FAQs
I think this sounds great! How can I put my song forwards?
You’ve too late for this first attempt, but if you email stormthecharts@gmail.com and put ‘2011’ as the subject header, we’ll put you on the list to contact for next time around. Please don’t let that stop you getting involved, though, we’re going to need everyone we can get.
When’s the download week?
From midnight on the night of Saturday 26th/morning of 27th June 2010 to get the tracks in the chart for July 4th (this wasn’t planned, but let’s call it independents day…)
Why are you doing this?
We thought it would be fun.
Why are the polls random? Why can’t I just vote for my favourite band?
If you already know one or two artists in the list, then if they come up in a random poll you can vote for them, but please don’t go hunting for them. The site’s designed for neutral voters – trust that your favourites’ music will speak for itself when others hear it, and keep using the site to influence our choice towards your own music taste and discover things that are new to you.
Why can’t I see how many votes a song has got so far?
When we had the votes showing, it was creating some conflict between artists who were close to each other in the polls – which is the last thing we need for our project – and it was putting lots of pressure on bands to ‘spam’ their fans for votes, which isn’t something we’re asking anyone to do. We’re storing all the data of accumulated votes and will name the two artists with the top two scores each week.
Don’t you think people who are interested in music have lost interest in the charts? Won’t these songs be out of place there?
Both of these things are sort of the point…
How are you going to make people download the singles you want them to?
We can’t make anyone do anything – we’re just going to ask everyone to buy as many from the list as they feel comfortable with.
Are you giving anything to charity?
Save the weird creatures! We’ve a site set up at http://justgiving.com/chartstorm where supporters are making donations to EDGE which is the Zoological Society of London’s program for ‘Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered’ animals. We thought their niche and overlooked creatures could be a good match for our niche and overlooked musicians. We’re looking forward to having raised our first £1,000.
ALL the profits from sales of Storm the Charts T-shirts will also go to EDGE via our JustGiving site.
Storm The Charts 
June 24, 2010 at 10:37 pm
do you have to use a particular download site(s) – you only seem to mention iTunes – I’d rather go somewhere else.
June 25, 2010 at 9:51 am
Hi – thanks for asking – we only *required* tracks from artists who applied to be available from iTunes, because it’s so much the dominant retailer, we figured the tracks had to be at least there for us to have any chance at all. But most legal download sites are chart-eligible!
June 25, 2010 at 10:58 am
cool – will buy from 7digital/Amazon then – good luck hope you get 1 to 40 !!! 🙂
June 25, 2010 at 9:55 pm
..and another stupid question 😉
if you buy the album with the track on it – it still counts right?
June 26, 2010 at 12:44 pm
You have to buy the single tracks individually for them to count for the singles charts – if you buy an album that sale counts towards the album charts.
June 26, 2010 at 11:37 pm
Hehe! OK – I seem to be the stupidest person on the internet! 😉