I Eat Music

If it’s new stuff you want, this week’s singles chart is not the place to come. Mostly, there’s just been some mild shuffling, with Taio Cruz still at the top and only one truly new entry (Daughtry’s ‘What About Now?’ at number 40). There have been a couple of sizeable leaps worth noting though. Deadmau5 jumps from 58 to 12 with his collaboration with Pendulum’s Rob Swire, ‘Ghosts N Stuff’, The Veronicas, are up an impressive 180 places, moving from 197 to 17, with ‘4Ever’, La Roux has gone from 58 to 27 with ‘I’m Not Your Toy’, and that Tinchy Stryder is up from 114 to 32 with ‘You’re Not Alone’. And that really is everything of note to say about the singles chart this week.

The album chart is far more exciting. There are new entries galore over there, including a brand new number one from Paramore, who get the always commendable job of knocking Madonna off the top. Flanking Madge at number three is Newton Faulkner, who is closely followed at four by Barbara Streisand, and then the fourth new entry in this week’s top ten, Ian Brown with ‘My Way’.

Continuing on, Paloma Faith is new at 14, followed by Basshunter at 16, Alice In Chains at 19 and Michael Bolton at 20. And yes, keen-eyed readers, Michael Bolton was a new entry last week, this is another one. ‘The Ultimate’ sits at number 20 this week, while last week’s number 19, ‘One World, One Love’, has slipped out of the top 40 and down to 45.

Right, enough Michael Bolton talk. Let’s talk about something more interesting. The next new entry down the list is the new record from The Nolans, ‘I’m In The Mood Again’, which is billed as “the ultimate night in”. I guess that assumes you don’t have access to a piece of string to play with, which I reckon would make a more fun night in than a collection of covers and new versions of old hits by The Nolans. Still, more interesting than Michael Bolton, I guess.

The final run of new albums in the chart are, Hockey’s collection of crimes against music, ‘Mind Chaos’ at 33, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s first album of new material in over six years, ‘God & Guns’, at 36, and Zero 7’s newie, ‘Yeah Ghost’, at 39.

Every Sunday, the charts are frantically scribbled onto the backs of Kit Kat wrappers and driven round to Radio 1 by The Official Charts Company.

So, I thought Jay-Z might be able to hold on to the number one slot for more than one week. But no, that position does seem to be very slippery of late and he’s dropped down to number three, making way for Pixie Lott to have a crack at grasping on to the top. There are a couple of new entries vying for position, too. Mika is at four with ‘We Are Golden’, Mini Viva are at seven with ‘Left My Heart In Tokyo’ and Muse are at eight with ‘Uprising’.

Outside the top ten there’s less going on. Shakira is the next new entry at 25, with ‘She Wolf’, while U2 are at 32 with ‘I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy’, and Livvi Franc closes proceedings, coming in at 40 with ‘Now I’m That Chick (feat. Pitbull)’.

The album chart is just weird this week. Vera Lynn has done what she failed to do last week and knocked Arctic Monkeys of the number one spot. Just in case you didn’t get that: Vera Lynn is at number one. Vera Lyn. Vera. Lynn. At number one. At 92 years old, she is the oldest person to ever hold the position – a full 25 years older than the previous holder, Bob Dylan, who went to the top of the chart at the sprightly age of 67 in May this year.

And if that wasn’t weird enough, The Beatles have four albums in the top ten. Not to allow Vera Lynn to take all the glory, they’ve broken two records, racking up the most number of albums by a group simultaneously in the top ten, which has been held by The Monkees since 1967 (when they had three), and also the most number of albums by an act in the top 60, with sixteen. The previous holder of that record was Elvis, who had 14 albums in the top 60 in 1977, thanks to a Michael Jackson-style mass purchase of his back catalogue following his death.

It’s not all old stuff in the album chart, though. Jamie T’s second album, ‘Kings & Queens’, goes straight in at number two, and The Cribs’ latest offering, ‘Ignore The Ignorant’, their first with former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, is also new at eight.

