Eliza Doolittle – Pack Up

It sounds like Lily Allen’s more talented little sister time-travelled back to Motown.

Tom: In other “Songs I’m Incredibly Glad Made It To The British Charts” news: this one’s been bubbling around, peaking at number 5 the other week.

It sounds like Lily Allen’s more talented little sister time-travelled back to Motown. The hook’s sung by a fantastic and incredibly hard-working soul singer called Lloyd Wade.

I reckon this might be concrete evidence that people outside the normal 16-25 teen demographic are downloading music – and, to an extent, controlling the charts – now. Just wait until the Beatles catalogue finally arrives online: I’d be surprised if any other artist gets a spot in the Top 10 that week.

Tim: I’m not so keen on this song – I never really liked Motown/soul at all, and her music, while OK, doesn’t do enough to redeem it for me. You may be right about it being a good sign for the charts though.

Tom: Whoa. Whoa. Hold on. How can you not like Motown at all? Stevie Wonder! Marvin Gaye! The Supremes! The Jackson 5!

Strange person.

Tim: Well, maybe not ‘not at all’ with the Motown, but hearing that part of the track just turned me off the whole thing, really. It’s probably partly because I’ve never really sat down and listened properly to any, but what I have heard has never really made me want to. Maybe that makes me closed-minded.

Looking at the chart I noticed that in this week’s top 15 singles, there are a total of 25 individual artists. That’s less about the diversity of the charts, more about the staggering number of collaborations that seem to be in vogue at the moment. You’re certainly right about downloads changing things – back when Michael Jackson died, his tracks accounted for about a quarter of the Top 40 that weekend.