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Posted by: mdh Mar 10 2017, 05:50 PM

Newsbeat contacted the OCC after Ed's chart domination, asking if they'll be any rule changes.

The OCC said in a statement "of course it brings attention to the UK charts, that's what they're there for after all - to generate interest and discussion. We will look into the way the charts are compiled, that's something we do all the time, although we shouldn't make any knee-jerk actions. It confirms what has been a fantastic last few weeks for Ed Sheeran, and this establishes him as the king.".

Make of that what you will, I hope it means there's a change in rules sooner or later.

Posted by: SKOB Mar 10 2017, 05:54 PM

Well they can't say anything else

Posted by: Mart!n Mar 10 2017, 06:00 PM

Its not going to happen overnight

Posted by: JosephSharman Mar 10 2017, 06:01 PM

Basically don't expect anything to happen, certainly not in the near future ~

Posted by: danG Mar 10 2017, 06:44 PM

I don't think they're in any rush to change the rules then; expect Ed Sheeran to take up most of next week's top ten.

Posted by: Bjork Mar 10 2017, 06:46 PM

wish they'd hurry up
imagine if Bieber or Drake drop a 40-song new album

Posted by: The Wise Sultan Mar 10 2017, 06:49 PM

The non-single album tracks should fall away this week like the Stormzy album tracks (although not as fast), apart from Galway Girl (although I think Galway Girl is a single now?)

Posted by: The Wise Sultan Mar 10 2017, 06:53 PM

Or any two of the current big artists (Chainsmokers, Calvin Harris, Drake, Beiber, Clean Bandit, Katy Perry etc.) release albums on the same week.

Posted by: JosephSharman Mar 10 2017, 06:55 PM

Galway Girl isn't a single, it's just taking off as a very popular album track!

Posted by: danG Mar 10 2017, 06:55 PM

Drake is meant to be dropping a 20-song mixtape soon and we've got the debut Chainsmokers album next month. I wouldn't worry about those however, they'll get over half their albums in the top 100 but only a few top 40.

Posted by: Tinasha Mar 10 2017, 07:05 PM

I really don't think a Chainsmokers album is a threat in any way. Drake however...

Posted by: JosephSharman Mar 10 2017, 07:10 PM

Agreed, not like Setting Fires (the only new track from their EP) did much in the chart.

Posted by: mdh Mar 10 2017, 07:11 PM

If the tracks are big collabs, they'll make the top 40. Same with Drake. Also, Drake is rumoured to be dropping his album over this weekend.

Posted by: danG Mar 10 2017, 07:12 PM

There'll be more interest in the debut album than for an EP of which four of five of the songs had already been released prior to the EP release.

Posted by: 777666jason Mar 10 2017, 07:25 PM

Breaking news ed to release the b sides to divide as a separate album


Imagine the horror

Posted by: Supercell Mar 10 2017, 07:25 PM

I wouldn't be surprised if they change the streaming ratio to 1:200 but it'll probably come next year. Not sure why they didn't just have it for this year.

Posted by: ___∆___ Mar 10 2017, 07:28 PM

A change will happen soon enough - the reaction on social media is poor towards the chart and labels and radio 1 won't put up with this.

Everytime a big artist releases an album it will become the norm for them to get 10 tracks in the Top 40 - I'm sure the upcoming Chainsmokers album will see a few album tracks chart and as has been mentioned above if we get a week with 2 or more big album releases we could literally end up with 2 acts taking 30+ positions in the Top 40.

I really don't think in the long run this will benefit artists - Eds album is a week old and I am already bored of it, overplayed and overexposed in 7 days.

Posted by: Mart!n Mar 10 2017, 07:40 PM

Don't put any ideas in his head

Posted by: David Mar 10 2017, 07:41 PM

How do they even differentiate between album and single "sales" when streamed? A single stream should only count as a sale if someone purposely goes to listen to that song, surely, and not just if they're listening to the album on repeat?

Posted by: scratchy23 Mar 10 2017, 08:41 PM

This whole Ed thing might actually be a good thing. It will give the OCC a kick up the arse to do something about streaming slowing down the charts. I really think there'll be quite a drastic rule change within a couple of months.

Posted by: Bjork Mar 10 2017, 09:05 PM

ideally the occ should have made new rules during the week to avoid what's happened but alas...
I remember how a few years ago Billboard did introduce a new rule during the week that totally changed the outcome of the charts Billboard used to have this rule that if one album was exclusive to one retailer, then it was chart ineligible, which was an absurd rule... then there was this week when Britney's BlackOut was expected to debut at #1 mainly cos her biggest competition, a new album by The Eagles was ineligible cos it was a Walmart-exclusive... Britney was #1 in all updates but at the last minute Billboard announced that they had changed the rules and then suddenly The Eagles were #1 (they had sold double) and Britney ended up at #2

Posted by: *Ben* Mar 10 2017, 09:10 PM

Of course it is not nice to see Ed Sheeran occupying half of the chart but the OCC make themselves a joke if they change the rule again. In the last 2 years or so 4-5 rule changes...

Posted by: Iz~ Mar 10 2017, 09:17 PM

What can they do but be constantly changing the rules? The landscape of how people listen to music has changed drastically in the last few years and will continue to change. It's also awkward for them because the way people are consuming music no longer correlates well with creating a chart that will maintain interest, and they need people to be interested in the chart to survive as a business. This week had a good talking point but it will quickly turn against them if it becomes a regular occurrence.

Posted by: Envoirment Mar 10 2017, 09:29 PM

Couldn't they just do it so that songs released as singles have their streams counted towards the singles chart and all other album tracks have their streams counted towards the album chart/s? Then if an album track is made as the next single, its streams will start counting for the singles chart instead? That way a hit single won't buffer an album's sales or a big album flood the single charts?

Posted by: *Ben* Mar 10 2017, 09:31 PM

I'm not against rule changes, don't get me wrong, but I think they are changing the rules somehow without real consistency. They've changed the rules when David Bowie was high with an instant grat that wasn't allowed because of an incosistent rule, but they wanted to chart him... they changed this year the streaming rate because they saw streaming is takong over the charts in big steps, but to be honest it wasn't again consistent enough, well we can see on this week's chart.

First of all the big mistake they took is that they allowed album tracks' streams to count to both singles and albums, the other mistake imo was that they allowed to count also the streams from non paid subscribers.
What they do is just running after the mistakes and trying to solve it (more in short term) and that makes the whole thing a joke (for me).

Posted by: The Hit Parade Mar 10 2017, 09:32 PM

I know a lot of people seem to favour it, but I just think requiring record companies to nominate singles in some way would be a retrograde step.

Posted by: *Ben* Mar 10 2017, 09:34 PM

And what if the record company of Ed Sheeran says all of the songs are singles?

Or just take Beyoncé's example, all of ther songs from the album had videos, so were they all singles?

Posted by: GTH Mar 10 2017, 09:49 PM

The issue in this case is nothing to do with the streaming ratio I don't think. It is more to do with what defines a stream single sale and a stream album sale. In this case, it is clear that many people listened to the whole album on repeat (or at least a large group of songs from it). In this case, those plays should be exclusively classed as an album stream. There is quite evidently a large amount of crossover of stream sales covering both charts which should not happen.

Unless each of the 16 tracks has been excessively listened to individually then fair enough, but I highly doubt that is the case here. For example if someone has listened to shape of you 15 times and all the others only 5 times, then this should count as 5 album streams and 10 shape of you single streams. I figure from this chart, that instead of this scenario each of the album tracks has been given the single streams too on top of the album streams.

Posted by: Lenny Mar 10 2017, 10:16 PM

http://www.digitalspy.com/music/feature/a801321/streaming-and-ed-sheeran-have-ruined-the-charts-forever-heres-why/

Here is DigitalSpy's take on it.

As a long-term chart nerd I winced at some of the comments though - it's so melodramatic - and furthermore completely got the fact about Rihanna's 'Umbrella' wrong!

It really is dumb to say it's all streaming's fault. It's the fault of poorly planned chart rules.

Posted by: ___∆___ Mar 10 2017, 10:42 PM

Ed thinks it's 'weird' he has 9 of the Top 10 songs, he's not sure if something has gone wrong but he's happy about it

Ed Sheeran has nine of top 10, but thinks it's weird - BBC News
https://apple.news/A_7mG_T6mRM2TlRuyV4s0Ow

Posted by: The Hit Parade Mar 10 2017, 10:42 PM

Yeah, at least two of the three things he says about 'Umbrella' are wrong.
And as somebody who owns several albums by Stevie Wonder, I'm not exactly throwing my hands up in shock at the thought of somebody getting to Number One with a song that isn't their best.

Posted by: n4yr Mar 10 2017, 10:46 PM

^ or half of Michael Jackson's number ones for that matter

Posted by: Mateja Mar 11 2017, 12:00 AM

Streaming changed the music charts forever - it's time for everyone to accept that. As days and weeks go by, more and more people stream music and less and less people buy it (especially digitally). Removing streaming now from the charts isn't an option and they won't be changing the ratio in favor of sales indefinitely just to prop up the impact of dwindling sales.

I understand that some people really like to watch the charts on a weekly basis, but the main purpose of the charts is not to entertain the chart watchers. It's to present a realistic representation of music consumption.

I don't like the double counting of streams in the singles and album charts either, but it's possible that the streaming services simply deliver the number of streams for each track and don't give any info on how many people streamed the whole album, a few tracks from the album or just the singles on random playlist. Or if the do, perhaps the OCC doesn't have the time or isn't willing to annalyze that.

Posted by: jase. Mar 11 2017, 12:08 AM

"and this establishes him as the king."

Posted by: Iz~ Mar 11 2017, 12:21 AM

Isn't it? Why have a chart at all if no one is going to be interested in looking at it? And I question whether the current set up is a realistic representation either, given that with the current reach of streaming, it's providing advantage to passive plays and a limited demographic that is slowly killing any hope of diversity in the chart.

I don't want to kill streaming from the chart, I want it implemented better so that it results in rewarding an active and changing music fandom while disregarding people cycling over old hits for months on end. It's a fact of life people in general consume old hits for far longer than they are relevant new songs, we don't need the chart to so lifelessly remind us of that.