Further down the chart, there are a few non-Beatles new entries in the top 40 (though they do have a further six in addition to the four in the top ten). Beverley Knight is in at 17 with ‘100%’, Frank Turner is at 36 with ‘Poetry Of The Deed’, and Prefab Sprout (still relative newbies compared to The Beatles and Vera Lynn) are in at 39 with ‘Let’s Change The World With Music’.

And I wouldn’t be doing this properly is I didn’t keep you up to date with Mercury nominees’ chart movements. There’s little activity on that front yet, though it’s still less than a week since the award winner was announced. In reverse order, La Roux is at 34, Friendly Fires are at 32, Kasabian are at 16, are Florence And The Machine are at 12, all of which are drops from their positions last week.

The charts are compiled by the understandably quite excited Official Charts Company.

To celebrate the fifth birthday of the Official Download Chart, the Official Charts Company have put together a special one-off All-Time Official Downloads Chart. And guess what, Lady Gaga is right at the top of it. Yeah, that’s right, Lady Gaga’s ‘Poker Face’ has sold more downloads in the UK than any other track in the last five years. I blame you for this.

Lady Gaga does a little dance with Kings Of Leon for the top four spaces on the chart, with her track ‘Just Dance’ at three, and their tracks ‘Sex On Fire’ and ‘Use Somebody’ at two and four. La Roux spoils the pattern by coming in at five with ‘In For The Kill’. Leona Lewis also makes two appearances in the top ten.

For those of you not paying attention, this means that download sales have risen quite sharply in the last twelve months. Despite this, ‘Poker Face’ sales only amount to 779,000 downloads, which doesn’t seem like that many. Still, of the top 100 tracks in the chart, 46 were released in 2008 and 21 were released in 2009. Just three from 2004, when the chart was launched, and two from 2005, made the grade.

Commenting on her latest chart achievement, Lady Gaga said: “The commitment and devotion of my fans in the UK, otherwise known as ‘my little monsters’, has made for a truly memorable and successful year for myself and [debut album] ‘The Fame’. I am honoured to be the songwriter and performer behind the number one and number three all-time most downloaded songs in history in the UK. I love my fans eternally, and will continue to live, breathe, bleed, and love music and fashion for them”.

Official Charts Company MD Martin Talbot added: “This is a fabulous achievement from Lady Gaga, to come from nowhere in January to dominating the all-time downloads list with two in the top three. Her success – and that of Kings Of Leon and Leona Lewis too – reflect the resurgent success of the singles market in the era of the download and highlights that mass appeal pop music is alive and well in 2009″.

Here’s the complete top ten:

1. Lady Gaga – Poker Face
2. Kings Of Leon – Sex On Fire
3. Lady Gaga – Just Dance
4. Kings Of Leon – Use Somebody
5. La Roux – In For The Kill
6. Leona Lewis – Run
7. Alexandra Burke – Hallelujah
8. Leona Lewis – Bleeding Love
9. Snow Patrol – Chasing Cars
10. Nickelback – Rockstar

Little Boots has said that people should stop talking about women in the music industry as one group. She made the comment when asked by Sky News, though I’m sure she’s asked it several times daily, about what she thought of women taking over the music industry, with artists such as herself and La Roux cracking the charts and the NME appointing its first female editor.

She said: “It’s kind of bad – a girl isn’t some kind of genre you know. The exciting thing is that everyone’s really different and people should embrace that”.

Ignoring that, Sky News ploughed on with its claims that women are taking over music, speaking next to incoming NME editor Krissi Murison about her new role. She said: “Obviously it is long overdue – the magazine is nearly 60 years old, and I am the first female editor, so yeah it is about time. But also I don’t want to get too bogged down. I got this job for many reasons, and none of them at all had anything to do with my gender”.

The main basis for the report, apart from Murison being made editor of the NME, seems to be that five female solo artists have been nominated in this year’s Mercury Prize. Murison said, apparently in response to this, but possibly not: “For the first time in a while, women are actually breaking into the mainstream. The real story right now is, where are all the boys?”

