On March 22nd an illustration of the power of citizen-journalism and the reach of the blogging and podcasting community will take over the Internet… well at least the iTunes music store. There’s a movement afoot called Bum Rush the Charts to drive a track from a podsafe artist to number one on the iTunes music store charts.

The artist of the hour is Black Lab, and their track Mine Again the lead-off track from their latest album Passion Leaves a Trace. The point of this is to prove the power, reach and credibility that bloggers and podcasters have in the Internet community. I’ve included an excerpt from the BRTC site:

We can do better. We can match and exceed the reach of big media, corporate media, labels, and the entrenched interests. On March 22nd, we are going to take an indie podsafe music artist to number one on the iTunes singles charts as a demonstration of our reach to Main Street and our purchasing power to Wall Street. The track we’ve chosen is “Mine Again” by the band Black Lab. A band that was dropped from not just one, but two major record labels (Geffen and Sony/Epic) and in the process forced them to fight to get their own music back. We picked them because making them number one, even for just one day, will remind the RIAA record labels of what they turned their backs on – and who they ignore at their peril.

I’ll be posting a new post and a link directly to the iTunes store on March 22nd. There will also be links from the BRTC website, who have signed up as an iTunes affiliate. They will be donating the proceeds of any commissions made to college scholarships. A way to pay back students who are a major part of the music industry’s paying customer base.

This initiative has support from some fairly significant players in the podcasting world, including Adam Curry founder of Podshow, and host of the Daily Source Code. So do your part. Spend your $0.99 to support podsafe artists and the dream of a DRM-free tomorrow.