It's more important that the chart breaks new hits and acts on a regular basis than it be 100% accurate because the latter is impossible to ever be ensured less you track every method of music consumption, mp3 streaming, videos, airplay, all the way to public impacts. The former is a worthwhile, achievable and dare I say necessary goal.

Posted by: Mateja Mar 11 2017, 12:41 AM

The OCC is supposed to track the methods of music consumption that make the music industry money.

If the younger demographic outstreams and completely dwarfs the impact of sales, that's not really a problem for them. Sales are still included in the chart - but as streaming grows, their impact is getting smaller. Trying to protect the representation of older music consumers in the chart at all costs is not going to provide the real picture of the music consumption. Mind you, some older music consumers switched to streaming, too.

Isn't streaming 97% or so of Sweden's singles' chart? Well, prepare for that in a few years.

If you just want a diverse chart, perhaps it's time for the OCC to stop collecting the sales and streaming data and start doing surveys of chart fans on forums like this one so the OCC can compile charts that the chart fans will enjoy.

Posted by: Bjork Mar 11 2017, 07:33 AM

the more I think about it, I wish the occ was more proactive and changed things before it happened, not after
they should have changed this months ago, it had already semi-happened with Bieber/Beyonce/The Weekend

but it's the same that happened with the stupid Grat rules, they allowed Grats to chart for ages and only after Bowie made it big with the help of the fake Grats, then they changed the ruled but they should have changed it much earlier

Posted by: sm1ffj Mar 11 2017, 08:37 AM

Could be worse.....I'm Ireland the whole Top 16 are Ed Sheeran

Posted by: Karma Mar 11 2017, 08:47 AM

The thing is this isn't going to be an every day occurrence. This is Ed Sheeran, there isn't anyone else who would of done this to the singles chart, not even the big streaming artists like Drake and JB.

Posted by: T Boy Mar 11 2017, 09:30 AM

I don't think people are naffed off with Ed Sheeran necessarily, no matter how shit he is, but rather the way they chart has been compiled for a while. The ridiculous Ed situation is just what's prompting people to speak out about it more rather than just being hushed aside by the 'but the chart is more accurate than ever' falsehood being batted around.

Posted by: Iz~ Mar 11 2017, 01:13 PM

It doesn't track airplay though. That makes the music industry money. And as people have said, there are good arguments to not do that, because it's not in the hands of the consumer. Spotify company-sponsored playlists are barely in the hands of the consumer, on the face of it they are but they really aren't, so that's manipulation, and underhanded manipulation at that. In fact, what's more in the hands of the consumer is gigs and concerts, also something that makes the music industry money. And honestly, now we're adding full albums to the singles chart, it'd probably be far more satisfying to add in the set-list times ticket sales of every concert in the UK this week (weighted by audience cheers of course), and it'd be better for the active consumer.

You can't call it an accurate chart if demographics are underrepresented because of the way you've chosen to present the chart. A diverse chart is more important, but it's not the driving factor, overall there needs to be something that makes the chart of interest to those beyond the chart nerds and the minority rule that likes the current chart 'genre'. I'm only in here because of the ridiculous Ed situation this week, like T Boy said, but it should be something that captures attention for the right reasons and not for the wrong reasons like this week was. Like, I couldn't give a shit what percentage comes from where, sales, streaming, whatever as long as it comes together to make a chart that's as close a representation as possible as to what new tracks are receiving current hype from active music fans.

Honestly, my solution, and it's a serious one - they need to stop counting streams from non-usermade playlists, particularly, if any of them, the ones based on the current charts as that just creates a ridiculous feedback loop. Active clicks of a song, count, user-created playlists count, don't count passive playlists going for hours and hours. I assume they can track the difference.

Posted by: 360Jupiter Mar 11 2017, 01:27 PM

I wasn't actually aware streaming by non-paying members 'counted'. I think the easiest rule change would be to limit streams that are counted only to paid members. This would also be a better equivalent to past circumstances; at the minute, non-paying Spotify listeners are effectively listening to the radio, and airplay has never counted on the official singles chart.

Posted by: JosephSharman Mar 11 2017, 01:30 PM

Differentiating between paid and non-paid users of streaming will not really change listening habits I expect, the main draw of paying for Spotify is to get rid of adverts more than anything I expect (and offline listening). It would be pointless to stop non-paid listeners' streams from counting, and would just remove a chunk of people's chart contributions.

Posted by: 360Jupiter Mar 11 2017, 01:33 PM

Isn't that the point though? There's no point including them for including them's sake.

Posted by: The Hit Parade Mar 11 2017, 02:19 PM

And whilst I've never seen any figures on this (indeed I don't know whether there are any), I suspect that for that reason, people with paid accounts are more likely to use generic playlists for background music. I'm sure they're more likely to listen to complete albums, which is what really seems to be annoying everyone this week.

Posted by: Supercell Mar 11 2017, 05:06 PM

Yeah I was just saying thats one of the actions I can see them doing to change things. I agree though they should have counted more of those streams towards the album sales than they did. The whole streaming interaction with the chart needs a serious revision.

Firstly, only songs from paid for subscriptions should be counted I'm sure its easy for Spotify to do with an algorithm.

Secondly, only songs that are played in full should be counted, not this 30 second rubbish.

Finally, as i've banged on about before, streaming ratio increased to 1:200 to reflect the average revenue made from streaming and reduce the inflation of chart units.

In regards to albums I'm not sure what the answer is, songs only being allowed to chart if they are an official single could be one way forward but then again it's never been such a problem with most artists. Perhaps a restriction should be placed during the first few weeks, before being allowed to enter once the hype dies down.

Posted by: JosephSharman Mar 11 2017, 09:18 PM

Well that kinda defeats the point of an accurate chart though, right, if some people's streams count and some people's don't? The only benefit I can see from removing free users' streams is.... well, a smaller impact from streaming. Nothing more or nothing less. The trends likely won't be different.

Posted by: T Boy Mar 11 2017, 09:29 PM

Can people stop playing the 'accurate chart' card? The chart still isn't anywhere near accurate to people's listening habits.

Posted by: *Tim Mar 11 2017, 09:34 PM

Wait, idg how this is even a bad thing? I mean Ed sold the amount of copies needed to bag those top 20's, why exclude him? (Or any future chart saviours)

Posted by: Melobrama Mar 11 2017, 09:34 PM

But it's closer than it used to be.

Posted by: JosephSharman Mar 11 2017, 09:40 PM

What Bray said is right, it's closer than it's ever been to being accurate, and I really don't see how excluding some users' streams would be beneficial other than giving more favour to sales. Don't get me wrong, I prefer the sales chart and its pace, but I realise streaming is how many people consume music now and the difference between those that pay for streaming and those that don't is basically just adverts, the songs are played the same way.

Posted by: T Boy Mar 11 2017, 10:42 PM

I'm not saying anything should be excluded. Just that the chart isn't half as accurate as people say it is.

Tbh the concept of the chart has run its course. It can't decide what it's supposed to be measuring and music consumption clearly can't be measure in a fair way.

Posted by: Bjork Mar 12 2017, 09:35 AM

The problem is that his singles got so high and so many cos of double counting
He would not have had 16 tracks in the top 19
If album streams had been properly allocated

Free streams should count
Basically the ads you are forced to listen
pay for you
So you generate the same revenue
Than a subscribed user

Posted by: Zárate Mar 12 2017, 09:58 AM

But it's not a real trend. Right now songs which are listened as an album are counted to the singles chart. It's like if you bought an album in iTunes all of the songs would get the "singles" sales. People listen to the album as a package, and these streams are counted to the albums AND to the singles, which is far from "original" and "real" trend.

Posted by: 777666jason Mar 12 2017, 10:41 AM

Maybe they should just go back to the pre streaming chart and keep the streaming chart separate

Posted by: Zárate Mar 12 2017, 11:28 AM

That's a bad idea, as digital sales will die out sooner or later and will not represent anything what people like out here. They don't represent it already, they only represent only part of people's musical habits these days.

Posted by: SKOB Mar 12 2017, 12:57 PM

What's fair then?

Exclude all Ed Sheeran tracks that are less popular than Chainsmokers'?

Doesn't this show the power of being successful in all demographics and not just among grime fans?

Posted by: T Boy Mar 12 2017, 02:04 PM

But are the individual tracks popular or is it the album? This is why people have a problem with it.

And as pointed out, all demographics aren't being represented fully. Some demographics are having their listening habits recorded but lots aren't. I'm not asking anyone to find a solution. I'm just expressing my dissatisfaction with the charts.

Posted by: Peenus Fly Trap Mar 12 2017, 02:18 PM

I agree.

Used to love the chart but now it is boring, lumpy and stale.

Posted by: Mart!n Mar 13 2017, 08:08 AM

Ed Sheeran's Singles Chart domination a one-off, insists OCC boss
by Daniel Gumble
March 13th 2017 at 6:00AM
Ed Sheeran's Singles Chart domination a one-off, insists OCC boss
Last week, Ed Sheeran unleashed one of the biggest albums in living memory in the form of ÷, shifting 671,542 copies in its first week and becoming the fastest selling record by a male solo artist of all time. Yet in spite of those head spinning figures, a quick glance at the singles chart is possibly even more telling of Divide’s impact on the market.

When Friday’s official singles chart was revealed, Sheeran occupied 16 of the Top 19. That’s 16 of the Top 19 – a figure that has prompted some commentators to question the rules around the compilation of the chart.

Of course, no one would dispute that ÷ is something of a special case. But with the albums market increasingly moving towards the streaming model, there is concern from certain quarters that, with each big album release, the singles chart will ultimately be taken over by the tracks belonging to said record, thereby denying other artists a place in the rundown. Just over a week ago, the singles chart saw all 16 tracks from Stormzy’s Gang Signs & Prayer feature in the Top 100 singles after the album topped the albums chart and broke the then streaming record.

However, speaking to Music Week, Official Charts Company chief executive Martin Talbot was quick to quash any concerns that the singles chart model may be broken.

