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| Should charts be extended?, Top 1000 instead of top 100? |
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 15th December 2020, 12:45 AM
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#1
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 BuzzJack Regular
Joined: 22 August 2020
Posts: 365 User: 111,940 
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Now, this is a serious question. Quick stat at the beginning: on the last ever official chart based only on paid-for sales from 29th June 2014, top 10 singles were responsible for 14% of all singles sales in the UK that week. Six years later on July 2nd 2020, in the middle of streaming era, top 10 singles were responsible for...1,8% of all singles 'sales' during the week. Another stat: on the last ever sales-only official chart, top 100 songs were responsible for over 30%, about one third of all singles sales during that week. Six years later top 100 songs were responsible for about 8% of all sales.
So here's the thing: 92% of music consumption in UK in 2020 happens outside of the published top 100 chart. We often hear that charts should represent what people are streaming/consuming. But the chart we see is just 8% of what's being consumed, so can we really say that it's the accurate picture of music consumption landscape? During the week of the last sales-only singles chart 2,851,548 singles sales were registered. During the chart week six years later there were 20,370,954 units 'sold'. The difference is insane: 17,5 million 'sales' more in 2020 than in 2014. Yet at the same time last sales-only number one sold 76,517 copies while the number one six years later 'sold' nearly 20,000 units less (57,105). So where are those 17,5 million 'sales'? Outside of the chart, just like 92% of music market. With streaming people have access to unlimited music catalogue which they consume and that counts towards the chart. However, there is one great paradox about the charts in the streaming era. More music is being consumed by more people in bigger amounts than ever before, but at the same time less music is appearing on the charts, less songs have a chance to reach top positions and the turnover on the charts is much slower than in the sales era. With the streaming era, charts and music consumption went in two completely opposite directions. In the download era you needed just over 2,000 copies to make top 100 and just over 1000 copies to make top 200. So songs that appeared outside of top 200 were bought mainly by just few hundred people during 7 days period. Yesterday on Spotify you needed 59,051 streams to make the UK daily top 200. Think about that: 50,000 people can listen to your song in 24 hours in UK and from the chart point of view you just... do not exist. In the sales era when the same amount of people bought your song during the whole week you would be challenging for a top 5 position. There are so many songs on Spotify that have tens of millions streams and haven't charted anywhere. So maybe in the new streaming reality we also need new formula for the music charts? For most artists nowadays we see making top 40 or even top 100 as a much bigger achievement than 10 years ago. In many cases going top 10 today is as good as reaching number one in the era of held-back releases. And also 'sales' figures: back in the day selling 900 copies meant being bought by 900 people. Today it usually means being streamed 90,000 times, so being listened to by as many people as were buying number one single in the sales era. Nowadays even single number 470 on the chart would have tens of thousands consumers behind it. On this year's 2nd of July chart, singles outside of the top 100 accumulated over 18,5 million 'sales' - figure 6,5 times bigger than the whole singles market during the week of last sales-only chart. That's what's waiting every week for its chance to chart and doesn't get it. Maybe it's time to admit that the old well-known top 100 form is simply not enough to accurately cover the extremely wide spectrum of today's music consumption. With streaming services people's music libraries have no limits. Maybe the charts also shouldn't. This post has been edited by Tefo: 15th December 2020, 12:52 AM |
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15th December 2020, 01:09 AM
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#2
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 🔥🚀🔥
Joined: 30 August 2010
Posts: 74,565 User: 11,746
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top 1000 would be overkill - especially for me who has the job of typing up text versions every week for the forum.
 the vast majority of it would be Old songs anyway, even if the entire top 1000 had ACR rules. a top 200 extension I would quite like though. but it won’t happen. |
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15th December 2020, 06:08 AM
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#3
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BuzzJack Platinum Member
Pronouns: He/Him
Joined: 28 July 2013 Posts: 5,074 User: 19,614
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Thanks for pointing this out. I've always mostly just assumed it, but seeing raw numbers really makes it clear. I can only imagine how much more severe it is in the '90s physical era too, which in addition to the high amount of debuts that instantly hit their peak, has probably set a mental standard for hits/flops that can be hard to shake if you only look at the chart on face value. Nowadays organic success can be a slow burn forever muscled out of the chart by big stars, playlist boosted astroturfing* and an increasing number of recurrent oldies. But more and more, the 3-9 months a song spends in the spotlight is a footnote among its total sales, that every week becomes a smaller and smaller portion of it.
