Uptown Flunk: On Air / On Sale

All The Gen really wants for Christmas is another on-air / on-sale debate as frankly, it feels like there hasn’t been one for a while. The issue flared up again after Columbia brought forward the release date for Mark Ronson and Bruno Mar’s track ‘Uptown Funk’ by a month- after an X-Factor cover of the track was already sitting at the top of the iTunes chart.

Columbia, who are releasing Ronson’s new album in January released the track last week after originally setting a date of January 11th. Of course, January is typically a fallow period for album and singles releases so The Gen understands the original logic- but the funky rug was pulled from under Ronson’s feet when X-Factor contestant Fleur East performed the song on the show on 6th December and it shot to the top of the iTunes charts the following day.

Columbia may feel that all’s well that ends well as Ronson’s release is currently at the top of the iTunes Chart – but it raises some interesting questions around why artists are left in such ludicrous and potentially commercially damaging situations. Especially when the Ronson version of the track was also already available on Spotify. This is all explored with some insight by a fairly searing editorial by Tim Ingham at Music Week that you can read here.

In other chart news, its looking likely that it will be another X-Factor Number One single this year, with Ben Haenow taking the initial lead over Uptown Funk with 75,000 downloads.

Official Charts Company Chief Executive Martin Talbot said: “The week of the Christmas Number 1 race is always among the most exciting in the Official Singles Chart calendar – and early data indicates that we have a genuine battle on our hands in 2014. By Sunday, we will know who has won out – but, for the moment, the race is on”.

The now traditional anti X-Factor campaign for an alternative Number One continues, this year with Iron Maiden’s ‘Number of the Beast’.