What's your favourite band? - our survey says

This is a great article about record companies adoption of marketing intel to better target and sell their wares. There's part of me that could get all indignant about this, but there's a more sensible part of me that hasn't yet come to terms with the fact that this has been going on since Elvis gyrated his way onto the world stage and had people (aka ABC123's) queuing round the block. Launching any music act is an expensive, time intensive and often unrewarding proposition. Talent is a pre-requisite for longevity but over and above that, insightful marketing is essential.

All well and good, but there's a nice quote at the end from Martin Fry (ABC), who comments that for many bands, creativity is a case of "death or glory", and that an artists failure can be as important as their successes.

Anyways, you always thought it was the 50 quid male who was keeping the charts going. You're wrong, its the MP She, 33, and she shops at Asda! Who'd have thunk it.