We didn't do it ;-(

[M Holmes]

Colin Allen writes:

> You are somewhat missing the point here.  I am not commenting on the success
> or otherwise of Mr Ayling's business, merely on the abilityor willingness of
> Voiceprint to do what other companies do in order to get their singles into
> that charts.  Many companies have teams of "buyers" who are paid to buy the
> single from as many chart-counting shops as possible, thereby rigging the
> charts.  I strongly suspect that this effort was far more honest than that.

I have friends in the record business well outside of where Hawkwind are
sitting. There are bicycle couriers hired to take bags of coke (and not
the brown sticky stuff that rots your teeth) to certain DJ's in return
for airplay of the right single.

Of course this could be dismissed as conspiracy theory. However, even
the briefest historical look at bribery scandals, from Payola onwards,
indicates that where young men are in a position to play records and
make large amounts of money for large companies, those companies will
find extralegal ways of persuading those young men to do their bidding
if that's easier than competing fairly in free markets (let's face it,
it's true outside of the rock business too) then that's what they'll do.

Interestingly Elliot Spitzer, he of Enron-busting and the current
General in the US of anti-corruption drives, is looking at investigating
another Payola type scandal in the US and it's mainly about rigging the
charts.

> > >None of this reflects badly on Dave Law; his efforts have been
> Herculenean

Yup, here's my salute to Dave...

FoFP