[mplpost] Those CanCon playlists

[Ian Robb]

I suspect that, excepting your major label exec who may use charts to help with strategic corporate planning, the *only* purpose of *any* chart is to amplify success. If you can say you're placed high in some chart, it gives you credibility and might make a few more people try your music, people being the sheep they are. To my mind, if you ignore a few household names at the top of the CanCon chart, it still *does* mean something that for example, David Francey (Deserved Juno winner but still a rumour in his own time, as Leon Redbone used to say) is up there near the top. It means that a few of the better US folk DJs are sufficiently taken by his music that they return again and again to his CDs. These are critics whose opinion can have a significant effect on the sales of lesser-known folk performers in the US.

The trio I play with, Finest Kind, has been pretty near the top of the CanCon chart in the past--I think we made it to #4 at one point during the early months of our last release. I don't kid myself that this puts us in the same commercial league as Cockburn or Eaglesmith, but it is encouraging to know that almost every week, someone, somewhere in the US is playing our music. And the airplay does translate into sales. So directly, in fact that I can tell when, for example, Wisconsin Public Radio or KBCS in Seattle have been playing our CDs. The web orders tell the story. Granted, we're talking only a few sales a week, but that's important to us. People in far off places are being reminded of us and every CD sold is a calling card.

So while it may not be at all important or significant to Fred or Bruce that they're CanCon stars, for most of us surviving a few weeks in Harry's chart *is* something to celebrate, no matter how statistically insignificant the sampling may be. 

Ian

Ian Robb
Fallen Angle Music
285 Spencer Street,
Ottawa, ON K1Y 2R1
613-722-0482

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