Irish Music Charts and Bandwagon
In the mid 1980s I was responsible for auditing the Irish Singles Charts prior to an overhaul of the system. The final calculation of chart position was arrived at by a formula that weighted sales over several weeks to prevent singles trampolining in and out of the charts given the relatively small number of record sales in Ireland.
Reading Silicon Republic today, there’s an interview with Irish music industry veteran Dave O’Grady, manager of Mundy, and owner of his own Independent Records label in Dublin.
O’Grady shares his thoughts on the recent IRMA (Irish Recorded Music Association) changes to the Irish Music Charts, specifically that digital downloads are now eligible for the Irish charts, and on a new social networking site that doubles as a download portal dedicated to the development of thousands of unsigned acts. So I find myself looking at the Irish charts then and now.
The Irish Charts 20 Years Ago
Back then only the Irish Top 30 was computed, and in truth the lower twenties sold little more than a handful of records. But the formula wasn’t the problem; it was the figures fed into it that needed auditing.
Those sales figures were supplied not from retail outlets but by record distributors. No proof was required and no explanation of what exactly the figure meant was supplied. For one major distributor the sales figures supplied were arrived at simply by subtracting the number of singles in the warehouse this week, from the number that were there last week. If they’re not there any more they must be sold, right?
Obviously pilfering or major theft even, would therefore put a record in the charts, and even if every single record did actually go to a record shop for selling, it’s quite possible that none were bought by the public, but nonetheless the single flew high in the charts.
Similarly another major distributor was in the habit of massively overstating sales in the initial weeks of a Single’s release to gain the promotion that a Chart position naturally gave it, and then corrected the figures by understaing sales when the Single was sliding down the charts, so that over time the figures balanced.
My favourite though was a small label whose sole records for the Charts were each week a single piece of paper with a number writen on it, like 47. Auditing it all you could say was that yes, 47 was indeed written on a piece of paper.
Anyway shortly after this analysis of the charts, the whole thing was overhauled, and doubtless fixed - though I do wonder just how many singles you need to sell - physically or by download, to enter what is now a Top 50 when I thought Singles sales were well down on where they were twenty years ago.
Although I was the outsider in a corner of many of these distributors, being in a place of work where music, mostly Irish, was blaring loud in the office all day, and music celebrities popped in every day, was a blast. This was a time when Christy Moore’s Ordinary Man was dominating the charts even if it seemed Ride On hadn’t finished yet. Despite their whispers, I was actually on the same side as the music distributors.
The Irish Charts Today
The IRMA chart today recognises digital downloads from several online stores though those downloads are only eligible in the Irish charts if a physical single is released. I guess we still need to be rooted in a physical reality.
Ireland isn’t like America though, or indeed much of the rest of the developed world:
While O’Grady agrees that incorporating digital downloads into the Irish charts is a welcome development, he still believes Ireland is far behind the rest of the world. Because broadband is so slow to roll out, consumers would be quicker to get a taxi to their local record shop
O’Grady also points out that albums are the big sellers for the Irish independent music industry, not singles, and Irish people still buy those in physical form:
Downloads in Ireland are okay — they account for 45% of singles sold — but in terms of albums people still like to go to their record stores. Even if a single went to number one in the download charts on iTunes, it would in reality only probably impact the physical charts at number 77. The reality is that you won’t just make a record sell by offering a downloadable version
Meanwhile the business model that is social networking websites, where people can share and recommend playlists, has long been established my MySpace, and in Ireland Bebo. O’Grady is not convinced that the model will hold for all ages over time, but right now there’s a new website on this bandwagon:
In the UK, visits to Bandwagon have grown from 20,000 in February to just over two million in May. As well as this, over 4,300 unsigned bands have joined the site in the last three months. Since Bandwagon opened the doors to its Irish site last week some 250 local bands have joined the network
Read the full article here
See Also:
• Little Judy’s trying to watch Top of the Pops
• U2 1979 & 1987: A Tribute 2U Fran
• Majella Murphy’s Brave New World
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