We had a particularly egregious example in Australia earlier this year, where as a logical end point of this, the huge summer smash rounding out its run in the top 50, had sold less than the newly debuting song just above it  "goosebumps" is a great example of one of those hits that only arbitrarily never were in its time, given it spent so long hovering just outside the global top 50 but never included on Today's Top Hits, but a year later "BUTTERFLY EFFECT" only made it because it was on Today's Top Hits. Given the nature of its charting, that was its only week in the top 50, which accounts for roughly 1% of its lifetime sales. We've also had Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" become a viral hit late in the year, and yet this viral success only accounts for some 30-40% of its total 2020 sales, the rest just attributed to its week by week of significant but not-quite chart eligible streaming inertia. I don't know a good solution to this other than altering our own perceptions of what success is. I agree with Dan that a top 1,000 chart, while potentially interesting in spots, would be cluttered with a lot of white noise. A bubbling under chart could be a good start, but it also can't really capture the nature of song's trajectory with any consistent rules. You could boot songs off after they've attained a certain level of popularity, but it still means that in the eyes of that chart, a song that stops selling after that removal and a song that keeps selling, perhaps with potential to get higher than before, are the same thing. At the end of the day, the best we have are sales certification milestones, and it's just a matter of telling ourselves not to be dismissive of the 'too low' bar for qualification every time a song that didn't chart very high/at all goes Silver or Gold. There really are just a lot more songs casually reaching those bars for success nowadays. *granted usually it's decided upon based on good early reception which is just amplified (not much different to the radio) but clearly there's no shortage of what-could-have-been-a-hit had one promo team jumped onto it |
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15th December 2020, 09:05 AM
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#4
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BuzzJack Gold Member
Joined: 18 May 2007
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I completely agree with your point that it's ridiculous that new records that could be doing hundreds of thousands of streams a week just don't register anywhere on the chart - compared to the "old days" when you only needed 2,000 or so people to buy your record to make the top 100. There's so many records that come and go and "feel" like they've been some sort of hit - like they were A-listed on Radio 2, did some TV PAs and bounced around the iTunes chart for several weeks, but because they didn't take off on streams they don't even register a chart position and it just feels wrong.
In a way it's good that the chart reflects genuine widespread popularity now more than it did, but I think people forget the chart actually isn't there for us - it's for the industry to use as a promotional tool. I don't think changing to a top 1000 is the answer, because you can't really use a chart position of #458 as something to trumpet about. They either need to have another look at the formula of the top 100, and kick out more of the old songs quicker, or revise/extend the Tuesday trending chart, and try to make it more of a "thing", perhaps by asking Radio 1 and MTV to do a weekly show on it. It's a good idea but it's not getting enough exposure. This post has been edited by AcerBen: 15th December 2020, 09:08 AM |
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15th December 2020, 09:09 AM
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#5
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BuzzJack Enthusiast
Joined: 19 November 2014
Posts: 1,410 User: 21,383
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Bring back Top of the Pops - that could give the charts exposure!
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15th December 2020, 11:11 AM
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#6
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BuzzJack Enthusiast
Joined: 1 April 2020
Posts: 1,350 User: 104,406 
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Top 1000 seems a little obscene, publishing a top 200 without any of the stupid rules would be what good to see
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15th December 2020, 12:49 PM
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#7
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🔥🚀🔥
Joined: 30 August 2010
Posts: 74,565 User: 11,746
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QUOTE(chartjack2 @ Dec 15 2020, 09:09 AM)  Bring back Top of the Pops - that could give the charts exposure! I know people here are nostalgic for TOTP but how would they fill the time if they did bring it back on a weekly basis? Presumably most of the drill rappers who make the low end of the chart wouldn't get booked or want to do it anyway, all the big international stars wouldn't find the time on their schedule, the chart is still a lot slower than the old days when it was on... |
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15th December 2020, 01:29 PM
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#8
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BuzzJack Gold Member
Joined: 18 May 2007
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I think it could work as a monthly programme.. but it'd take a lot more than one show to change things
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15th December 2020, 01:46 PM
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#9
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BuzzJack Legend
Joined: 11 June 2011
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I would like the return of the Top 200 and certifications to be changed.
