From billboard.com

Beck’s new Interscope album, “The Information,” could sell a million copies next week and still not be considered for placement on the U.K. album chart. The U.K.’s Official Chart Company (OCC) has ruled that the album contains cover art and packaging that give it an “unfair advantage” and therefore will not be eligible to chart in the region.

I have thought about this quite a lot during the day. My first reaction was ‘WTF’ (What The Fuck), my second was: ‘aaaaa hmmmm’, and now I’m like ‘BF?’ (Big Fucking Question Mark).

The ‘WTF’ was:
So the OCC (the U.K.’s Official Chart Company) are saying that a bonus DVD with homemade videos for each song and stickers that fans can use to create customized CD covers, has more influence on record sales than, for instance, a big corporation like Pepsi has marketing britany spears albums?

The ‘aaaaa hmmmm’ was:
So the OCC (the U.K.’s Official Chart Company) are saying that if a big corporation like Pepsi would like to give away free vouchers etc on the next Britney Spears release, their artist will not make it to the charts?

The ‘BF?’ was:
The combination of “WTF” and “aaaaa hmmmm”, which leads to the thought and question: Isn’t it a bit too late for a music chart company to state an example that music is music, and, it is music that should sell the albums rather than the marketing around the music?

Once again, from Ani Difrancos song Fuel,

“People used to make records
As in a record of an event
The event of people playing music in a room
Now everything is cross-marketing
Its about sunglasses and shoes
Or guns and drugs
You choose”

And from Propagandhis song Rock For Sustainable Capitalism

Anyone remember when we used to believe that music was a sacred place and not some fucking bank machine?