The Future.

Hello – this is Wes – this is a fairly hard update to write as I know it’s going to disappoint a few people – the bottom line of it being – there won’t be another go at the ‘Storm the Charts’ campaign, at least not with me at the helm.

The overriding reason for this is that I can no longer see the end goal. I watched the Cage Against the Machine campaign (to get John Cage’s ‘silent’ track 4’33” to Christmas number 1) with great interest – in my opinion that campaign was brilliant. But as it went on, and particularly towards the end of their download week; it really dawned on me that if, with almost 100,000 followers of their page getting updates and a huge amount of national and international attention – if with artists with literally millions of followers on board, the CATM campaign couldn’t break the top 20 – then our attempt to push for lots of unknown bands at once and even hope to get one of them up there had moved from ‘ludicrously ambitious’ to ‘actually impossible’.

I don’t mind anyone pointing out if they said it was impossible in the first place, by the way – but this is the difference between being able to dream and share that with others, and trying to kid myself I can make something happen that I can’t!

So – with sincere apologies both to those listeners who enjoyed our first Storm the Charts attempt, and to any artists who were hoping to feature in 2011, I’m really sorry, but I can’t make it happen.

This is what I am going to do:

1. This blog is long overdue an update from the 40 artists we tried to get in the charts in July. In the next few weeks I’ll try to pull together updates from as many of them as I can and present them together. Some have gone onto amazing things – and if you didn’t know, the lead singer of one of the bands actually won X-Factor (!!) (it’s a small world…)

2. I’m going to start keeping a music blog of my own – if you’d like to follow it, I would be very flattered, you can find it at heartbeatofarabbit.blogspot.com

3. I am a creative writer myself and I edit a zine called Attack!!!!, which is an occasional series of collections of new, original writing, artwork and music produced in response to given themes. It is all new and interesting stuff by independent artists made specially for the zine. Please ‘like’ the facebook page if you want to see updates on that when they come.

4. I’ve become involved in managing a brilliant Bath-based band called The Hysterical Injury – they were one of the bands who applied for StC, and I must admit I’ve been a fan of theirs from the beginning. Needless to say I think you should check them out – but I guess I would say that, wouldn’t I! : )

5. I am doing everything I can to help to save my local library, where I also work (and incidentally you can now find a few Storm bands’ albums on the CD shelves there!) – the future of libraries are a huge issue in this country right now, if you’re not sure what the picture is in your area, check the highly disturbing closures map.

I’m sure that’s more than enough plugging of my own activity now – I hope people can see I am going to try to continue to do my bit for independent music – I would be flattered if any Stormers wanted to follow me along any of these various avenues too.

I would love to know if any Stormers have kept following artists who they found through the project. I was overwhelmed by the response in the wake of the download week in July. Thank you all so much for your support for the project through last year, and do watch out for that update on what the 40 have been up to since.

With thanks, best wishes, and an eye to the future,

Wes

‘…brilliant’ ‘…wonderful’ ‘…inspiring’ – why?

Well, our download week is over, not one of our 40 acts is to be found anywhere in the official chart, so we didn’t do it.

Or did we?

To look at the comments we were getting back from members and artists on the Facebook group and page, you’d think we’d actually won. The messages of thanks from people who’ve worked hard to support our crazily ambitious campaign are amazing to see – thank YOU all for being with us through it, for joining in with choosing the artists and for buying their tracks.

Right back at the beginning we said, “We’ll call a ‘success’ finding some good new music, a ‘win’ getting 2 or more songs in the charts, and anything above that is epic”. We think we can call this time a ‘success’ even if we didn’t get the big prize.

We’re delighted so many people have got the message and discovered artists they love through our project – numerous people have said they bought multiple songs last week that they’re glad to have in their playlist, and that they never would have heard otherwise. That’s the point, and we’re glad so many of you got it.

