Front Line Assembly chart success

Image by pellesten via Flickr

As a fan of Canadian industrial band Front Line Assembly, I resigned myself to being in the minority. Unlike breakout acts of the genre like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry, FLA (as fans call them) never reached the heady heights of mass market success.

Indeed, they've had more success over the years with their side project Delerium, especially a track they did with Sarah McLachlan called "Silence" which seemed to ignite both acts' careers in the UK back in the early 2000s.

Having said that, it was with surprise, bewilderment and joy that I discovered Front Line Assembly not only have a new single out, but that it's charted in the US. Not one of the usual "scraped in at #198 on the Hot 200" that people mutter under their breath.

Oh no, ladies and gentlemen, the new single "Shifting Through The Lens" has reached the heady heights of #13 on the influential Billboard singles chart.

As lead Assembler Bill Lieb told website Side-Line, "We are really happy about the buzz and all the good feedback. This is the first time in many years that we have a release on the Billboard charts."

My hat is off the Bill Lieb and co. So much so that I spent a chunk of today revisiting my favourite FLA album, "Caustic Grip".

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Cheaper music? Blame Canada!

Not that I'll ever buy anything from iTunes - just wanted to make that clear - but if I was, I gotta say I'm glad I have a Canadian billing address at my disposal.

It seems that the cheapest place on earth (or earth as defined to where iTunes have their music shops) to buy music is Canada, where Apple have decided to price their tunes at 99c Canadian. Using the powers of exchange rate mathematics, Silicon.com have worked out how cheap it would be to fill your iPod in Canada as compared to the rest of the world.

With a Canadian dollar currently worth around 43p in the UK, you start to realise how rediculously cheap music can be in the Great White North, eh? When whole albums are $10.00 you're looking at a heft £4.30 for the same thing that HMV is charging £16.99 for.

Now I'm not a fan or a backer or even a buyer of DRM infected crap like these iTunes files, and I don't suggest anyone else do so, but it's nice to see Canada painted so highly in a news story. We always knew music over there was cheap as chips, now we've got further proof.