Oldies make a comeback

[Toon]

With music downloads outselling CD singles by four to one in the UK and the music charts revamped to include download sales, the digital revolution is having a big impact on the music industry.

Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars was one of the biggest selling singles of 2006. On sales of CDs and downloads it went as high as number six in the UK charts.

As is standard practice, a few weeks later the record company deleted the CD and removed it from the shops.

With no physical format available to buy, the song no longer qualified for a chart position and disappeared from the top 40.

But with music download sites now the UK's favourite place to buy singles, each with massive back catalogues of songs, it was decided that just listing the singles currently on release may not reflect the way people were actually buying songs.

So from 1 January 2007, every song that is available to download is now allowed to chart.

READ MORE>>

[WebGrafix]

This saves people who come back into the mainstream from re-releasing singles. Think Pete Burns and Peter Andre when they came back into the limelight. They both reentered the charts by re-releasing their most popular songs.

I also have a feeling that songs that appear in adverts may start sneaking back into the charts if they already have not. I don't pay attention to the charts but there have been some good songs appearing in adverts recently that I have downloaded.

[zumojuice]

well there are still some tricks to prevent downloaded tracks getting quick so high. Often itunes stocks multiple copies of the same thing - with one track being highly rated over the other? do they both count towards the chart count or only one? Also people can but the track off the album, rather than the single. And theres stil the old stupid price leap on bits and pieces