Platinum and million selling singles are very common nowadays and I feel platinum status should be increased to 1 million as actual paid for sales are overlooked. |
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15th December 2020, 01:52 PM
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#10
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 A dead mouse (from my cat)
Joined: 2 March 2018
Posts: 28,493 User: 67,771
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Music shows with even the biggest stars do poorly in the TV ratings, there's no audience for it anymore
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15th December 2020, 02:00 PM
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#11
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BuzzJack Enthusiast
Joined: 6 December 2020
Posts: 1,905 User: 119,363
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There used to be this website which showed new entries between the #101 and #200 positions every week on the singles and albums charts - but they haven’t done that for the past 2 or 3 years now.
This post has been edited by daniellovesmusic: 15th December 2020, 02:00 PM |
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15th December 2020, 02:02 PM
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#12
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 I'm a paragon so don't perceive me
Joined: 3 February 2011
Posts: 37,418 User: 12,929            |
When music is that diverse, and that is indeed great data to confirm what I suspected, that people's tastes are atomising based on what they've previously indicated they liked to the streaming algorithm, yeah the chart is failing at its purpose. In at least that what people choose to play and are consuming day-to-day is not all that useful to chart because of how much people return to familiarity, at the moment, anyone using the chart to find new stuff will instead just be reinforced into playing those that are already hits.
Perhaps there just needs to be a way to disincentivise treating the 'chart' of consumption as something important and worthy of musical status and instead treat some form of 'trending' chart as the important one, where songs that have received a sudden uptick are given promotion and attention and number nerd theory. Works for Twitter. |
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15th December 2020, 02:19 PM
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#13
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BuzzJack Legend
Joined: 4 November 2013
Posts: 30,531 User: 20,053
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QUOTE(daniellovesmusic @ Dec 15 2020, 02:00 PM) There used to be this website which showed new entries between the #101 and #200 positions every week on the singles and albums charts - but they haven’t done that for the past 2 or 3 years now. zobbel.de Discontinued from 2015. |
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15th December 2020, 02:32 PM
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#14
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BuzzJack Gold Member
Joined: 21 February 2008
Posts: 3,051 User: 5,457
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no because nobody will care especially since most of the songs outside the top 100 will be older hits that people are sick off....
i would suggest a recurrent songs chart rule same as in the US where older songs are disqualified after certain amount of weeks outside the top 40...that will help us get rid of all the Mr Brightside and Perfect chart runs.... |
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15th December 2020, 02:39 PM
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#15
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Gareth T H
Joined: 6 February 2010
Posts: 2,500 User: 10,597
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QUOTE(ts7sfkptm @ Dec 15 2020, 11:11 AM) Top 1000 seems a little obscene, publishing a top 200 without any of the stupid rules would be what good to see But it’s the ‘stupid rules’ that have managed to maintain a level of turnover in the top 40 and 100. Could you imagine how many extra weeks Mr Brightside or Baby Shark would have if they weren’t there. Streaming (video & audio) is a very slow moving platform of consumption so to give new music a chance there has to be some level of rules to uplift new songs and downgrade old ones (though I do disagree with anything over 3 years being on ACR even if it never charted before). I think 1000 would be excessive for a chart as it would only interest chart fans like those here, a general audience wouldn’t care if a song got to #451. Top 200 (with ACR) would be good, but you can’t go much further out otherwise the positions would look more embarrassing than they would if blacked out the top 100 as they are now. Artists still get certifications and more tracks than ever are being certified which in itself speaks the achievement of the song - I think those need more of a public image myself. |
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15th December 2020, 03:02 PM
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#16
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BuzzJack Enthusiast
Joined: 6 December 2020
Posts: 1,905 User: 119,363
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QUOTE(Dobby Helms @ Dec 15 2020, 02:19 PM) zobbel.de Discontinued from 2015. I wonder why they discontinued it. I guess it’s something to do with the OCC. This post has been edited by daniellovesmusic: 15th December 2020, 03:02 PM |
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15th December 2020, 03:07 PM
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#17
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BuzzJack Gold Member
Joined: 21 February 2008
Posts: 3,051 User: 5,457
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the chart should not count playlists as streaming unless they include radio airplay... if they think radio airplay shouldnt be included in the chart , neither should streaming playlists because they r as manipulated by record labels as airplay if not more, thats why u never find songs by older artists on streaming platforms or mainstream airplay, thats why u always find the same acts charting over and over again while older artists, and different music genres are eliminated...