Things we did manage

We really did storm Amazon’s charts; Gabby Young was top of both their Rock and Folk charts for virtually the whole week (still topping Folk at the time of writing, in fact) and Steven Finn held the same position on their Blues chart.

On the Sunday of our download week we swamped their ‘Highest Risers’ and by the Saturday we had nineteen of the top 100 in ‘Indie & Alternative’ and ten of the top 100 overall.

As well as Gabby’s topping it, we also had positions 2,3,4 & 5 in Folk there.

On iTunes we had up to 4 tracks in the top 100 of their Singer-Songwriter chart through the week.

There might be other charts yet to be published that we popped up in – we couldn’t say this was what we were aiming for – but one of our followers said they felt we aimed for the stars and got the moon, and we’ll take that for the first attempt.

We hope you’ve enjoyed the journey – please stay in touch with the artists; our top 40 remain listed in full here and the whole list of bands who applied is still here. And if you like what you hear, buy their tracks and find out where they’re playing live, and go and support them!

There are a lot of things learned from this and we know we can do some things better. We’d be grateful for your feedback – both if you’ve found music you’ve enjoyed, and if you’d like to offer suggestions for next time – and are already grateful for all the support we’ve received from many quarters down the days, weeks and months, and in the wake of the project’s first end.

Thank you and stay in touch… we hope to be back…

Wes White
founder of Storm the Charts

Share it share it

Foxes!, Missing Andy and Olivia Broadfield are in our final 40 but missing from this video through no fault of their own – check them out too! Youtube playlist

iTunes link (all tracks)

Amazon – A to M
Amazon – N to Z

some aren’t on Amazon – this is the iTunes link for just those.

6music news feature

Scroll to the bottom of the page linked under this picture for a stream of today’s news bulletin.

6music also featured us on the day they were threatened with closure and we’re so glad to hear reports today they might be saved. We hope so!

The Storm begins

iTunes link

Amazon link 1
Amazon link 2

Combined these 2 Amazon lists have most of the tracks in our 40, and nearly all at just 49p each

The iTunes one has our whole list of 40 tracks for purchase, with preview options. To preview all 40 tracks in full click here.

Videos!

We have chosen 40 songs by bands and artists not on major labels and who haven’t charted before.

We’re trying to get as many as we can in the top 40 in the same week.

This is that week. We are downloading right now. Please check out and buy your favourites and help us turn the charts upside-down for one week.

Amazon have unexpectedly dropped their prices on most of our 40 tracks to 49p – at the time of writing we have tracks at 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, 35 and 39 on

40th of our 40 – Tom Williams and the Boat’s ‘Concentrate’

The final song for our 40 – notwithstanding any issues there might be with tracks not showing on iTunes, and having to announce replacements – is Tom Williams and the Boat‘s Concentrate. This was chosen by John Peel’s former producer, Louise Kattenhorn, from our panel’s shortist. Congratulations to the band and thanks once again to every other musician who applied. Here’s the song.

39th for our 40 – Foxes! ‘Who Killed Rob?’

The last song through from the public vote. Louise Kattenhorn‘s pick for this week, (the song to complete our 40!) to follow tonight.

38th for our 40 – Imp’s ‘Party’

The 19th song for our 40 from the public vote, and 38th overall, is Imp‘s ‘Party’. Check it out… can we get it in the chart?

Two more announcements left this evening which will complete our list of 40 songs to try to storm the charts with…

37th for our 40 – Mother’s Auxillary’s ‘Duke’

The 18th song for our 40 from the public vote, and 37th over all, is ‘Duke’ by Mother’s Auxillary.

Please note that we are waiting for confirmation that this song is available from iTunes.

Voting closes midnight tonight (Saturday)

At the time of writing, less than six hours remain before our polls close.

Vote now and have your say on the songs that will make our final 40 – we’ll give you 5 songs from the hundreds who’ve put in, you pick your favourite, and the three that have gained the most votes over the last 10 weeks will make up the last few acts added to our final 40 tomorrow evening.