Bum Rush the Charts: Brilliant Marketing Ploy?

Bum Rush the Charts is a web-roots movement to get an indie band to the top of the Itunes chart. The idea is that everyone following the campaign goes and buys the same song from Itunes on March. 22, thus pushing it to the top of the Itunes chart.

Why? To strike fear into the hearts of the RIAA. Which is pretty ridiculous. How getting an indie band to the top of the Itunes charts screws the RIAA is beyond me. The Bumrush kids mention the usual stuff about the using power of social media, etc, but don't really explain how an indie band in the charts affects the RIAA in any meaningful way. Besides, an unsigned band, Koopa , already broke into the UK charts in January, so it's not like this is even a first for the music industry.

*sigh* Perhaps, I'm a bit cynical, but it strikes me as a sneaky way to use the distaste for the RIAA to get your band some fame. Now, personally, I think using the distaste for the RIAA to get attention for your band is a brilliant marketing strategy. However, I don't like wrapping a purely commercial motive in a box of moral outrage tied off with a pretty grassroots movement bow. It's even too cynical for me.

If you're mad at the record companies, write a song slagging them off, call it EMI, oh wait, the Sex Pistols did that already, and they were pretty blatant about being in it for the cash. It didn't hurt them a bit. Or check out boycott-riaa.com, they appear to be an actual grassroots movement trying to educate people about their cause.