Shame On You Polydor Records

I've loved the UK Top 40 ever since I was at primary school, listening to Bruno Brookes and taping all the songs I liked. It's a simple format. A compilation of the top 40 best-selling singles of that week. So it's a shame that despite all the changes that have happened this year, no-one can still seem to fathom how it should work.

This week, the OCC and music retailers have finally seen sense and from next year, all downloads will count towards the singles chart, not just from a week before its release like it is now. And about time too.

Now I'm quite archaic when it comes to purchasing music. I like having the artwork, the credits, the actual CD, something physical to show for your money and feel it's quite sad that the physical end of the singles market has been dying a slow death these past few years.

But I'm in the minority here and as the download market continues to increase, the chart should reflect what people are buying, whether it's two months before it's released in the shops, or six months after it's gone to #1. It was a ridiculous situation that The Scissor Sisters, Justin Timberlake and Gnarls Barkley had already sold bucketloads of their #1 singles by the time they were chart eligible but missed out on a few more rightly-deserved weeks in the top ten because of a pointless regulation.

But just when you think the chart is making progress, along comes Polydor Records to spoil it all. Thanks to downloads, the chart is becoming less predictable. Whereas a song would usually peak in its first week of release then plummet, now acts like Sandi Thom, Shakira and James Blunt have actually climbed to #1 and songs are regularly climbing inside the top ten, a situation unthinkable a few years ago.

One of those songs is Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol, which has inexplicably now been deleted by Polydor Records, meaning that despite it actually increasing its sales by 35% this week, it will drop from #8 to outside the chart altogether this weekend.

The deletion of singles has been happening for donkey's years, the first I remember being Wet Wet Wet's "Love Is All Around" in 1994 and are usually done to either a) give a forthcoming single by the same act the chance to gain more airplay and not be overshadowed by its previous hit or more recently b) if a hit single's parent album is struggling, the single will be deleted so then the only way to get the song would be to buy the album hence more profits for the record company.

Now this tactic worked before downloads but what is the point now? You can download any individual song you want at any time. The Snow Patrol song probably hadn't reached its peak position and the album actually went back up to #1 a few weeks ago, meaning that people were buying both the single and album.

The great thing about the UK chart is that unlike the US Billboard chart, with its ludicrous airplay inclusion, it's based entirely on what people are buying. The likes of Gnarls Barkley, Peter Kay and Shayne Ward have all proved recently that there are singles that will excite people enough to go and buy them in their hundreds of thousands. But by robbing a single of a higher chart position just to get a few more album sales, the singles chart is becoming completely distorted and is losing any meaning or credibility it had. *Chart anorak rant over*