Well, aside from Glasvegas drummer Caroline McKay, ‘the boys’ make up the 26 other musicians collectively nominated for the Mercury. I’m not saying that women aren’t getting more prominent jobs in the industry (Kerrang! have just appointed their second female editor remember) but let’s not pat ourselves on the back about a revolution in equality just yet, eh?

Can anyone get me a list of everyone who entered the Mercury Prize this year? I really want to see it. Yesterday I had no real opinion on this year’s shortlist (it’s just a list of albums that some people who aren’t me have chosen, after all), but thanks to the medium of Twitter, I have now seen levels of moaning I would normal avoid.

Standard gripes:

• The shortlist is too mainstream
• The shortlist isn’t mainstream enough
• The shortlist is too major label focussed
• The shortlist doesn’t feature my favourite artist/genre
• The shortlist only features bands I don’t like

Well, let’s ignore the third one, because less than half the artists on this year’s list are signed to major labels, so anyone saying that is officially wrong. Unless you want to argue that only one artist from each major should be allowed to be nominated. Or that no major label artists should be allowed at all.

Maybe the list is a little mainstream, or maybe there are a lot of artists who you have heard of on it. The Horrors’ new album may have gone down well with critics but the droney shoegaze sound on it is unlikely to get them on the cover of whatever magazine it is that teenage girls read these days. However, the fact that La Roux and Kasabian are on there does suggest that to some extent this thing is based on sales, rather than talent.

The fact that your favourite artist or genre isn’t represented may not be down to the ignorance of the judges (though I’m not necessarily saying it isn’t). Did they even enter? Yes, you actually have to enter this competition. The judges don’t, as an alarming large number of people seem to think, just listen to every single album released by British artists in the last twelve months. It would take too long – there were quite a lot of them.

So, going back to my original request, until I have seen a list of every artist who entered this year, I’m going to assume that certain genres are under represented because very few artists and labels from those genres submit their work for consideration. Probably because they assume they won’t get nominated. And when you think you’re not going to get nominated the £200 entry fee and 25 copies of your album that you have to send over to Mercury HQ seems like a lot. Maybe that fee is more restrictive than it needs to be, but if I start talking about that we’ll be here all day.

But, hey, I’m coming at this from an underground angle. There are plenty of people complaining at the other end of the spectrum that bands are missing from the list who definitely will have entered. But anyone who thinks that Snow Patrol, Coldplay and Take That have been robbed can shut up.

In the end though, it’s just a list of twelve albums. It’s not a list of the twelve best albums, it’s a list of the twelve albums most people on the judging panel could agree that they liked, and the winner will be chosen on the same grounds. Last year Elbow won because they divided opinion less than Burial and because the judges realised they probably should have given the award to the band’s second album ‘A Cast Of Thousands’ in 2004. Plus, the overall list was pretty weak.

There are actually some albums I really like up for the prize this year – Bat For Lashes, Florence & The Machine and Friendly Fires. ‘Primary Colours’ by The Horrors is pretty good, but probably not really in with a chance (because of that whole dividing opinion thing again), and Speech Debelle is already getting written off as ‘the token urban artist’, which completely ignores the fact that she’s made some really good music. But let’s not get so worked up about it. If I made you a list of my twelve favourite albums, I bet you wouldn’t agree with it, and I hate almost everything you like.

Plus, let’s not forget that they once gave the Mercury Prize to M People. M People! Anyone who wins this award is basically the same as M People. If I was in a band, I’d be begging my label not to enter me.

Here, if you’ve somehow managed to miss it, is the full shortlist:

• Florence & The Machine – Lungs
• Kasabian – West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum
• Speech Debelle – Speech Therapy
• Friendly Fires – Friendly Fires
• La Roux – La Roux
• Bat For Lashes – Two Suns
• The Horrors – Primary Colours
• Glasvegas – Glasvegas
• Led Bib – Sensible Shoes
• Sweet Billy Pilgrim – Twice Born Men
• The Invisible – The Invisible
• Lisa Hannigan – Sea Sew