“[÷] is a massive record,” he said. “There’s only been two albums in recent years that have been anywhere near this, Adele’s 25 and Oasis’ Be Here Now. There are so few records that have been of this scale that what we are seeing isn’t typical. We should be celebrating the fact that Ed Sheeran has followed Stormzy and Rag’N’Bone Man in doing so well on the chart. This time last year we were bemoaning the fact it was so difficult to break British talent, but we are having a bit of a purple patch at the moment.”

While ÷ may well be a one-off, it’s likely that this trend will continue to develop with every album release from a superstar artist. Still, Talbot insists that the company will not rush into taking any drastic measures, but will continue to monitor the evolution of the charts and the impact of streaming upon them.

“We’ll review the methodology and discuss it internally and with the industry as we always do," he said. "We are constantly evolving the chart rules because the industry is constantly evolving.”

Talbot also addressed any concerns that streams that appeared on both charts were being ‘double counted’.

“The two charts reflect different things,” he said. “The fact Ed Sheeran has got so many singles in the Top 20 is a reflection of the fact that people are listening to those singles, and they are also buying those singles. If none of these singles were being downloaded you could argue that this is just a reflection of album consumption, but clearly people are buying these tracks as well. [The tracks] are not getting twice the number of sales.”

At present, it looks like little will change in the way that the singles chart is compiled, and few could argue that Sheeran’s ÷ is anything but highly unusual. But with huge album releases expected later this year from the likes of Katy Perry, Sam Smith, Harry Styles and Taylor Swift, it’s unlikely this issue is going to disappear…

Article from MW

Posted by: Bjork Mar 13 2017, 08:16 AM

this occ boss person is pretty deluded if he 1) calls the Ed tracks "singles", all of them, and 2) thinks people are streaming those singles, not the album, and there's no double counting?

Posted by: Mart!n Mar 13 2017, 08:21 AM

Ffs they are not singles they are album tracks and double counting is incorporated.

Posted by: Bjork Mar 13 2017, 08:59 AM

the journalist should have been more pushy and point that
if somebody is very successful in albums it should show in the album charts
not in the single charts

Posted by: Mateja Mar 13 2017, 09:06 AM

Um, I get what the guy was trying to say. The streams are double counted since the same streams are used for both charts, but they don't care since both charts measure different things. One is for the popularity of the individual tracks and one for the popularity of the album as a whole. They don't see an issue for the singles chart if people stream the whole album from start to finish since they count each individual stream as separate.

Oh and in this day and age, every single album track can be considered 'a single'. Songs don't have to be annointed from the labels, be pushed to radio or have a music video.

Posted by: howiet1971 Mar 13 2017, 10:00 AM

The OCC are putting their heads in the sand; they f**ked up royally and they've killed the UK singles chart.

This will happen time and time again now and any special achievement will now become the norm. I remember in 1985 when Madonna held the Number 1 and 2 position and it was a massive deal (I can only imagine how she would have dominated in 1986 if this stupid current system had been in play then). The fact is Ed is popular right now, but this chart success is a total joke and I don't recognise it, it's album tracks that shouldn't be counted. End of.

Official singles only should chart.

Posted by: Bjork Mar 13 2017, 10:23 AM

all songs should count if they do enough, singles or not
problem is his songs are doing so amazingly thanks to album streams

Posted by: JosephSharman Mar 13 2017, 10:41 AM

Is this not just arguing over semantics? The word single is used flippantly from him, which is appropriate really because the public don't care what is and isn't a single when they can download or buy any song they want. Anything is a single these days technically.

Posted by: The Hit Parade Mar 13 2017, 11:07 AM

Yeah, the songs may not fit the 1950s definition of a single but even if they owe much of their current success to the album the fact is that they can be and to some extent are being consumed singly. Which is why they're not all being streamed equally.

Posted by: Bjork Mar 13 2017, 11:29 AM

sure they have some individual streams but sure they have some album streams added too
I'm just saying they would chart lower, not that they wouldn't chart

Posted by: AaronTM Mar 13 2017, 11:32 AM

Personally, I think they need to change something and it's the same change I wanted from the start. They should either change it so each user can only stream a song to the equivalent of 1 'paid for' sale - so only your first 150 plays can go towards the chart (which - to be fair - might not change much because who listens to a song more than 150 times?) or they should count how many users listened to each track rather than how many times it was played. I think the first one would be harder to implement, but the second option should work if they divide the total by 100/150.

In an ideal world they would just make the sales chart the official chart and this combined version the alternate chart on the side. It would sort out the 'total sales' issue with songs. Even the OCC can't always bring themselves to use streaming data when they give updated sales totals etc.

Posted by: danG Mar 13 2017, 11:51 AM

perhaps if it was one user per song per week that counted, that would take out people putting Ed's album on repeat all week, but mostly it would just have the effect of reducing every song's streaming total by roughly the same amount.

(also I have listened to a few songs more than 150 times most recently 'This Girl' which I've listened to 152 times)

Posted by: soundman Mar 13 2017, 12:41 PM

I think Talbot is being dishonest to the public. The album tracks are not singles PERIOD so for him to say "The fact Ed Sheeran has got so many singles in the Top 20 is a reflection of the fact that people are listening to those singles, and they are also buying those singles" is a load of nonsense. He praised Sheeran's album sales - the highest since Adele and Oasis - but sees no problem in consumers streaming the tracks from the album and they're given singles-status. It's absolute nonsense, unfair, and he's sticking his two fingers up at chart fans and really saying: "you lot must be morons if you believe what I just said!"

The format is completely flawed and it's no surprise the OCC defend it. If Talbot said "the current situation is unacceptable, we're changing the rules in April" it would mean he was responsible for the unacceptable situation.It's like Jeremy Hunt saying "NHS waiting times are too long, too unacceptable" but he doesn't add "I think I should do something about it or resign." And Talbot is no different. Talbot doesn't see any problem in artists having multiple singles in the chart, he doesn't care that FREE streams add to the overall sales figures, he doesn't care about a slow, often stagnant chart.

If Sheeran's album tracks remain in the top 20/40 for the next three months or so - thereby limiting new 'singles', new entries - I think Talbot should resign.

Posted by: Mart!n Mar 13 2017, 12:48 PM

I don't know how its difficult to grasp, I would have thought album tracks are album tracks that belong in the album chart, if they are singles than do away with the album chart, and instead of calling The Official Singles Chart, re-brand it to the Official Track Chart with everything thrown into it, including the iamspamspamamisink. Its hardly rocket science to figure it out.


Just imagine Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, Drake releasing new albums in the same week, same day, the Singles Top 40 chart are completely awashed with 3 artists, which most likely won't happen, bearing in mind its worth thinking about.


I bet OCC are reading this topic ha

Posted by: popchartfreak Mar 13 2017, 12:52 PM

Using that argument then Youtube videos should also count towards the chart....

Posted by: Mart!n Mar 13 2017, 12:54 PM

And if they decide to add Airplay they will kill it.

Posted by: danG Mar 13 2017, 12:55 PM

Album tracks have been included in the singles chart for years. I get what the OCC is saying by that if you can buy a track and stream it then it may as well be considered a single.

Banning so called non-singles is not the way forward. We just need the OCC to count streams of singular tracks and streams of albums separately to lessen the impact of album tracks.

Let's also remember that 'Divide' is an anomaly. Albums from other big artists don't have half the impact, except perhaps Justin Bieber.

Posted by: JosephSharman Mar 13 2017, 12:55 PM

YouTube videos aren't audio streaming though, it's a video sharing site, it's not the same as the likes of Spotify or Apple Music.

Posted by: Bjork Mar 13 2017, 12:58 PM

what? you know you can block those YT ads and they don't show anymore,
that's what everybody I know does
no one is forced to sit thru those ads
so not the same at all

Posted by: Bjork Mar 13 2017, 01:00 PM

and agree Bieber is the only one who could do a Divide,
Katy Perry certainly not

Posted by: popchartfreak Mar 13 2017, 01:09 PM

too right. if the album has been streamed as a whole it's an album "sale" not 16 single "sales". If we are going down that route then I INSIST that every CD album track is also counted as a single sale for every track. That would have meant the entire top 12 was RagnBone Man 3 weeks ago. The chart rules are PATHETIC and inconsistent, it's like they are bending over backwards to allow streaming companies to dictate what constitutes a singles chart, when they have yet to make a profit!

Downloads won't disappear either. As soon as they realise they cant make a profit from ad-related income (and these free-listens stop contributing towards the chart) music fans will have a clear choice: you pay for the tracks to own, or you rent access to music monthly.

I propse that in that scenario, the only realistic way to return the chart to what it has always been (to reflect what people BUY, not how many times they play what they buy) is to give one whole sale towards the very first play on any track rented with actual cash per person and no more no matter how many times they play it thereafter. It's not going to be strictly accurate, inasmuch as curiosity will count as a sale too as it does at the moment, but at least it will freshen up the charts as it will require NEW listeners to keep a track at 1 for 15 weeks, not the same ones over and over again. I would also ban playlist sales unless they are specifically chosen by the renter.

Just think, no more xmas invasions of the same songs in the same order each year as the same people stream the same playlist records. Hooray! Actual sellers like leona Lewis would feature higher. Hooray! No more album invasions of the singles chart beyond week one, which would be in any case downsized in influence. Hooray!

Posted by: popchartfreak Mar 13 2017, 01:10 PM

Youtube is paid for by advertising, some you are forced to watch the whole way through some are blockable after 5 seconds, but it's still free music paid for by advertisers...

Posted by: Mart!n Mar 13 2017, 01:11 PM

I get what you mean, maybe some of those tracks should be nominated for a single release, so the rest of the tracks won't chart in the singles chart, that could fix the problem a bit.

Posted by: Mack Mar 13 2017, 01:12 PM

I love to know Martin Talbot defines 'singles' from Ed Sheeran when at least 11 aren't clearly singles.

Posted by: JosephSharman Mar 13 2017, 01:14 PM

And what if the record label were stupid and didn't nominate popular tracks as singles? High sellers would be excluded from the chart simply because the label hasn't nominated it. They could fix it but we've seen in the past that labels don't always make the right choices (see: Gaga's Do What U Want being chart ineligible for a few weeks due to the instant grat rules at the time).

