VdGG enter the *gasp* mainstream UK Charts

No, I hear you. VdGG has become "critics' darlings" over the last decade or more but the charts today aren't what they were and don't mean the same thing they did back in the day. The industry has pretty much tanked (or so I've been told) so you don't have to sell nearly as much product these days to make the charts.

Still, I know personally/privately that the record label are very pleased; VdGG more than break even, they do quite well. They're a cult band but it's a large enough audience to ensure good, decent sales (so everyone involved does well, although no one is driving around in Porches ). 

I know that back in the day a typical VdGG album would sell around 20k in the UK (more in some other European countries, waaaaay less in the U.S. where they never toured and were pretty unknown save for a small-ish cult following). That was tough for the label, Charisma, because that's just about the break-even point. VdGG were lucky to be on Charisma because the label did a lot of promotion and support for them, but they obviously never broke out into mainstream success (ala their labelmates Genesis and Lindisfarne) so they never actually made the label a lot of money (but they didn't lose them any, either).

Anyway, that's all a bit of digression. So, yup, the charts ain't as important as they were but it's still cool to see VdGG in the mainstream UK charts, and it has to denote some sort of "success."

I played Van Der Graaf Generator on my show SPACE PIRATE RADIO from 1974 till 2002.  Only when the program moved to an NPR affiliate from 1999 to 2002 was it not on commercial FM radio.  Cheers.

Yeah, I saw they dropped to #88. Hell, it's VdGG. That they're even *in* the Top 100 in the UK is surprising to me (even with the charts not being what they used to be, etc)