We are all chart fans here and this video was mentioned in an article in The Guardian online (linked via uk mix) and it looks to be from 1979 and it covers what record companies at the time were allegedly doing to get songs into the UK charts. I post this because while it was probably unlikely it was done here at least to the best we know, the fact is it could have been done. I suspect In the digital/streaming era it would be more difficult to fudge the figures. Video is below.
On the contrary, I read an article in (I think) The Age in 1992 on how our charts were being manipulated by things such as record company incentives (bottles of wine, holidays, free returns) for favourable chart returns. I saved the article from newspapers.com a while back and can send you it if you like, once I find it.
A comment I remember from the article was an anonymous source boasting that they'd recently gotten a single into the top 30 that "wasn't selling a bean". But it was difficult to fudge the figures too much once something was in the top 40.
I recall around mid-1992, a couple of months before the article was published, there were some heavily discounted singles, for the first time I had seen. I remember paying only 99 cents for Shakespears Sister's 'I Don't Care' cassingle ($4.99 or $4.95 was the regular price at the time). Other discounted singles from around that time I remember seeing were Paul Young and Zucchero 'Senza Una Donna', Deborah Blando 'Innocence', Kim Wilde 'Love Is Holy', Voice of the Beehive 'Perfect Place'. I believe that Girlfriend's 'Take It From Me' was also discounted, helping it climb to #1.
I also recall there being some promotional freebies with some singles, like a free VHS tape with Euphoria's 'One In a Million' and Paula Abdul's 'Will You Marry Me'.
I assume that chart-rigging became a lot more difficult once the chart was compiled from electronic point-of-sale data from March 1997. Last edited:
Yeah from 1997 i imagine it became difficult, i agree. Be funny if someone ever worked out the single in the top 30 that wasn't selling anything. Definitely send the article. I remember Video Hits back probably around 1997 got into trouble for fudging the votes on their interactive top 10 in order to keep 'Always On My Mind' by Rani in there for months. I don't think it was ever conclusively proved but there are people out there who will say it happened. Discounting a single is suss, but would it be considered illegal i wonder. We'll never officially know the extent to which it was done but it's interesting food for thought. I certainly thought it possible that chart rigging could be done here, but because australia is not as big a market as say the U.S or U.k it just to my mind never seemed likely
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