ALLC No.1 4th week in a row

source: dotmusic.com

1 A LITTLE LESS CONVERSATION (Elvis vs JXL)
For four weeks long the remixed Elvis Presley track has reigned supreme, outselling every other single on current release. More than just a passing novelty from a television commercial, A Little Less Conversation has become one of the defining hits of the summer and made the profile of the musical legend the highest it has been since his death in 1977. All of this has come as something of a surprise to many, not least RCA records who have been nervously watching the way the single has carried on selling. Their problem is that next week should see the chart arrival of the second single from Gareth Gates - who also just happens to be an RCA artist. Hence in a somewhat surprising move they have reportedly decided to clear the playing field for themselves and last Friday unceremoniously deleted the Elvis vs JXL single.

A word on industry terminology here as this does not mean that the track instantly becomes unavailable for purchase. All this means is that the single is no longer on the catalogue of product that is available for retailers to order. From this moment on no more copies of the single will be pressed and existing stocks on the shelves will now dry up naturally. The rather cynical hope of course is that this will depress demand for the track to such an extent that the Gareth Gates single will have at least one less piece of competition as it aims to debut at the top of the charts.

Cynical it may be and already the decision has attracted more than its fair share of mutterings but at the end of the day it is up to the record company to determine what product they put on the shelves and if they wish to fly in the face of public demand, who are we to argue with them? This isn't of course without precedent although to delete a single to try to clear the way for a totally unrelated one is certainly unusual. Sometimes it is used positively as a marketing tool, such as in the case of the Manic Street Preachers' If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next which was deleted on the day of release to make it a limited edition. Sometimes deletions are made to prevent a long-running single from interfering with long-established release plans such as in 1996 when Peter Andre's Mysterious Girl was withdrawn from sale after its four month chart run had forced the release of the followup to be delayed more times than was convenient. Very occasionally it can be at the request of the artists themselves, most famously in 1994 when Wet Wet Wet decided that people were fed up of the 15 week chart-topping run of Love Is All Around and voluntarily withdrew it although their motivations were called into question when this resulted in a temporary reversal of the decline in sales of the track and almost resulted in it withstanding the challenge of Whigfield's Saturday Night to spend a record-equalling 16th week at the top. Hence the destiny of A Little Less Conversation is by no means set in stone, and who knows, this may be a clever ploy on the part of RCA records to stimulate a headline-grabbing chart battle where otherwise one would not have existed. Either way don't expect the single to plummet down the chart for a few weeks yet, stocks are still plentiful and the data provided by the music charts each week means that most corporate buyers are often well ahead of the game, even when the rug is pulled from under them.