Posted by: Mack Mar 13 2017, 01:18 PM

Wasn't there a chart where someone did 'The Real Chart' on a website somewhere which included instant grats, performances from X Factor artists? If I remember correctly.

Posted by: mr_pmt Mar 13 2017, 01:24 PM

Adele if she allows streaming from the get go on her next album?

Posted by: danG Mar 13 2017, 01:32 PM

Mariah, Wham, The Pogues and Wizzard actually sold more downloads than Leona last Christmas, so even without streaming the top 4 would be the same each year.

http://www.officialcharts.com/charts/singles-sales-chart/20161223/7509/

Hopefully Leona gets featured on more Spotify playlists this year anyway, she'd be doing better if she was.

Posted by: Bjork Mar 13 2017, 01:44 PM

nope, you can block them all and they do not show
you don't even have to skip after 5 secs

Posted by: Bjork Mar 13 2017, 01:46 PM

if you think about it, the occ has always been slow
they allowed free Grats for ages until Bowie got a top 10 that basically no one bought

Posted by: The Hit Parade Mar 13 2017, 03:01 PM

...How would you do that without reading people's minds?

Posted by: howiet1971 Mar 13 2017, 03:06 PM

Banning non-singles is the only way forward.

Posted by: JosephSharman Mar 13 2017, 03:11 PM

You've said this numerous times now, I think we get your point.

Posted by: Tombo Mar 13 2017, 03:28 PM

Well done to Ed, nothing needs to change unless this becomes a recurring problem thne probably just allowed 4 non-singles form the album chart.

but what evenm is a single anymore? a promo single? a radio single? an instant grat?

The indsutry has changed so much.

this is the future, deal with it!

Posted by: MusiqqisuM Mar 13 2017, 03:40 PM

Precisely this. People need to relax and get with the times and stop whining and being so anal because the OCC said "singles" instead of "tracks". It's not that serious and what was once defined as a single in 1990 obviously is not how we define a single in 2017. Ed had 16 singles in the chart, as in 16 "single tracks" from the album is basically what Talbot at the OCC was saying.

Back in the day a single was a specified track form the album which artists spent months on end promoting and pushing to radio etc, music videos, performances, but that model is outdated. Album tracks, promo singles, instant grats etc have been in the single's chart for years.

Posted by: howiet1971 Mar 13 2017, 04:45 PM

And your point (which you keep banging on about) is 'Anything is a single these days technically' - I think WE get your point, but it does't mean I agree.

Posted by: JosephSharman Mar 13 2017, 04:51 PM

I never said you have to agree, but you keep saying that the singles chart should only be for singles, despite the fact the chart hasn't been like this for years.

Posted by: howiet1971 Mar 13 2017, 05:17 PM

http://news.sky.com/story/has-ed-sheeran-killed-the-charts-10800420

SKY NEWS - Has Ed Sheeran killed the charts? Interesting article......

Posted by: Juranamo Mar 13 2017, 06:45 PM

Tbh, I would like only songs that are officially sent to radio to be eligible for the singles chart unless it could be established that they have been downloaded individually or are an isolated stream. The chart has always had limitiations as to what is included and that should still be the case.

Of course, this probably isn't possible.

Posted by: howiet1971 Mar 14 2017, 09:55 AM

Change will come or Martin Talbot will have to go; it's being picked up everywhere now that the UK charts are in trouble:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/mar/13/ed-sheeran-singles-chart-takeover-spurs-calls-for-drastic-rethink

Jon Webster, president of the music managers group MMF, said the singles chart needed as “drastic rethink”. “You should be looking at two different things: what’s happening in streaming, and what’s happening in sales. You can’t mix them. It ends up in two different metrics and that’s the problem,” Webster said.

“When you were a kid and you bought a single, if you played it 500 times over five weeks it was still only one sale. But now we’re having that 500 times over five weeks in the chart. We live in a different world, and we need a different chart for a different world.”

Jeremy Pritchard, the bassist in Manchester indie rock band Everything Everything, said the charts company could introduce new rules about what counts as a single. “Something needs to happen,” he said. “There should be some rules concerning what is and isn’t a single. If we’re still calling it the singles chart, should we be letting in stuff which hasn’t been identified as a single.

Posted by: The Hit Parade Mar 14 2017, 10:13 AM

Oh well, if the bass player from Everything Everything says there's a problem then obviously something has to be done

(No disrespect to the band, I like a few of their songs, but he seems an odd person to ask).

Posted by: The Hit Parade Mar 14 2017, 10:24 AM

In the interests of balance, I did think this was one of the better articles, even if I don't agree with it all (be warned, it includes a close-up photo of Chris Evans) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-39265093

Posted by: sammy01 Mar 14 2017, 11:04 AM

I think the solution is just to make it so that people can only count 1 streaming sale to a song each year. So yes we might still get a mass influx like this week but unless a whole bunch of new people streamed Ed's album the next week they would all be gone from the chart. It would make the charts move fast again and would put emphasis back on an 'impact date' for a single, the week you want everyone to count their first and only streaming sale towards the singles chart.

Keep the album chart as is, so after people have used their 1 stream for a song, unless it is a stand alone single all the streams for it from that person then count towards its album streams.

Posted by: Tinasha Mar 14 2017, 12:15 PM

I think 1 stream sale max is a bit much, but I think they should change the cap to 10 a week instead of day.

Posted by: Bjork Mar 14 2017, 12:36 PM

Even better
Stop counting once you reach the
Equivalent to 1 sale
(Not sure how many streams is that)

Posted by: Davidson Mar 14 2017, 12:43 PM

I like that idea tbh but I don't think it would make much of a difference seeing as 100 streams = 1 sale. I'm guessing most people haven't streamed a single Ed album track 100 times yet so he would still be doing as well as he is.

Posted by: danG Mar 14 2017, 12:46 PM

remember it's 150 streams to the sale now.

I doubt it would make any noticeable difference as most people don't stream songs that many times.

Posted by: popchartfreak Mar 14 2017, 12:56 PM

as in playlist listens that Spotify etc create. They have the technology to split the listens if they had the will. Everybody knows it's a passive listening experience just like radio, something in the background while you cook or do homework. That isn't a measurement of "popularity" in any sense any more than listening to the buzzjack song contest tracks is a measurement of popularity (at least initially until one playlists them oneself) it's a measurement of curiosity...

Posted by: danG Mar 14 2017, 12:58 PM

It's not in Spotify's interests so remove so-called passive listens of their curated playlists from the chart, so I very much doubt that will happen.

Posted by: popchartfreak Mar 14 2017, 01:03 PM

I agree. People who spend money (like myself) have to keep buying the same song week after week for the same impact. When spotify measures the listening habits of people who pay nothing at all it just distorts the charts into the monoculture turgid mess that it's become. As I've said before, least varied charts ever, slowest moving charts ever, and it becomes self-fulfilling that interest generally wanes. Once the Ed hooha dies down, a shortlived boost, it'll be back to usual "meh"....

Posted by: cqmerqn Mar 14 2017, 01:04 PM

This. For example I've had Lorde's 'Green Light' on repeat since release and there is no way that I've streamed it 100 times, let alone 150.

Posted by: popchartfreak Mar 14 2017, 01:09 PM

oh they would fight it tooth and nail because they still don't make a profit and are desperate to increase income before they go onto the stock market (which keeps getting put back each year), far too powerful for what they actually DO for the music biz (which is nothing, except give a lump sum to the majors to keep them happy).

radio is far more important and has zero say on the charts in the way Spotify does, even though 20 million tune in to the BBC alone and they are in the biz of publicising new acts and records (so that people can buy them), and not to mention the charts themselves.

Posted by: soundman Mar 14 2017, 01:49 PM

A potential way to resolve the problem with the chart:

Introduce a new album tracks chart. The album tracks chart will list the most popular streaming album tracks. For example, all of Sheeran's album tracks will be at the top of that chart. However, his single release - Shape of You - won't be in that chart, it will be in the official Top 40 Singles chart.

Spotify will also introduce a new album tracks chart so Spotify users can see what album tracks are popular.

If the OCC and Spotify were to agree on this new album tracks chart I think the singles chart can retain its legitimacy. The record industry, the OCC and Spotify (and other major streaming apps) would need to come up with a strict rule regarding what is a single. And the single would not be eligible for the album tracks chart. For example, Shape of You would never chart in the album tracks chart.

You should end up with a pure singles chart and a new album tracks chart. Depending on your preference you can choose to follow the singles chart or the album tracks chart or both.

Posted by: howiet1971 Mar 14 2017, 02:58 PM

Finally.... someone with a great idea!!!!!

Posted by: danG Mar 14 2017, 03:01 PM

but then you'd have the situation of Galway Girl, the 2nd most popular song in the UK right now, not being in the chart because it's not an official single.

Posted by: Tombo Mar 14 2017, 03:02 PM

Sorry, that is awful. We don't need that chart.

I think capping 4 abum tracks per album to be chart eligible.

Or renaming the chart the "trending" chart as it shows what tracks are trending

Posted by: Supercell Mar 14 2017, 04:08 PM

I always thought limiting a stream to 150 then not being counted again on an individual basis was a good idea but I doubt many people would listen to a song 150 times and even if they did it would take weeks. So they'd have to drastically reduce that number for it to reflect peoples listening habits.

That BBC article suggests adding airplay, if they think its bad now adding airplay will make it a million times worse.

I think from the sounds of it they should be looking at some of the methods that are used in countries where streaming is virtually the sole contributor to the charts and how they differentiate album streaming as opposed to individual tracks. The OCC imo have been lazy about the whole streaming scenario and seems like they are scared of having weekly single sales fall to the depths they were in the 2000s and are propping them up with inflated streaming sales. If anywhere needs any extra sales being pumped into it, its the albums market.

Also I think with playlists they should only be counted in two ways. Firstly individual playlists that people have created for their own personal use should be counted, Secondly the only other playlist that should count should be the Hot Hits playlist which is updated with new songs every week. All other playlists shouldn't be counted towards the chart and streaming should be merited from the artist's page/catalogue.