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15th December 2020, 05:03 PM
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#18
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BuzzJack Enthusiast
Joined: 1 April 2020
Posts: 1,350 User: 104,406
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QUOTE(GTH @ Dec 15 2020, 02:39 PM) But it’s the ‘stupid rules’ that have managed to maintain a level of turnover in the top 40 and 100. Could you imagine how many extra weeks Mr Brightside or Baby Shark would have if they weren’t there. Streaming (video & audio) is a very slow moving platform of consumption so to give new music a chance there has to be some level of rules to uplift new songs and downgrade old ones (though I do disagree with anything over 3 years being on ACR even if it never charted before). I do understand this point but the chart is meant to reflect the most popular songs of the week in the UK. if Head & Heart is the biggest song of the week, it deserves to be at #1 on the chart, not #9 or whatever. Maybe ACR being removed in this current climate of Blinding Lights, Head & Heart, WAP style hits wouldn't be the best and could be annoying, but the point is the singles chart would reflect the biggest songs of that week in the country.. |
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15th December 2020, 05:25 PM
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#19
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BuzzJack Gold Member
Joined: 18 May 2007
Posts: 3,628 User: 3,429
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QUOTE(daniellovesmusic @ Dec 15 2020, 03:02 PM) I wonder why they discontinued it. I guess it’s something to do with the OCC. The top 200 doesn't exist anymore. There is an alternative chart generated that does go way beyond 100 into the thousands, but it doesn't have ACR rules or maximum of 3 songs per artist etc, and it's not available to the public. |
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15th December 2020, 05:42 PM
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#20
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BuzzJack Gold Member
Joined: 18 May 2007
Posts: 3,628 User: 3,429
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QUOTE(ts7sfkptm @ Dec 15 2020, 05:03 PM) I do understand this point but the chart is meant to reflect the most popular songs of the week in the UK. if Head & Heart is the biggest song of the week, it deserves to be at #1 on the chart, not #9 or whatever. Maybe ACR being removed in this current climate of Blinding Lights, Head & Heart, WAP style hits wouldn't be the best and could be annoying, but the point is the singles chart would reflect the biggest songs of that week in the country.. As I keep saying, the chart isn't just there for us. It's paid for by the music industry and used as a promotional tool. They didn't just introduce ACR etc because it made the charts boring to chart watchers. It was more that a slow chart is bad for the industry. And now that we've started mixing streaming & sales and coming up with different weightings then as far as keeping the chart as a list strictly based on pure numbers is concerned, the ship has sailed. Is a song that has been streamed the most times *always* the most popular song in the country? Maybe the number 2 song has been listened to by more individuals. Maybe the number 3 song has been the one most-searched for but has been let down by fewer "passive plays" because it's on fewer playlists. Maybe the number 4 song is only there because it's been released in 10 different remixes or 5 different physical formats. So I see no issue with tweaking the rules to make the chart fit for purpose - especially as there is already a pure streams chart available for those who just want to know which songs technically got the most streams. |
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