Boney M: classic or dud

Would the individual singles sales be significant enough to make a decent entry in the chart anyway? January record sales are notoriously slow anyway. And didn't Bowie or someone in his organisation think of this? Is the same thing happening in the US, incidentally or are their charts based on airplay as well as sales? Sorry, a lot of questions there.

"The OCC are saying that they can't distinguish album pre-order sales from single track sales, as the info isn't provided to them by the retailers"

i don't think that's right. it's that if you pre-order the album on iTunes you get the single free. and those freebie numbers are being added to the column for actual sales of the single, and can't be disambiguated (supposedly). like i said, it seems like a reasonable decision to exclude the song if the figures are that polluted.

can't they just subtract the number of albums pre-sold? are they a bit thick or something?

I just think they need to consider compiling these charts on the basis of "songs" rather than "singles" as such. Maybe that gets us back to the pre-1952 days of sheet music sales but I'm not totally optimistic that streaming charts will remedy the situation.

In any case, it was the straw that broke this particular camel's back - there are, as I said, a number of other factors contributing to TPL's demise, not least my stroke a year ago but also the generally low number of hits the blog's been getting, the failure of the BiA book, etc. Time maybe to be doing something else with my life.

Well well well...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/jan/10/david-bowie-single-eligible-charts?CMP=twt_fd

hray!

Put this on Twitter, but I'm thinking of what else to do with TPL; I think it would work as a book, like David Thomson's Have You Seen...? but with albums; one 500-word entry per page (different from but related to the blog) and No Received Opinions. Who would publish it, or would it be e-book/Kindle time?

i wd've thought eBooks might be the way to go in terms of stress vs accessibility?

Woebot's just published an eBook of his blog writings:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Big-Book-Woe-ebook/dp/B00AY0D4GI/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1357828940

I also saw that today. Have a lot of respect for young Matt Woebot; unlike me, he gets off his backside and gets things done. I should follow his example.

I wouldn't now publish CoM as a book because on the rare occasions I look at it now I just put my head in my hands and sigh: "Did I REALLY think that ten years ago?" But I'm sure TPL, given the right sort of push, would.

Speaking purely from a reader's POV, I'd prefer a physical copy, because a TPL book would have future value as a reference work. I imagine it would feel trickier to dip back into an e-book.

had a dream where boney m's "el lute" segued into leonard cohen singing "take this waltz" and it was just perfect

lol

https://scontent-lht6-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/19224896_1534004596673119_486616542806894906_n.jpg?oh=94405d3770789c47475b1a5b232c9c34&oe=59D3ED3B

http://www.superdeluxeedition.com/news/boney-m-complete-9lp-vinyl-box/

boney m are good but vinyl is bad

Nightflight To Venus is a front to back flawless album and this is a hill I'm ready to die on

maybe you can draw strength from the fact that you won’t be dying alone up there

I shazammed something a few days ago that I thought might be some sort of clever disco throwback song but it turned out to be "Children of Paradise" by Boney M. I'd never heard that.

An updated (but still credited) version of "Rasputin" is currently #21 in the UK singles charts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZwYpAh3bXQ

(Oh, and Bimini Bon-Boulash from UK Drag Race S2 is in the video)

I hear this version of Rasputin in the wild every time I leave my house now (not that often but still)