Posted by: Tombo Mar 14 2017, 04:19 PM

but isn't hot hits where people pay for their song to have a high position??

What do they actually do in countries where streaming is high?

Posted by: howiet1971 Mar 14 2017, 05:05 PM

Uh yep! Please read what he said..... it would go into an album tracks chart.

Posted by: danG Mar 14 2017, 05:27 PM

I don't like the idea of album tracks having their own chart personally. Galway Girl is selling many downloads and streams as a single even though the label haven't officially declared it a 'single', that should be reflected in the singles chart. Similarly with Ed's other popular album tracks.

Posted by: DanChartFan Mar 14 2017, 06:23 PM

I do see what the OCC people mean though. Look at this week's sales chart, or the download chart, and you'll see that Ed's tracks are being downloaded individually enough times to enter the top 50, so even if we go back to a pure sales chart there would still be a sort of mini invasion anyway. If you define a single as only the tracks that have been paid for individually enough times, and only add streaming to those (with perhaps a separate album tracks chart, or just all other streams counting to the album chart), then the invasion would only get stronger, even if you attempt to minimise streaming's impact by not counting individual track streams from a complete stream of an album. In any case I suspect that only a relatively few people streamed the entire album from start to finish, just as people who buy a CD album don't necessarily play the whole thing every time they listen to it (and even if they started off doing so may well routinely skip a track or tracks once they get to know the album and what they do/don't like).

I also don't think that those playlists are the entire problem, as they are just the industry trying to control what gets into the chart in the same that it did with prominent walls of discounted new entries in the 90s, or multiple formats or free gifts for a physical release etc, though admittedly those were eventually tackled in the chart rules, but they didn't make new chart rules for them as soon as the first instance of heavy discounting, excessive multi-formatting or overly generous gifting was noticed.

I don't like the idea of forcing the record companies to nominate a small or fixed number of tracks to be singles, but I do wonder if it should maybe it should be the case that the album tracks have to be paired up, since lesser tracks would be the b-sides in the olden days. If record companies had to tell the OCC which tracks went with which I think that would allow the record company some flexibility to change the official singles to reflect any unforeseen popularity of an album track, whilst preventing a flood of tracks. The trick for the record company would be to ensure that they either paired up the ones they expect to be most popular with ones they thought wouldn't do so well, in order to ensure each of the better tracks can chart separately, or else if they think that only a couple of tracks would ever be popular (or the artist does not have the material for a full album) then they could pair them together as one single to maximise the one single's chart impact but thereby lose the possibility of marketing that second popular track as a separate chart-eligible single. I think this pairing up of album tracks would actually hark back to the early days of the album, when it was literally a paper album (think photo album or whatever) into which multiple shellac discs (i.e. singles) would be bound, yet it could also be a better way of defining what a single is in the modern download and stream led era. I think no-one would be able to complain about unfair advantages as all tracks would be part of a pair and all artists/labels would have had the chance to decide their pairing strategy in the first place, to either try for multiple hits from the album, or maximise the impact of the best 1 or 2 tracks instead.

Posted by: The Hit Parade Mar 14 2017, 06:29 PM

Yeah, but how do you know whether somebody's listening to playlist because they've looked at all the songs on it, and decided they like them, or whether they've just seen the name of the playlist and think it sounds cool?
What if somebody listens to a Best Of Ed Sheeran or Best Of David Bowie playlist? That's obviously a choice to listen to that specific act, even if not to specific songs.
What somebody compiles a playlist of their favourite songs and I listen to it because I trust their taste? That's no different from when I used to buy singles that were recommended, except of course that it counts 150 times less.
What about the playlist I'm listening to right now, which is the chart this week in 1994? Should that count?

...And all of that said, wouldn't cutting out streams from playlists proportionately increase the influence of album streams, which is exactly what everyone seems to be complaining about? I mean I can still see the case for it, it just wouldn't be what people seem to want now.

Posted by: popchartfreak Mar 14 2017, 07:21 PM

re: album tracks popularity not being reflected in the singles chart position: this has historically always been the case. Albums that sold millions of copies had NO album tracks in the charts, and still had hit singles by releasing the singles with a B side. Some acts still release singles with B sides and remixes to boost sales, it's not the end of the world if a popular album track is never actually ever released as a single (The Beatles made a career out of hugely popular singles not on albums and hugely popular album tracks not released as singles, and great B sides bot released anywhere else). This was in every 12 month period. Exceptionally prolific maybe, but the music industry managed for 50 years having the two formats, album and single, and persuading people to buy both. It could easily do the same again if album tracks were excluded from the charts.

As I say, if streaming albums counts towards single sales then so should album CD sales count as 1 singles sale per track on the album, the cost is about the same as downloading tracks individually. There is no realistic argument that someone buying a CD album shouldn't get the same treatment as someone not buying an album at all, which is the current ridiculous situation.

Then we'd soon see how insane the whole argument is once acts selling 100,000 plus physical albums on first week of release take over the entire top 10 singles......eg Bowie, Adele, RagnBone Man, Taylor Swift.

Posted by: JosephSharman Mar 14 2017, 08:52 PM

This is simply because album tracks *couldn't* chart though, there was no way of buying them separately and excluding album tracks from the chart in 2017 will not make people buy the album instead, people will continue to buy/stream songs like Galway Girl because they don't care if it's a single or not, it's just a popular track and that's how the singles chart works these days. If cherry picking and streaming was around during The Beatles' album campaigns, things would be different, but you can't compare because it physically wasn't possible back then. Times have changed and I'd much rather see the chart reflect proper popularity than exclude things on a technical definition. (don't get me wrong, there are flaws in how the chart works atm, but album tracks charting in the first place isn't one from my perspective)

I agree with your point in the rest of the post though, the OCC really need to figure out how to differentiate people listening to most or the entirety of an album, and those picking individual songs. That would then lead to a more accurate singles/songs chart.

Posted by: sammy01 Mar 14 2017, 09:35 PM

The idea of a separate 'album tracks chart' s a horrible one. Last week that would have meant many of the songs on the 'albums track chart' sold more and were streamed more than those on the singles chart that were getting an official higher peak.

Posted by: Mirai Mar 14 2017, 10:38 PM

Hey guys! I'm new here so please be nice

I've always been a chart and music industry stats lover, and the UK charts have always been the ones I'm most interested in.

I've decided to start posting because I really wanna put my 2 cents in the current debate about how streaming influences the charts and what's happening with Ed Sheeran's ultra dominance of the charts at the moment.


So, first of all, I've always been against the idea of non-single songs being allowed to chart in the singles chart, and that was way before streaming even existed. In the digital download era, seeing album-only songs charting within the singles chart or chart before their official release as singles always made me cringe. But it usually wasn't a big deal.

Then streaming emerged, and it has now almost replaced digital downloads completely... While I'm totally for its inclusion on the charts, what's happening with Ed Sheeran's new album right now is just so ridiculous that I felt the need to voice my opinion on what I've always considered as a problem.

I'll go straight to the point: I have nothing against Ed Sheeran, but I hate seeing his whole album charting in the Top20. If it had some sort of logic, I guess I'd just have to deal with it. But to me, the situation is totally illogical and has been ever since streaming was officially included in the charts with the wrong rules. I mean, my concern is the double-counting of streams, one stream being counted both in the singles and in the albums chart. The thing is, that has been inflating sales artificially for too long already, and Divide's case has just highlighted how big the mistake can be: officially speaking, Divide sold 79.000 copies through streaming equivalence. Except that most of the streams generating those 79.000 album sales equivalent were also responsible for all of the songs from the album charting in the singles' Top20. Not to mention that those 79.000 sales represent more than 10% of the album's total first week sales... So either those 10%+ sales of Divide or 80-90% of its "non-single" album songs sales are artificial, depending on which point of view you chose... That's a big mistake to me, knowing that this has been happening every week for every album from every artist ever since streaming was included in the albums charts and sales count (and the bigger you are on streaming platforms, the more your official sales figures are artificially inflated due to double-counting). That is ridiculous in itself and shows how the OCC definitely do have to do something so that streaming stops being over-represented in the charts due to rules that were not thought out well enough.

I've read this whole topic, plus articles and other stuff, and I've got a few different suggestions to make to solve this problem...

1) the OCC could decide to stop counting streaming in the albums chart and only count physical albums or full album downloads as album sales. That would mean Divide would have sold around 595,000 copies instead of around 675,000. In that case, all streams would only could as individual songs sales, and that would make it logical that Ed Sheeran's songs occupied almost the whole Top20 on the week of release. But at least, there wouldn't be double-counting anymore and the figures would be 100% accurate. On the other side, the singles chart would look rather pointless each time a massive album is released, with all the songs from it flooding the singles chart, just like it's happening right now...

2) do it the other way around and define strict rules as to what is a single and what is an album song or force labels to differenciate singles and album-only songs. This way, the streams of a song considered as a single would count in the singles chart, while the streams of an album song would only count as part of an album's sales. That's somehow how I read the rule the OCC put in place when they decided that for albums the Top2 songs should have their streams weighted down to the average streams per song on the album. Except that to me this rule should have not only been applied to the Top2 songs but to all the songs promoted as singles. And also, there should have been a similar rule for the singles chart: the streams of a song that are already counted in the albums chart should be deducted for the streams counted for the singles' sales.

3) if we take Divide as an example, then it seems right to assume that most of the streams of most of the songs on the album were generated by people listening to the whole album or most of the album. So, the OCC could decide to take an album-oriented approach and consider that the streams of the least popular track on the album represent roughly how many times the album has been listened to as a whole, and count this in the album charts. Then, for all the other songs on the album, the streams above the total streams of the least popular track on the album would be counted in the singles chart. I would even go as far as to suggest that not only the least popular track should be used as a reference to define whole-album streams but maybe also the 2nd, 3rd, 4th or even 5th least popular songs. And for all the other songs, their streams which are above those "core albums songs" streams could be counted in the singles chart...

