SubscribeHaving Elvis for the thousandth number one is wrong on so many levels. The kids have long since gotten over charts, fashions and themselves being manipulated and the record industry understands that they enjoy it, so that’s not so bad. It’s the idea of releasing eighteen singles consecutively to generate another eighteen number ones that smacks of a certain kind of old fogey, who really should know better, trying to make a point about the alleged superiority of their generation’s music. Thankfully, that’s falling on generally deaf ears as today’s so knowledgeable kids are above caring for chart positions. Then we had Top of the Pops only playing a clip of the number one because the Presley Estate refused permission for anything more substantive (this is code for saying the greedy sods asked for too much money and explains the real reason why we won’t be seeing it much, if at all, on music TV).
Nevertheless, it does mean we’re in for a tedious few months as the singles sales chart is finally killed off. Elvis may be the thousandth number one, but that’s with the lowest ever sales figures and, more interestingly, he failed to make it into the download chart, which looks a lot more with it. everyHit.com has launched its sheet music chart archive to coincide with Presley’s success, I wonder if the industry went through some similar angst ridden phase as sheet music sales fell and new fangled records took off.
UPDATE: The Presley Estate got their just deserts when, in the absence of film right, TOTP called in an Elvis impersonator and their third attempt to make number one ended in failure on 23 January. Hoorah!
