Market manipulation

You know you're getting on in years when you start recognizing old riffs in new tunes – the excellent new Scissor Sisters album has tons of this.

It's tricky to know these days what's really popular with music these days. The charts can be manipulated in any number of ways. A guest on the Today Program pointed out that Elvis' recent chart success owed more to a marketing campaign than popular taste.

Which is why I trust things like Amazon's chart predictions on Harry Potter all the more. Yes Amazon's only one company but it gives you more of a pointer to popular taste than some charts.