top songs of the year
Out of context: Reply #14
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- MrOneHundred0
Back in the days before downloads, record charts were based on sales to stores, no to customers, so what would often happen is that a record company would want a no.1 debut for their new, up-coming band – let’s call them The Cockhounds – so to ensure that no.1 debut, they would say “We’ll give you a huge discount on the new album from mega-band Cold2 or Uplay, which you can sell a day before the official release date, as long as you take 50 bajillion copies of the Cockhounds album. If you don’t sell any Cockhounds albums, we’ll buy them back at full price”. “If you don’t want any Cockhounds albums we can’t guarantee how many copies of the Cold2 albums we can get to you on opening week.”
So if they do this at enough stores, the Cockhounds can debut at No.1 without a single copy being bought by a member of the public. And, of course, Cold2 also debut at No.1 a few weeks later.
I heard stories of CDs being ground-up and discarded in the thousands.
My guess is these days they have multiple iTunes accounts and a junior gofer sitting at a computer all day clicking “Buy Now”.