The Single Charted

Readers of a certain age will remember the days when come Sunday evening it was almost compulsory to sit down and listen to Radio 1 and the chart show. Many of you will doubtless remember the occasions when you listened to the show with finger poised over the "Record" button  of your radio-cassette player to tape your favourite chart hits. And how many times did Simon Bates or Tony Blackburn, or whoever, talk over the intro or as the song faded out? How many songs did you record where the beginning or end was cut off to avoid the DJ's chatter, or was accompanied by a loud "clunk" as the recording began or ended?

Time was when this was the most important thing in the record industry.

Aside from the fact that cassette recorders and the cassettes themselves have pretty much gone the way of public phone boxes and taking film to be developed at the chemist, can you really imagine today's teenagers sitting patiently in front of a radio and recording songs onto tape? No, me neither. Back in the day when taping music from the radio was commonplace we still went to Woolworths, or WH Smith, or any of the numerous chain or independent record shops and bought a single or two when we had the cash. Now the 45rpm, vinyl single is no more and record shops are few and far between. People still buy "singles" but the thrill of waiting for your favourite artist to release a new song, dashing down to your local record shop and hot-footing it home with seven inches of aural pleasure have gone. I'm not sure that downloading a song from iTunes and playing it on your iPod provides the same degree of satisfaction. Yes, you can download a song and play it immediately, on a whim almost, but there is no tangible disc to relish, no anticipation.

Fifty years ago most towns had innumerable record shops; thirty years ago they were still plentiful, but a combination of factors have reduced their numbers drastically. When I was younger, Romford had several independent record shops, Downtown Records, Silcocks and Wells Music Stores to name but three who supplemented the chain stores and record departments of other shops. Today Romford has a branch of HMV and not much else, although Sainsbury's and ASDA sell CDs, but little apart from the top twenty albums.

The decline in the number of record shops on our High Streets reflects the changes in the habits of the record buying public over recent years. Although the vinyl LP still has its aficionados, it is very much a niche product having been supplanted first by the CD and more latterly by the digital download. Fans of vinyl maintain that the quality is better than other formats and there is evidence to support this view. There is also a certain amount of comfort and ritual associated with listening to a vinyl LP that a CD or an mp3 cannot replicate, but for convenience there is no contest, particularly if you like your music to be portable.

In the days when the choice, if you wanted to buy an album, was between the twelve inch vinyl disc and a cassette, most people's preference would be for the LP and it wasn't entirely about the music either. Those glorious album covers and the gatefold sleeves made records works of visual as well as audible art, to the point where coffee table books were devoted to album covers, particularly the work of Roger Dean. Then in 1982, came the Compact Disc and although it was not until three years later, when Dire Straits sold one million copies of Brothers In Arms that it could truly be said that the CD had become a viable alternative to the LP, this was a landmark in the evolution of the way we listen to music. The Walkman made music on the move possible and the CD promised a better sound experience, although this argument is moot, but undoubtedly it removed the time limit that vinyl imposed allowing the sixty or seventy minute album to become the norm rather than the exception.

Roger Dean's art work for the cover for the Yes album Relayer.

Naturally CD players and the discs themselves provided manufacturers and record companies with a new income stream to exploit. Early CD players were expensive and so were the CDs themselves and there was a certain mystique created around the production of the discs. I remember being in the Virgin Megastore in Oxford Street during the early days of CDs and in the basement was a supposed CD production area. Built apparently as a "clean" room, it featured men in white coveralls appearing to be producing discs in a sterile atmosphere, subliminally creating the idea that this was a very technical process requiring the very highest standards that justified the fact that a CD could cost more than double the price of the LP equivalent. This was given the lie when newspapers began giving away free CDs at the weekend and by the fact that your average home PC now burns CDs in conditions that are rather less than  sterile without any apparent harm.

Since their early days our CD buying habits  have changed in more ways than one. If you are like me you rarely buy a CD from a shop; personally I buy the vast majority of mine online but there again I find it quite difficult to find music by the bands that I listen to in mainstream record shops. This week the postman delivered me albums by Anathema, IQ and Dream The Electric Sleep and a quick visit to my local HMV yesterday suggested that I would not have been able to buy them there. Many people now download music rather than purchase the actual disc and although I have done so, I tend to do this only when the music I want is not available in physical format, or the CD is hideously expensive. I still like being able to flick through the booklet that comes with the CD, to read the lyrics and see exactly who played what instrument on what track.

I splurged a bit on CDs this week.

Streaming services like Spotify, Deezer and Google Play make it possible to listen to music you choose without even buying it (although generally you pay a subscription for the best options with these suppliers) and this week it was announced that streaming data would be used in the compilation of the charts along with data from the sale of physical CD singles and downloads. I confess that I did not realise that CD singles were still being released; certainly I have not seen them in shops for years and when I looked at the prices of them on Amazon I wonder why people would buy them as they are hideously expensive compared with downloads; even some albums are cheaper.

Spotify and iTunes are how many people now listen and buy their music.

I accept that I no longer fit the target audience for the Top 40 (I took a glance at the chart this week and while I was surprised to find that I have actually heard of about half the acts, I have only knowingly heard one of the songs (Happy by Pharrell Williams in case you are interested), but I wonder if the Top 40 still has any relevance to the majority of the music buying public? Times change and music formats change but it appears that the charts go on forever, although with the advent of streaming contributing to the Top 40 I suppose it is now technically possible for a song to reach Number One without anyone actually buying it!