4) I would hate that, but they could also put an end to the albums chart and allocate one sale per song when someone buys a physical or digital album. But this week we would have found ourselves with the 16 tracks of Divide selling at least 595,000 copies each This chart would then become rather pointless and totally boring to watch, IMO...


To me, option 2 is the best one, as it would preserve both the singles and the albums chart as they've always existed while measuring sales/popularity of official singles and albums more accurately. But option 3 is certainly the most feasable one since it would not require cooperation from the music labels.

On a side note, I would also suggest the OCC changes the ratio applied when converting an album's streams into sales. It should be proportional to the number of songs actually present on the album. Because the current rule pushes labels to release albums with more and more songs in order to inflate "streaming sales" artificially. Indeed, if the ratio is "total number of streams / 1000", then it's easy for labels to release albums containing 15+ songs so that there are more streams converted into sales. You can clearly see the pattern already: while albums used to have only like 12 songs on average a few years ago, it's more like 15 or more nowadays. I'd suggest there should be a rule of like 100 (or 150) per song present on an album instead. So that if an album has 18 tracks, it requires 1800 (or 2700) streams of all of the songs on an album to count it as one album sale. And for an album only having 12 songs, it would require 1200 (or 1800) streams. That would make it more fair for every album.

Oh and finally, while I do agree that streaming platforms playlists do influence the charts in a bad way, at the moment I don't think it is technically possible to distinguish streams coming from people actively listening to a song from streams coming from passive listening...

But in any case, I think we've never been so close to having charts reflecting exactly what's popular among music lovers. In the past, we used to have multiple editions of singles/albums to inflate the sales (the Japanese market is still hugely biased with this today, more than any other market), hardcore fans making multiple purchases of a record to support their favourite artists, marketing strategies to maximize first week sales (chosing the release date carefully, releasing a single long after it's been sent to radios, having huge discounts for singles bought on their first week, etc...) and etc... So the charts have always been a bit biased and manipulated by music labels strategies to some extent. But I honestly think that it's much harder to cheat now with streaming than it used to be with physical records and even digital ones. Plus, when someone listens to a Spotify playlist, they can still skip the songs they don't like can't they? So while some of them might be totally passive and not care, I wanna believe that there are also lots of listeners who still play an active role such as putting their favs on repeat and skipping those they don't like or don't want to listen to most of the time.

What do you guys think? What I just explained is pretty technical and I'm not sure I made it easy to understand... Let me know if I'm not clear enough!

Posted by: Davidson Mar 15 2017, 09:18 AM

Drake album being released this week

Posted by: Supercell Mar 15 2017, 09:56 AM

What I meant by the playlists was, its an attempt to rid the passive listening that is happening, especially the chart playlist. Photograph and especially One Dance are perfect examples as I remember everyone kicking off last year that it was featured on so many playlists helping it stay at no.1 be default. Perhaps only playlist that shouldn't count is the chart playlist as pushing the same songs in the top 40 week in and out doesn't really help, they could just have a chart on the homepage but not have it playable.

But that aside, it seems the only way to solve the albums issue is to have system in place to determine if someone is streaming the album or playing them as individual songs. As I don't think scrapping songs that aren't official singles does any good, loads of singles have started off life as a cherry picked song in the past few years its what happens now.

Scrapping streaming from the albums chart also is not a good plan as lets face it, album sales are dire they need any boost they can and with streaming i think albums might actually recover slightly in the long run compared to the download era which killed them off in the first place due to cherry picking.

Posted by: danG Mar 15 2017, 10:35 AM

Prepare for next week's Top 100 to be nearly 50% Ed/Drake then, especially if the rumoured tracklist (30 songs!) is true

Posted by: popchartfreak Mar 15 2017, 02:04 PM

reminds me of the old song "anything you can do I can do better..."

They should have gone head to head to see who's is bigger

Posted by: Tombo Mar 15 2017, 02:16 PM

I thought the Drake release was a mixtape...

His last mixtape was quite popular though but not compared to Views.

Posted by: Rob Spears Mar 15 2017, 04:08 PM

I'm 99% sure Drake is bigger

Posted by: PeteFromLeeds Mar 15 2017, 04:15 PM

Hoping this Drake 'playlist' doesn't have much of an effect, seeing as only one of his last 4 songs made the Top 40

Posted by: AngelaKD Mar 15 2017, 04:38 PM

IMO, the first thing that needs to happen is to get a definitive answer to "What is a single?"

Until that happens, it won't matter about changing the streaming ratio or messing with playlists. Either every individual song/track is eligible for the Singles chart or the definition has to be reworked to restrict it to conform with what is thought of as a "single".

Posted by: JosephSharman Mar 15 2017, 05:12 PM

I can't see it having that huge an effect, Sneakin' didn't trouble the top 40 upon release and Two Birds, One Stone missed the top 100 entirely, so surely we won't see more than a few songs at most from this "playlist" entering the top 40.

Posted by: mdh Mar 15 2017, 06:03 PM

I reckon he'll have 5 top 40 entries at max, probably a few in the low end of the top 40 and the biggest collab maybe low top 10.

Posted by: Mart!n Mar 15 2017, 06:29 PM

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-39265093?ns_mchannel=email&ns_source=pan_solus&ns_campaign=PAN_SOT_11_SXSW_MUS_YTH&ns_linkname=BBCNews_FiveWaysToFixTheChart_Music_FiveWaysToFixTheChart&ns_fee=0


I go for option 5

Posted by: danG Mar 15 2017, 07:12 PM

I don't think the Drake' "playlist" will make much of a top 40 impact, but lots of tracks will appear between 41-100.

Posted by: Finchingfield Mar 17 2017, 04:39 PM

The OCC are stubborn fellows. They do what they want regardless of logic. The solution to this problem is of course (1) have an album tracks chart, and (2) have a singles chart. That's the best solution, it's a compromise, and it gives everyone in both camps what they want.

Never forget that the OCC declared Record Retailer as the so-called "official" chart of the 60s, decades after the fact. It never was "official", there was no "official" chart prior to Feb 1969, and it was the least accurate, least followed, had the highest low chart position volatility, and it sampled the fewest number of record shops, compared to the other major charts of the day. Of course the most famous example to prove this point, The Beatles "Please Please Me" in 1963. #1 for 2 weeks on NME, Melody Maker, and Disc, and 3 weeks on the BBC POTP and TOTP average chart. Based on a total of 270 record shops. Meanwhile, Record Retailer sampled a measly 30 record shops, and said Please Please Me peaked at #2. The OCC says #2 is the historical peak. What galled rubbish! And the same thing happened to The Rolling Stones "19th Nervous Breakdown" in 1966. 3 weeks at #1 on NME, Melody Maker, Disc, and the BBC average. But peaked at #2 on Record Retailer, so that's "official". Horse hockey!!

Yes friends, the OCC is a bunch of stubborn fellows who defy reason, logic, and truth, burying their heads firmly in the sand...

Posted by: 777666jason Mar 17 2017, 05:50 PM

And you all laughing at the big top 40 now

Posted by: Lenny Mar 17 2017, 06:07 PM

Oh that is still the worst of the two and always will be

Posted by: Graham A Mar 24 2017, 08:36 PM

The OCC charts are big joke now. They have always been a bit silly, but never as bad as they are them moment. The problem is that the OCC have two competing interests trying to take control of the charts. And try as they might the OCC are the Industry charts and have to make a compromise, but it simply can't work.
First competitor is the streaming market. The other is the sales market. To get them to balance the "stream" is treated as a sale. But streaming are never sales, no matter how much they adjust them. Sales by definition have a limit. Streaming has no limit.
But the two markets will not concede to the other. And so the OCC has to shunt between the two sides. What should have happened to the charts is that streaming should have taken over completely. But the sites still selling the records and of course part of the OCC would not allow that. Or you could argue that the OCC should have kept it a sales only chart, no streams at all, but of course that would have upset the other side of the Industry.

The main issue over the charts is getting shut of records that are popular with the public. The sales chart had a way of doing that naturally. Nobody keeps buying the same track over and over again. On most of the main downloading sites you can't actually do it. Since after purchase once, it tells you that you have purchased the track, if you try again. If your file is deleted accidently or on purpose you can still download it again for free. And it doesn't count towards the charts.
However streaming has no limits on how many times you can listen. So there is no way of getting shut of records. Of course if someone does bring an album out that has 16 to 20+ tracks on it then people will download the tracks off it individually or buy the album. However there is a limit. So by week two of the release of this albums track sales will go into decline, by week three some of the tracks will fall so low in sales to drop out of the 100 chart and so on.
Yet in streaming there is no limit and in fact more people could start listening more because the tracks are part of a chart, which is displayed on streaming sites.

The only way to solve this problem is for the OCC to put some very strict rules on streaming of the most popular records. But if streaming does win over the sales side of things as it appears to be doing, they are just putting off what most come to past, a chart of the most popular records. But the chart has always been a sales chart. But streaming in full control is not a sales chart.
It would be a chart of who's got the biggest marketing budget or fan base. Which is what we are seeing since streaming was introduced.
However it's a chart few people are interested in.

Posted by: Mack Mar 24 2017, 10:20 PM

Just the small matter of 12 tracks in the Top 40. I wish you were right.

Posted by: danG Mar 24 2017, 10:25 PM

He really outdid my expectations, I thought he'd have a few tracks go top 40 but not 12.

The OCC really need to sort this out asap, it's ridiculous that half the songs in this week's top 40 are album tracks.

Posted by: Mack Mar 24 2017, 10:33 PM

Now surely the OCC need to take swift action as it is taking the piss where more than half of the Top40 are made up by two artists.

Posted by: soundman Mar 25 2017, 11:15 AM

Which proves:

The Singles chart is more-or-less dead

The OCC couldn't care less.

I don't know how the OCC makes money - from adverts on their site? - but if there's no financial reason to change the chart I doubt they will. The OCC site is praising Sheeran's chart success. They don't seem bothered by it.

Posted by: popchartfreak Mar 25 2017, 12:39 PM

the BBC will be VERY bothered by it, since they broadcast the farce under the banner "Singles" chart. Oddly they don't broadcast an album chart and play album tracks......

