VdGG enter the *gasp* mainstream UK Charts

[Bucka001]

VdGG's new album "Do Not Disturb" just entered the mid-week album charts in the UK at #44! Just so we're clear, that's not the "indie" charts, or some sort of Amazon chart... this is the real-deal mainstream Top 100 UK chart!!

I think that the past decade's worth of great reviews and articles in mainstream music mags and newspapers in the UK and Europe have catapulted the group's stock. They've been very fashionable/hip in a way they weren't in the 70s, when they were just one of many Brit bands doing their thing. They've sort of had the kind of positive reappraisal that late 60's / 70's contemporaries like Nick Drake, Can, Captain Beefheart, and a few others have enjoyed (while the stock of more successful 70s acts have gone down, at least in terms of being critics' darlings).
Chart.jpg
Anyway, congrats to Van der Graaf Generator and those at Cherry Red / Esoteric. Right on!!!!!

[JJ88]

As I said on the Marillion thread, whilst this is obviously relative to what everyone is selling and worthy of some congratulation, the enthusiasm has to be tempered. Record sales have surely never been lower than they are now- a £100 David Bowie box set just missed the Top 20 last week here in the UK, extraordinary. It's now easy for artists with loyal fanbases to get into the charts...are they actually selling more copies than they were even ten years ago?

[Bucka001]

Fair enough, but to see VdGG in the mainstream charts (top 50 no less) is something. I mean... it's VdGG fer cryin' out loud, not Beiber or Adele. So, it at least denotes that, as a band, they're doing pretty good. Which is fantastic.

[JKL2000]

Yeah, they're beating out some pop crap stuff. That's good!

[Bucka001]

Yeah, they're beating out some pop crap stuff. That's good!

I dunno... they zoomed past Streisand. You're saying you don't feel just a little sorry for Babs?

[peterpyser]

See how Marillion Fear has dropped from #4 to #53 in a very few days.
http://www.officialcharts.com/charts...-chart-update/

I just wonder if VDGG will be in the chart only this week.
Whatever... a good result, statistically.

[JJ88]

^That Marillion one has to be one of the biggest Week 2 drops I have ever seen, and pretty much confirms my suspicions.

[peterpyser]

Yes, it's true, but on wikipedia (just to say...) statistics it will read 'uk peak position #4'. That's what will remain of it, statistically.
And that's not a bad result at all.

[squonkduke]

VdGG's new album "Do Not Disturb" just entered the mid-week album charts in the UK at #44!

Oh Yeah,
Oooooooohh yeeeaaaaaaaaahhh!

[Digital_Man]

A famous(albeit somewhat underground)English band that's been around for over forty years cracks the top 50 in the charts in their homeland. No way!!!! That's unbelievable!!! Sorry guys I think you make this stuff up.

Now if they did that in the US it would be something but come on. Is it really that surprising?


What did surprise me a bit was back in the fall of 2002 when Spock's Beard's "snow" made it to number 15 on the internet charts.

[squonkduke]

It *is* surprising, considering they've only been once on the uk chart before with The Least We Can Do at #47 for 1 week.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Is it really that surprising?

Yes it is. VdGG's rep has from the very beginning rested on their status as highly influential cult phenomenon from the underground scene of halcyon days in British art-rock. Apart from those 200,000 copies sold of Pawn Hearts (of which more than half apparently went to Italian buyers and a large pot also to folks in France, West Germany and Canada - with barely faint impressions in UK at the time), VdGG or Hammill solo never had a significantly "charting" record. There are numerous examples of big or indeed even legendary names - and now we're talking non-niche - with apparent little showing on UK charts; Van Morrison, Roy Harper, Strawbs, Sweet, Sandy Denny, Al Stewart, Jack Bruce, APP, Traffic - the list is lengthy.

The fact that you'll nowadays arguably enter the UK top-100 with a few hundred physical units sold in a week is a wholly different matter, of course. The golden days (or indeed "days" as such) of rock as cultural brimstone is over and gone altogether. It's not considered a popular or even relevant music product anymore, not to the general punter anyway.

[Mister Triscuits]

Apart from those 200,000 copies sold of Pawn Hearts (of which more than half apparently went to Italian buyers and a large pot also to folks in France, West Germany and Canada - with barely faint impressions in UK at the time)

Not to mention the many copies that ended up in cutout bins in America--which is how I got my own first exposure to VdGG.

[squonkduke]

Probably we are the same ones, in numbers, who bought their albums since the 70s, and as we are old-stylished, we still *buy* the product, physical or not.
Those figures now are sufficient to enter the chart.

I'm sure all of us don't even think of downloading the album illegally.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Those figures now are sufficient to enter the chart.

On the other hand, if VdGG succeed in selling anywhere above 5000-or-so units of an LP, that's a reasonably good achievement today - IMHO. It may sound pitiful even juxtaposed against their own former standards, but we're in 2016 now. Most kids under 30 (which tends to be when contemporary youth decide to somewhat grow a bit up these days) only know of bodily organs - not the Hammonds or Lowreys or Viscounts or Voxs or whatever.

