*!" idea.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
we'd have to give up being able to complain about the younger generation being losers.... ...and fix that nail or whatever it is in your nose it's crooked, and do something with the second pink stripe in your hair, clashes with your tats...kids..no sense of style or artistry...
David W. Hogg -- assoc prof, NYU Physics
Whats the difference between a popular download-only song and a popular song that you can buy on CD?
It is a pity that it is still easier to type 'gnarls barkley +crazy +mp3' into Google to pirate it than it is to actually buy this online - at least in Australia. They're playing it a lot on a local radio station here and I quite like it, and this article finally gave me the artist so I could look it up to buy it.
As always I tried Googling it first to see if it was iTunes - which it was; I got a handly link to the iTunes store, which opens iTunes. I was then politely told that this track is only available in the iTunes store in the UK.
If the labels are ever going to take this Internet thing seriously they're going to have to readjust their way of thinking. They can't rely on their old system of having area-based licenses - it just doesn't make any real sense in the era of digital content.
So maybe a percentage of "nerds" would not rate this a "nerd" worthy story. Wether or not it is or is not nerd worthy has nothing to do with the country of origin.
Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
It's some Canadian he met on a BBS in '87.
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
Gnarls Barkley actually features Danger Mouse. The same Danger Mouse who released The Grey Album on the internet a while back. http://www.illegal-art.org/audio/grey.html That alone should buy GB some slashdot-news-worthiness points.
Oh please, you're just gonna modbomb the first one to reply. Nobody's dumb enough to fall for that.
hohohooho
ahahaahhaha
*dance dance*
Calm down. You haven't annexed us yet.
Eh.. You seem to have something lodged far up your ass. This is a U.S. centered/stationed/hosted site to begin with so it will be U.S. centric. We get a few news things about other countries and that's not a big deal. Don't make life harder for yourself by bitching about other's bitching.
You could always host your own slashdot.co.uk if you wanted to but.. *OOPS* a domain squatter is already there. QUIT yer bitchin.
ie. I'll be more interested when some music that isn't so black gets to #1
However, the bad news is that I will not be buying it either as it's yet another example of cobbled-together, formulaic music designed for the plastic, designer mobile-phone generation who are too insecure to venture into a deeper exploration of music that extends beyond the 40-or-so CDs on sale in their local supermarket.
I'm sorry but I wouldn't know "Cee-Loo Green" if he/she passed me in the street but "Danger Mouse" is a superb & wonderful character of whom I have the utmost respect and admiration - although I did sometimes consider him to be a little hard on his mole sidekick, Penfold, in the British cartoon series of the same name.
In my day, when an artist "featured" another guest artist, we generally knew who one, the other or both are as musicians. However, these days such is not the case as I wouldn't know "Snoop Doggy Poop" from "Rampant Moggie Mangler" if they past me in the street.
May I also remind you that in my day, recording engineers were obviously better trained due to the fact that they mixed their music correctly the first time without having to reissue subsequent endless "remixes" of their music, For GOD'S SAKE, why can't you just TRAIN these people properly the first time so they get it right the first time? And why do you not have a decent Quality Assurance department that checks the "mix" quality before sending CDs out to the record stores. Why, we never heard Led Zeppelin (Featuring James Page) saying "Ooh, I don't think Robert quite got the 'Oooh-oooh-oooh' quite right on Stairway To Heaven that time. Can we please have another go at it?"
In summary, therefore, may I offer a few suggestions which, I feel, will go a long way to improving the quality of music in today's pop charts:
1. Suggest to some of your musicians that their hard-earned money might be better spent on singing/instrument lessons rather than baggy, badly-made jeans where the crutch hangs down at the knees. If nothing else, imagine the trouble these poor people would have trying to run outside of a burning studio - the damned things are a fire hazard!
2. Please throw in the occasional guitar solo - after all, guitar solos never did His Almighty Majesty Ozzy Osbourne any damage, now did they?