Posted by: Zárate Mar 25 2017, 12:55 PM

The main OCC consumers are record labels and TV/radio who play the chart shows. And I doubt any of them are fine with this situation.

Posted by: Jack Mar 25 2017, 01:04 PM

Yeah, more TV/Radio are likely to play Big Top 40 where they don't have album tracks as much. I think it will change soon. I'm sure the next album by Beyonce, Adele or Justin Bieber would do the same.

If Stormzy can even take over streaming then someone similar could as well even!

Posted by: Robbie Mar 25 2017, 01:39 PM

The OCC is a not-for-profit organisation and is jointly owned by the BPI and ERA, the organisations which represent the record industry and record retailers. Some of the money the OCC make is from marketing and licensing the charts while they also make money from selling the data they collect to organisations within the music industry.

Posted by: danG Mar 25 2017, 02:06 PM

Kendrick Lamar has his new album coming out 07/04. I think he'll do at least as well as Stormzy on streaming so there's another album takeover to prepare for.

Posted by: Jack Mar 25 2017, 02:18 PM

Yeah you might be right, his album surpassed my expectations as to how it did. Katy Perry might have some songs appear as well when her album is released.

Posted by: soundman Mar 25 2017, 05:19 PM

Some major information that I saw on Facebook:

The boss of the OCC is part of Spotify! This explains why the official singles chart is so streaming based. The boss of OCC also wants people to stream songs on Spotify. Seems like a conflict of interest! With this guy running the OCC there will never be any change to the chart format. It's a rigged system - the chart is run by a guy that wants streaming tracks to dominate the chart. The boss of the OCC should not have a vested interest in Spotify.

Posted by: Lenny Mar 25 2017, 05:29 PM

Streaming isn't the problem though - it's allowing non-singles into a singles chart...

Posted by: danG Mar 25 2017, 05:29 PM

so basically the OCC are only going to act in the interests of Spotify now? in that case we shouldn't expect any change as all these singles chart takeovers only help promote the power of streaming.

Posted by: Вuzzjack Mar 25 2017, 05:29 PM

The Chainsmokers' new album too is out on that week, I am sure Mr Pmt is looking forward to seeing some album tracks in the charts from them particularly.

Posted by: mdh Mar 25 2017, 05:34 PM

The Chainsmokers are amazing though, so I'd be more than happy for them to have a lot of album tracks in the top 40.

Posted by: Euphorique Mar 25 2017, 05:35 PM

Pretty much this.

Posted by: soundman Mar 25 2017, 05:40 PM

While the OCC is run by a man that has a job with Spotify - marketing European acts! - there won't be any change to the chart format. No limit on singles per artists, no re-classification of what is or isn't a "single" - we're all wasting our time thinking there will be any change. Brown has a vested interest in keeping the singles chart full of Spotify album tracks and other non-single material.


As mentioned by others, the OCC is unfit for purpose - it's in league with Spotify - they are directly linked because Brown was hired by Spotify (!) - so the whole concept of the SINGLES chart has been corrupted. Any change will be superficial - such as altering the streaming ratio - but real substantive change will never happen.

Posted by: Вuzzjack Mar 25 2017, 05:43 PM

I don't know how many album tracks will be in the charts from The Chainsmokers album, I am guessing there would be at least as many as Kendrick.

Posted by: mdh Mar 25 2017, 05:47 PM

Realistically, there'll probably be 3 album tracks maximum from The Chainsmokers and maybe 5-7 from Kendrick

Posted by: ThePensmith Mar 25 2017, 05:52 PM

They did use to, until as recently as 2007 on Radio 2. They had the Album Chart Show on Monday evenings with Simon Mayo. They should bring it back!

TBH the floodgates are so wide open now with this since they bought in streaming, it's impossible to go back to how it was. I'd love for the chart to be fast moving again and consist of 14-15 new entries a week and for singles to still matter, but it's never gonna happen again, because it's not realistic. It's not 1999 anymore.

I do agree with what people have been saying though, make sure it's only paid streams that count, because that would change things greatly in terms of kudos to bring it in line with every other format that's chart eligible.

Posted by: vidcapper Mar 25 2017, 05:55 PM

That's what we've had - unfortunately they've been all by one artist...

Posted by: danG Mar 25 2017, 05:56 PM

Kendrick's album will have twice as much impact than The Chainsmokers' on streaming I'd think.

His last album had the following make the top 100:

57 NE 01 Kendrick Lamar ~ Untitled 02 - 06.23.2014
67 NE 01 Kendrick Lamar ~ Untitled 03 - 05.28.2013
87 NE 01 Kendrick Lamar ~ Untitled 01 - 08.19.2014
93 NE 01 Kendrick Lamar ~ Untitled 07 - 2014-2016

and that was just a B-sides album

As for his last proper album:

56 N 1 Kendrick Lamar King Kunta
76 N 1 Kendrick Lamar feat. George Clinton and Thundercat Wesley's Theory
77 N 1 Kendrick Lamar feat. Bilal, Anna Wise and Thundercat These Walls
83 N 1 Kendrick Lamar The Blacker The Berry
88 R 5 Kendrick Lamar i
92 N 1 Kendrick Lamar feat. Bilal, Anna Wise and Snoop Dogg Institutionalized

and that was 2 years ago when streaming wasn't half as big.

Posted by: mdh Mar 25 2017, 06:00 PM

Yeah Kendrick is very big now - I'd expect the main track off the album (the token big collab that gets pushed as a single) to challenge for top 10 tbh.

Posted by: Вuzzjack Mar 25 2017, 06:02 PM

The Chainsmokers are bigger in the singles chart than Kendrick, but I can see how Kendrick would have more keen fans than The Chainsmokers (mostly as he is a solo artist).

Posted by: JosephSharman Mar 25 2017, 06:47 PM

The Chainsmokers won't make much impact on the singles chart at all I expect...

Posted by: Hadji Mar 25 2017, 09:37 PM

I agree the charts are a farce. They should either get streaming out of the singles chart, increase the ratio again or create an album tracks chart

Posted by: danG Mar 25 2017, 10:15 PM

1) getting streaming out of the singles chart will achieve nothing, there is no point to excluding streaming when it is responsible for nearly 90% of singles sales.
2) increasing the ratio will achieve nothing but arbitrarily decreasing singles sales, seeing as streaming is so dominant now. It wouldn't surprise me if it got reduced to 1:200 soon, but all that will do is let the album tracks still chart but one or two places lower than they would have.

what needs to happen is a singles chart needs to be maintained where people's streams of entire albums do not count towards it. If I stream 50% or more of Drake's album in a day those streams should count towards the albums chart, not the singles.

Posted by: ThePensmith Mar 26 2017, 05:36 AM

OK I should probably rephrase that I meant 14-15 new entries by different artists!

What DanG just said is spot on - ensure streams of 50% or more of an album count for the album chart, not the singles chart.

Posted by: house.martin Mar 26 2017, 08:11 AM

I just wonder how TOTP's would have handled this?

I might have put down my thoughts on the chart, but sadly, I don't think I can be bothered.
I used to find it so much fun. Now I just mostly switch off.

Posted by: house.martin Mar 26 2017, 08:21 AM

Ah, I've found the off switch

Posted by: Mirai Mar 27 2017, 10:49 PM

It's not technically possible for the moment apparently... But it hope it does become possible soon though. This might very well be the only viable solution to try and save the singles chart as we've always known them.

Posted by: Suedehead2 Mar 27 2017, 11:00 PM

It's very simple as long as they collect the relevant data. I find it hard to believe the streaming sites don't have that data already.

Posted by: Mirai Mar 27 2017, 11:07 PM

I find it hard to believe too but so far this is what has been replied each time someone's been asking this question on another forum (in French, called Charts In France).

I wanted to add a link to an article that was posted on a serious website dealing with the music business but it's not working since I am under 20 messages posted here so far.

While this article doesn't provide any clear solution to the singles chart issue, it seems to hint that it is not impossible to determine whether a song gets played as part of an album or individually... I'm getting confused now!

(the article can be found on the musically.com website, in the news section, it was posted on March 13th)

Posted by: M4NG0 Mar 28 2017, 12:05 AM

^^ I think http://musically.com/2017/03/13/ed-sheeran-charts-law-unintended-consequences/ is the article you're referring to, yeah? It doesn't really suggest one way or the other whether it's possible to split individual track plays from full album plays.

Posted by: Bjork Mar 28 2017, 06:14 AM

pretty sure they are able to split them in scandinavian countries

Posted by: deepinside Mar 28 2017, 07:26 AM

I believe the chart compiler in Nordic/Scandinavian countries are able to determine and split the streaming figures. So it shouldn't be hard for OCC (and other chart compiler) to implement the terminology by default.

Posted by: Doctor Blind Mar 28 2017, 08:48 AM

I know people think that most are just listening to the album, and whilst that may be true on Day 1 - the majority of 'listens' are actually from the Top 50 playlist so this wouldn't solve anything. Especially as artists like Drake actually release playlists which consist of many, many tracks.

My proposed '>10% contribution from paid-for sales or song is excluded' rule would be much more effective.

Posted by: danG Mar 28 2017, 09:04 AM

Maybe if Spotify have a top 50 excluding the album tracks that might help the actual singles get more streams?

Posted by: gooddelta Mar 28 2017, 09:12 AM

It could throw up some bizarre anomalies though. Take Ed's What Do I Know for example...I don't know what percentage breakdown it had on sales/streams last week but assuming it was 9%/91% and then suddenly its Comic Relief promo pushed its sales total back up above 10%, you'd keep getting weird high re-entries for album tracks every time they were played as a soundbed on TV or whatever (as going by your model I'm assuming the stream sales would be counted officially for that week's chart too as soon as a song went back over 10% paid-for sales).

I do think the Scandinavian model is the most effective personally, I don't know exactly how they divide the data between 'single track' streams and album play streams, but it seems to work. Zara Larsson's entire album was top 50 on Sweden's Spotify for most of the week last week yet if you look at the official chart she has album track new entries at 7, 19, 26, 31, 36 and 46. These tracks have made it in I presume through single track listens rather than as part of an album play, and is therefore way more representative of what people are actually connecting with and going back to listen to.

