Chart Review 14th Feb 2005 with DJ Chris Plant (1/2)	(1/2), (2/2).
www.djchrisplant.co.uk

By all accounts we are just a few weeks away from the grand day when some form of meaning is finally returned to the singles chart with the integration of downloaded sales. Predicting exactly what effect this will have is actually quite tricky, as the widespread availability of a particular track online appears at first glance to have little effect on the way it performs at retail. U2 are a case in point. Their last single Vertigo could have got away with being the biggest ever download-only track thanks to its use in a famous series of adverts for iPods.

Available as a download well ahead of its commercial release, it duly topped the download chart for several weeks, only to also soar to Number One when released as a proper single back in November.

Now Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own arrives as a second single from the acclaimed How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb album but the impact it has had as a download has been negligible, either as a single or as an album track. Instead it sells strongly enough as a retail single to fly to the top of the sales chart to give U2 back to back Number One hits for the first time in their long and distinguished career.

In total it is their sixth Number One single but you can see how hard it is to work out what download success does to a single - U2 have now topped the charts within the space of a few months both with a single that sold thousands online and with another whose sales have almost totally been in the shops. Moving away from the online world for a moment, Elvis Presley single of the week is Wooden Heart and for the second week running he fails to land a Number One single.

As far removed from his original rock and roll image as it is possible to get, Wooden Heart is one single that is guaranteed to divide opinion even amongst hardcore Elvis fans. Originally taken from the soundtrack of his film GI Blues, the track is an English adaptation of an old German folk song Muss I Denn. The track is so quaint and quirky that his US record company decided it would only appeal in Europe and declined to release it as a single in the States only to see unknown Joe Dowell take his own version to the top of the charts instead.

No such problems in this country where the track shot to the top in March 1961, staying there for six weeks and making Elvis the first person ever to top the charts with three consecutive releases. Meanwhile on the rest of the Top 40 his previous five releases continue to stick around, settling at 21, 27, 31, 32 and 37. Thus, The King sets a new record by becoming the first act ever to have six singles on the Top 40 simultaneously. The one domination record still to beat is that set by The Jam in 1982 when they had 14 singles on the Top 75 as a whole.

We can consider the whole thorny downloads/real singles issue with the next new entry on the chart - Destiny's Child's new single Soldier, the follow-up to the Number 2 hit Lose My Breath which represented their triumphant return from a three year hiatus. Solider has also been available online for a number of weeks, both as an album track and also in an extended single version.

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