[mx20]

But will there be a faction of VdGG fans who disown "the sellout era" of Do Not Disturb? "It's their 'Invisible Touch,'" they'll whine. "Takes me back to the day when I first heard that Prog Supergroup, Asia; such disappointment!" they'll opine. Let's face it: someone on PE will label DND as "VdGG's '90125'" and spark much debate. Meanwhile, I'll be enjoying this (last?) album!

But seriously: the vinyl sequencing is weird, and in glad I opted for the CD. I love that little Banton interlude song...

[Bucka001]

But will there be a faction of VdGG fans who disown "the sellout era" of Do Not Disturb? "It's their 'Invisible Touch,'" they'll whine. "Takes me back to the day when I first heard that Prog Supergroup, Asia; such disappointment!" they'll opine. Let's face it: someone on PE will label DND as "VdGG's '90125'" and spark much debate. Meanwhile, I'll be enjoying this (last?) album!

But seriously: the vinyl sequencing is weird, and in glad I opted for the CD. I love that little Banton interlude song...

DND is definitely the sellout album! (hell, one thing the band doesn't do on this disc, and that's to play it safe! Lotsa risks / chances taken, most of 'em [if not all] pretty successfully)

Yeah, that short Banton piece is, for me, an album highlight (sorry... CD highlight). Moody, haunting, ethereal... I dunno why, but there's something Twilight Zone-ish about it to me (that's a good thing)

[Chuck AzEee!]

VdGG's new album "Do Not Disturb" just entered the mid-week album charts in the UK at #44! Just so we're clear, that's not the "indie" charts, or some sort of Amazon chart... this is the real-deal mainstream Top 100 UK chart!!

I think that the past decade's worth of great reviews and articles in mainstream music mags and newspapers in the UK and Europe have catapulted the group's stock. They've been very fashionable/hip in a way they weren't in the 70s, when they were just one of many Brit bands doing their thing. They've sort of had the kind of positive reappraisal that late 60's / 70's contemporaries like Nick Drake, Can, Captain Beefheart, and a few others have enjoyed (while the stock of more successful 70s acts have gone down, at least in terms of being critics' darlings).
Chart.jpg
Anyway, congrats to Van der Graaf Generator and those at Cherry Red / Esoteric. Right on!!!!!

Very, VERY happy to read this. Since our only meeting here a few years back John, I've been falling more and more in love with this band.

This band is so polarizing and not for everyone. I have a good friend of mine that is a huge Marillion/Fish fan and upon recommendation he finally tried out Van Der Graaf Generator and his quote was that the band made him sick. Another young lady elsewhere said that VdGG was just the pits.

I say "bleep" 'em, I love them and that's all that matters.

Charles

[Bucka001]

Very, VERY happy to read this. Since our only meeting here a few years back John, I've been falling more and more in love with this band.

It's Jim, but I remember meeting / hanging with you for a bit in NYC before the VdGG gig. Good fun talking that night! :-)

This band is so polarizing and not for everyone. I have a good friend of mine that is a huge Marillion/Fish fan and upon recommendation he finally tried out Van Der Graaf Generator and his quote was that the band made him sick. Another young lady elsewhere said that VdGG was just the pits.

Meh, it's almost a badge of honor at this point ;-)

[mogrooves]

I haven't ordered it as of yet. I'm waiting to see the white smoke, signaling that John Lydon/Rotten has, or has not, given the album his blessing.

[Scrotum Scissor]

But will there be a faction of VdGG fans who disown "the sellout era" of Do Not Disturb? "It's their 'Invisible Touch,'" they'll whine. "Takes me back to the day when I first heard that Prog Supergroup, Asia; such disappointment!" they'll opine. Let's face it: someone on PE will label DND as "VdGG's '90125'" and spark much debate.

There's even an extremely thinly veiled rumour goin' around that Jaxon has teamed up with Steve "Young" Ho' and Stepan Hockey to reform GTR-X, the absolute very best in all of Prog. Dick Clogs on banjobass and Micro Dockneu on maraccas are contributing.

[Chuck AzEee!]

It's Jim, but I remember meeting / hanging with you for a bit in NYC before the VdGG gig. Good fun talking that night! :-)

Sorry Jim for the faux paus.

Yeah were a special bunch. I have a question Jim that hopefully you will be able to answer it, What specifically was Godbluff released in October of 1975?

Charles

[Chuck AzEee!]

I haven't ordered it as of yet. I'm waiting to see the white smoke, signaling that John Lydon/Rotten has, or has not, given the album his blessing.

G'day Sir Mo, let's not forget super tool Mark E. Smith.

[Bucka001]

Sorry Jim for the faux paus.

Yeah were a special bunch. I have a question Jim that hopefully you will be able to answer it, What specifically was Godbluff released in October of 1975?

Charles

Do you mean the actual date in October? I dunno, it may be in The Book but I don't know off the top of my head.

[gpeccary]

I just listened to it the first time, it's got its moments, but to my ears it isn't doing it for me. I don't think its anywhere near A Grounding in Numbers.