RouteNote Blog

Here’s a quick snapshot look at what’s selling in the UK at the moment, so I’ve shamefully lifted the top 20 from the Beeb. No prize for guessing who’s in the top slot, and for the most part the top 10 represents what Chris Moyles and the glowing box in the sitting room tells us all to buy, with the reasonably pleasant exception of Florence and the Machine (despite their sadly jaded attitude these days, I still have a lot of time for the Kings of Leon, who clawed their way up from the bottom). What shocked me is that the Beatles have got 3 albums in the top 20; Sergeant Pepper, Revolver and Rubber Soul – is this backlash from their Rock Band licensing? The Beatles are notoriously unavailable on iTunes, something that is bound to be bolstering the physical sales of their records, but rumour has it that Michael Jackson willed back some of the song rights in the catalogue he’d purchased from the Beatles to Sir Paul McCartney so perhaps we’ll now see that Apple/Apple standoff  thaw and another huge spike in Beatles back catalogue sales.

In sweepingly general terms it looks like the people buying physical music are the pop kids buying Peter Andre, and finally getting what the older generation (Vera Lynn!) are on about now they’ve tried to play Blackbird on their guitar controllers, and the older generation hearing the old classics through the ceiling and popping out for another copy to replace the vinyl they lost years ago. All the people with more mature or eclectic musical taste, or an interest in new and weird music are finding it through non-traditional channels, like Spotify, file-sharing and streaming sites.

1	NEW	(-)	Muse The Resistance (Helium 3/Warner Bros)
2	1	(4)	Vera Lynn We’ll Meet Again – The Very Best Of (Decca)
3	NEW	(-)	Peter Andre Revelation (Conehead)
4	NEW	(-)	Jay-Z The Blueprint 3 (Roc Nation)
5	NEW	(-)	David Gray Draw The Line (Polydor)
6	NEW	(-)	Pixie Lott Turn It Up (Mercury)
7	7	(52)	Kings Of Leon Only By The Night (Hand Me Down)
8	3	(4)	David Guetta One Love (Positiva/Virgin)
9	NEW	(-)	Mark Knopfler Get Lucky (Vertigo)
10	12	(11)	Florence & The Machine Lungs (Island)