Snap - Rhythm Is A Dancer - back in the charts thanks to the Long Tail of itunes and views on YouTube

Rhythm is a Dancer by Snap is back in the UK Top 40 at number 36. The track has not been officially re-released, it has gained a new lease of life after being featured in a new TV ad.

The Radio 1 chart show presenters Fearne Cotton and Reggie Yates theorised that the current chart success was based on downloads after 'Rhythm Is A Dancer' was used in the TV ad for Drench water, with Brains from Thunderbirds dancing to the track.

'Rhythm Is A Dancer' is also featured in the current BBC Sound Index and the Sound Index results show success of the song is 100% based on itunes downloads (an explanation of the BBC Sound Index is here -
http://www.nickburcher.com/2008/04/bbc-sound-index-great-new-way-of.html).

Colour coding underneath the listing shows the contributory factors and 'Rhythm Is A Dancer' is entirely pink, showing that its ranking in the BBC Sound Index is exclusively down to itunes downloads:

Overall 'Rhythm Is A Dancer' is positioned at number 70 on the worldwide BBC Sound Index with Snap! appearing at position 135 in the artist Sound Index. If the BBC Sound Index is filtered by category, 'Rhythm Is A Dancer' is ranked significantly higher - currently the 4th most popular 'House' track:

The BBC Sound Index also indicates that 'Rhythm Is A Dancer' is popular on YouTube too. The video is currently the 22nd most viewed UK video in May with over 300,000 views:

This YouTube success is a direct result of the inclusion in the Drench water / Brains from Thuderbirds ad which can be viewed here:

The interesting thing about 'Rhythm Is A Dancer' re-charting is that it is user generated success, rather than in response to a co-ordinated re-release. There were many examples of 80's ad campaigns that extended into music with tactical re-releases of songs like 'The Joker' or developing new bands like Babylon Zoo, however these were initiatives instigated by record companies and the associated advertiser. The momentum behind 'Rhythm Is A Dancer' is bottom up rather than top down and, whether anticipated or not, it is viral buzz tapping into the itunes long tail, with the audience leading things rather than the music / advertising industries.

This example also shows how buzz trackers and initiatives like the BBC Sound Index can give more insight into how viral / word of mouth develops.

Footnote: Full details of the Drench ad (with high resolution files) can be seen here: http://dekku.blogspot.com/2008/05/drench-brains-dance.html

BBC Sound Index - a great new way of tracking internet music buzz

Music charts have been changing to incorporate downloads, but with Myspace, YouTube and LastFM etc do they really give an accurate picture of what's hot in music?

The BBC are seeking to address this with their new 'BBC Sound Index' (http://www.bbc.co.uk/soundindex). Every six hours the BBC Sound Index "crawls some of the biggest music sites on the internet - Bebo, MySpace, Last.FM, iTunes, Google and YouTube - to find out what people are writing about, listening to, watching, downloading and logging on to. It then counts and analyses this data to make an instant list of the most popular 1000 artists and tracks on the web. The more blog mentions, comments, plays, downloads and profile views an artist or track has, the higher up the Sound Index they are. So, the Sound Index is a music buzz index controlled entirely by the public."

BBC Sound index - top global tracks across all sites crawled

On top of seeing the total picture, it is then possible to filter the BBC Sound Index data to reflect activity on particular sites or activity within different music styles:

BBC Sound index - top UK tracks by views on YouTube

There is also the ability to filter information by age, sex or geographic location (US, UK and 'Other'):

BBC Sound index - top UK artists across all sites crawled


BBC Sound index - top tracks filtered by 'men' across all sites crawled

This BBC Sound Index is currently in Beta mode and over time the BBC aim to enhance the Sound Index by, amongst other things, developing a weighting system, "to allow the more active forms of interaction to contribute more heavily to the Sound Index."

The BBC Sound Index is yet another example of how buzz tracking tools are quickly developing and is the latest in a list of tools that can be used to track buzz and what online communities are saying. With the Sound Index the BBC has stolen a march on others (this could have sat well within Google / Yahoo! etc) and if the Sound Index is promoted / developed properly it could be a major draw to the BBC online music pages. As the Guardian says "don't bet against the enormously usable Sound Index establishing itself as the first definitive music chart for the internet age."