I'm back!
This is an interesting story. Well, when I say interesting, I suppose what I really mean is bemusing. I'm not really sure that I see the point of it. I'm probably showing my age now, but I remember watching the Chart Show (in the proper olden days when it was on Channel 4 on a Friday) and getting all excited when the featured chart was the Indie Chart. I wanted the Sisters, or the Mission, or Gaye Bykers on Acid, but I also knew that I ran the risk of seeing Erasure or Kylie, since they were on an indie label. That's always been the problem - you've got indie the genre up against indie the designation. And that that was part of the thrill - you didn't know what you were going to get. Although if Depeche Mode had a single out, you could guarantee they would be at the top.
In spite of vowing when I was a teenager that I would always be interested in the charts, I'm not really anymore. I'm still as obsessed by music as ever as I was, but I don't pay much if any attention to the charts. Not in some too cool for school way, but just because there is a whole load of rubbish in there nowadays. Now I really am showing my age. But the difference seems to be that you have to sell about 3 records (or should I say units) these days to get in to the Top 40, and about 12 to get a number one. I remember the days when going straight in at number 1 was a phenomenal achievement. Now, it seems that if you don't, you're a flop.
Anyway, I digress. I still don't see the point of having 2 indie charts. One for artists who have not yet reached the "normal" top 20, and one for those that have (but also those who haven't??), presumably, but aren't signed to one of the 4 big labels. Does it really matter whether a band have reached the top 20 or not? And will getting to feature in their own special chart particularly help them make the big time? Perhaps it will. Maybe someone who wasn't interested in Bon Iver (to use one of the BBC's examples) will be, because of their position in the Independent Breakers chart.
But aren't indie bands in it for the music and not interested in chart positions?
Aren't they?
