Ever thought to yourself, "Well, it's all very well there being a Combined Classical Album Chart which tracks the sales of albums with at least 60% classical content, but I want to know what albums with 100% classical content are selling the most copies"? I know I have.
Well, good news people, the Official Charts Company is launching a new Official Specialist Classical Chart in which only full-on, totally-proper, none-of-that-non-classical-crap-allowed albums will be counted. So, that's that sorted then.
The new chart has been developed by the OCC in association with the BPI's Classical Committee, and the co-chair of that committee, Coda Distribution's Ginny Cooper, is quoted by Music Week thus: "Within the classical sector, there are many first-class performers providing first-class recordings which were not registering on the chart radar as the crossover titles were obviously higher profile and selling more. We felt however, that they were just as valid and wanted to provide an outlet to enable the public to see that sales of pure classical music is still alive and well".
The chart will be published each week on the website of classical music magazine Gramophone.