3. Allow your musicians to spend some time learning with Michael Flatley & "Riverdance". I find this constant "hand jiving" and finger gesturing by these artists most off-putting. I'm sure Mr Flatley will be able to teach these musicians how to keep their arms gracefully be their sides at most times.
4. Please ask some of your artists to have a quick look in the mirror before venturing out onto the stage or in front of a video camera. It is most disturbing to see so many young men with their baseball caps on backwards & if they took a little more time over their appearance, we would all feel much better.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Download sales of music outnumbering CD single purchases?
Could this mean the RIAA and such have been wrong all those years?
I know everybody in the world has said they were, but they were so sure of themselves; even trying to ban it.
Now I don't know what to believe anymore!
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
indeed. follows rules, sounds melodic, ok production.
and uk being the birthplace of good music I don't see what all you liverless-geeks brag on about?
i've seen it in the shops here(UK) as a 12" vinyl!!!!!!!!!!!!
All you just said is "I feel old and close minded, and/or this isn't my prefered genre of music." Guess what, I like my classic rock as much as anyone, and you're more likely to catch me with a Floyd album than the latest 50 pence track, but this is obviously a catchy pop tune (hear it once or twice and I defy you not to be humming it the rest of the day.)
Idiot... or did I just get properly trolled?
I wonder what the MPAA will make of that ??
Art Makers Just an excuse to show photos of naked women !!
Well now, read any story about DRM, the DMCA and its (mis)use, the RIAA suing people and such like, and you'll see scores of comments bemoaning the RIAA's lack of technological progress, and calling on them to change their business model and embrace downloads, or die.
Well, here's the first song (in the UK) to make it to the top of the charts based solely on legal downloads.
Don't you think that this provides some sort of proof of what so many people here have been saying? That it *is* possible to make a viable business model out of downloadable tracks? This is bigger than ITMS passing a billion downloads - this sends a message that downloads of specific songs (not just music in general) is a viable model.
Seems a little strange not to want to have the proof to back up our assertions, but then again, this is slashdot, where anecdotal evidence and prejudgements are taken as gospel.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Link
To YouTube with the commercial in question.Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. - Will Rogers
not a mole.
America, fuck yeah!
My god you lot are so ignorant of the rest of the world it is unreal...Off topic I know but OMG sort yourselves out guys...there is life outside of the US you know.
My favorite punk band just told everyone to respect hip hop.
We just got this album at KJHK this week. Incredible stuff. I've got all new respect for Cee-Lo, he's amazingly talented, and his vocals really pull all this together, really complementing DJ Danger Mouse's production.
& Propagandhi: if you haven't, check out Dead Prez and Immortal Technique, and Mac Lethal's "Pass the Ammo."
I don't really like the original, but there's a fast breakbeat remix (possibly a bootleg / white label) that's not bad at all. Bear in mind I was pretty high when I heard it though :)
who would ever want to listen to music by Charles Barkely? O wait, that's a 'GN'?
"My friend is Canadian and he loves having things wedged sideways up his ass, you insensitive clod!"
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
"Don't you think that this provides some sort of proof of what so many people here have been saying? "
Not so much, as others pointed out it was more a marketing thing and is a single song. I would bet with the correct marketing you get get a number one song to be sold only in a cereal box.
I figure the proof is more along the lines of iTunes - much broader and much less harder to argue with. It's long term, broad, and profitable.
IMO fine for the special sections of slashdot, probably not up to main page. But, as I said, I've been here long enough to know it's their show, they decide, and they don't care what we think (and, to note, were I doing this website I would most likely have the same opinion).
It should be noted the whole thing you are replying too is an aside and a weak one at that. My point (which I figured would be modded to -1, anti-Americanism is popular here) was that the anti-american post was doing exactly what he was accusing Americans of doing. Didn't figure it would do any good, but was bored so posted anyway. I tend to find it more amusing than anything.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it