These guys are campaigning to get people to buy Tom Waits’ Christmas card from a hooker in Minneapolis in numbers enough to get it to the number 1 spot in the Irish single charts at Christmas. Gimmicky record buying campaigns are getting popular here. It doesn’t take many sales to get a tune in the charts and now with downloads counting it’s easier than ever.
Would it not be wiser to campaign the man directly to go back to putting effort into his recordings?
I’m not entirely sure how random lunatics buying a 30-year-old song on iTunes can possible make it a number one single, but if it succeeds I may have to move to Ireland on general principles. This is right up there with the attempt to make Wisconsin’s license plate motto “Eat Cheese Or Die.”
Well I think it only requires something like maybe a thousand purchases to get into the Irish top 10. Not sure what the exact number is that’s needed for number one at christmas but I think it’s feasible, but would require the campaigners and their pals buying perhaps 10s of copies of the song each. A radio dj campaigned to get a Journey song in the charts here and I think it might still be doing the rounds 6 months after his campaign.
What are you talking about? 2004’s Real Gone was easily on par with any of his career highlights, but last year’s Orphans was just a collection of B-sides, rarities, and previously unreleased material. Still amazing, though.
It got to Number 28 in the Irish Charts. \o/