Posted by: Doctor Blind Mar 28 2017, 09:39 AM

To prevent constant re-entries tracks that were previously charting and then got excluded would have to go to >15% paid-for contribution to re-enter.

“What Do I Know” would have been excluded every week it has charted so far, but may (going on Monday's mids) be able to chart this week under that rule.

Posted by: sammy01 Mar 28 2017, 10:21 AM

Horrible idea about the min 10% sales thing to chart. You would be excluding songs that may well be selling more than others because they are also streaming much more too.

For example -

1,000 sales 8,000 stream sales would make the charts but a song doing 5,000 sales and 55,000 stream sales wouldn't.

Posted by: BigMixer Mar 28 2017, 10:27 AM

The should allow only up to 3 album tracks to chart on the Top 40.

Posted by: Rush Mar 28 2017, 12:03 PM

I've seen the 'Scandinavian model' mentioned a lot here, but I'm not convinced it's actually in place, or has any significant effect if it is (at least in Sweden). These are Zara's positions on the https://spotifycharts.com/regional/se/weekly/2017-03-17--2017-03-24:

1. Symphony
6. Only You
19. TG4M
25. One Mississippi
30. I Can't Fall In Love Without You
32. What They Say
34. Don't Let Me Be Yours
37. I Would Like
39. So Good
45. Ain't My Fault
46. Funeral
48. Lush Life
52. Sundown
53. Never Forget You
57. Make That Money Girl

Compared to the http://www.sverigetopplistan.se/:

2. Symphony
7. Only You
19. TG4M
26. One Mississippi
29. I Can't Fall In Love Without You
31. What They Say
33. I Would Like
36. Don't Let Me Be Yours
40. So Good
41. Ain't My Fault
46. Funeral
47. Lush Life
51. Sundown
54. Never Forget You
57. Make That Money Girl

None of the album tracks are more than 2 spots apart.

Similarly, Ed Sheeran's songs on the latest Spotify weekly chart:

2. Shape Of You
8. Galway Girl
11. Happier
17. Castle On The Hill
27. Perfect
47. What Do I Know?
60. Dive
61. New Man
74. How Would You Feel (Paean)
75. Supermarket Flowers
81. Barcelona
84. Nancy Mulligan
90. Eraser
96. Hearts Don't Break Around Here
(118. Save Myself)
(125. Bibia Be Ye Ye)

And on the official chart:

1. Shape Of You
8. Galway Girl
11. Happier
17. Castle On The Hill
27. Perfect
48. What Do I Know?
61. Dive
62. New Man
76. How Would You Feel (Paean)
78. Supermarket Flowers
82. Barcelona
83. Nancy Mulligan
89. Eraser
96. Hearts Don't Break Around Here

Again, not much difference. I think the lack of album takeovers on the Swedish official chart is just because it doesn't happen on the Spotify chart in the first place - at least, I can't recall seeing anything close to that of Ed Sheeran/Drake in the UK this month. For that matter, most countries are like that; it's only the UK and Ireland where Ed Sheeran's whole album was still top 20 on Spotify a week after release, and to my knowledge, only the UK that had all of Ed Sheeran and Drake's albums top 50 at once.

So personally, if I wanted the so-called Scandinavian model to be implemented in the UK, I wouldn't get my hopes up about it. Spotify do differentiate the source of plays to some extent as is - for example, the lists of top playlists an artist was discovered from (on Spotify desktop, on an artist's 'About' page) - but doing it for charts would be a much greater task, and one with a very tight deadline (so tight that the missing Thursday data problem already exists).

Posted by: Paramore Mar 28 2017, 12:20 PM

I hope the record companies exert more pressure. Radio is probably screaming about now. They can't play 10 Drake songs or 10 Ed Sheeran songs on a loop. The chart determines popularity which in turn determines radio play. It would be OK if it made radio, especially commercial radio become more experimental in its track selection but its not happening. How are new artists meant to get a solid footing when Drake and Ed push their debut singles 5-10 spots lower? How are record companies meant to sell that? Time was if you didn't debut in the top 10 you never had a hit, this led to first week peaks and steep drops. I like the chart moving around, up and down but there needs to be a good influx of new stuff. I also like that old tracks can re-peak spontaneously.

And no I don't think streaming is necessarily the problem. That is the way music consumption is going and it needs to be reflected but the OCC need to figure out how and where the limits are.

This has been a problem in the rock chart ever since the inception of downloads. Its a nostalgia chart mostly. Bring me to Life by Evanescence probably has 500 weeks tallied on it.

Posted by: Mack Mar 28 2017, 12:24 PM

Surely something needs to happen sooner rather than later regarding album tracks?

Posted by: Dark Horse Mar 28 2017, 01:20 PM

Exactly, the new rule should be that only singles are allowed to chart plus the top 2 most popular album tracks, that will keep the chart from being flooded with one artist's tracks , and also popular album tracks would still be allowed to chart allowing music fans to have a say in their artists' future single releases....

Posted by: The Hit Parade Mar 28 2017, 11:07 PM

If radio stations wanted to be experimental they already could, couldn't they? Indeed they could have played lots of the more unusual stuff that made the Top 10 in the past and most of them didn't.

Posted by: Doctor Blind Mar 28 2017, 11:18 PM

Well that's a moot point because no song has got anywhere near to falling foul of that - in fact the nearest I can find is Drake's “One Dance” when it was on its fourteenth week at number 1; when it had 22.24% (12,171) of its sales from paid-for purchases and was at No.14 on paid-for sales - still a massive margin above the 10% threshold.

I don't think expecting a song to sell >5K in a week to be #1, >3K in a week to be Top 10 and >1K in a week to be Top 40 is too high a bar. Should that bar become too high just readjust the stream:sales ratio again.

Posted by: Suedehead2 Mar 29 2017, 07:59 AM

If they have the album track-listing (which they do) and a time stamp for when each track is streamed by an individual (which I'm sure they do), they can determine whether a user has streamed the whole (or most) of the album.

Posted by: sammy01 Mar 29 2017, 08:08 AM

I wasn't talking about #1 just that it can mean a song selling more than others that are charting under your system wouldn't be because it is doing a lot better than others via streaming.

This is all a moot point anyway because this time next year download sales will be pretty much dead.

Posted by: Doctor Blind Mar 29 2017, 08:13 AM

I wasn't talking about #1s either, I was looking at all records that have registered >50K chart sales in a week.

Posted by: Bjork Mar 29 2017, 08:15 AM

does anyone have a link to how the Scandinavian album chart works in regards to stream and avoidance of double counting? Cos everybody keeps telling me that in Scandinavia you listen to 75% of the album and it punts for the album charts, a bunch of people have told me that, but cannot find a link or site online explaining it...
and I experienced the same thing that a poster was mentioning above
on the week that Ed released Divide, the singles chart in Denmark was all Ed, just like in the UK, a 100% mimic of the Spotify charts, so I'm a bit confused now...

Posted by: Doctor Blind Mar 29 2017, 08:26 AM

I can't either - only this



which is completely different... taken from http://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/streaming-uks-albums-chart-will-work/

Posted by: sammy01 Mar 29 2017, 08:48 AM

You are ignoring that downloads are basically cd singles right now in the mid to late 00's. They are dying out. By the end of the year a lot of the chart, singles or album tracks, will be doing less than 10% of their sales total by downloads, especially the lower end of the top 40.

Posted by: Doctor Blind Mar 29 2017, 08:52 AM

No, I'm not. I'm merely pointing out that you think my rule is ridiculous because it may exclude tracks which fulfil a certain criteria, but that this criteria has never even come close to happening, ever. I did say that once download sales fall (and they are falling at around 20% per year) you could simply adjust the ratio again - so I am not ignoring that fact.

Obviously at some point you won't be able to do this, and the criteria then could be if the track makes <100, <10, or 0 sales then it is excluded.

Posted by: soundman Mar 29 2017, 11:57 AM

The OCC chart is corrupt. The chairman of the OCC, Kevin Talbot, is a key executive at Spotify. That would be like the manager of Arsenal also helping Man United!

Not to mention FREE Spotify streams count to the singles chart. Since when was the official singles chart comprised of free sales? - an oxymoron if ever there was! But now you can stream stuff for free - yes, you don't need to give those pesky singers any of your cash - and it counts to the singles chart. Absurd.

Streaming is here to stay, we can't uninvent the internet nor should we bemoan technological process but chart fans want is a fair level-playing field chart. It's not trolling or criticism to suggest one track per artist/single for a certain period of time, it's not trolling or criticism to suggest album tracks be ineligible for the singles chart, it's not even that radical an idea to suggest a 20 weeks limit on all singles in the top 40. But all our comments fall on deaf ears. OCC CEO Martin Talbot (I assume relative of Kevin Talbot?) wants to keep the incestuous relationship between Spotify and the OCC chart so he'll never change the format.

Posted by: danG Mar 29 2017, 12:05 PM

These are not "free sales". It is free to the user but the artists and record companies still get paid when you listen for free from ad revenue; they get paid more if you're a premium subscriber than if you're a free subscriber but that's another issue which could only be solved by making the chart a revenue chart, I'm not saying that's the way to go but it's an idea.

Posted by: Suedehead2 Mar 29 2017, 04:35 PM

The person with positions at Spotify and the OCC is the Brown chappie mention in the piece you quote, not Martin Talbot. The OCC is a joint venture between the Entertainment Retailers Association and the British Phonographic Industry. As they own it, it is not surprising that the people running the OCC are also involved with the music industry.

Posted by: popchartfreak Mar 29 2017, 07:43 PM

...and in fact the Official Chart rules have changed constantly - for example, records and downloads given away free didnt count towards the chart and free giveaways (bribes) with records were banned. An advert to "pay" for a track is a free giveaway, and to the consumer the track is free. There is no difference in going back to the old chart rules to make it represent what people are prepared to pay for. That means paying for Spotify. As I keep harping on, they still dont make a profit as a company and now have a virtual monopoly.

Album tracks available on imported singles, sometimes did and sometimes didn't qualify for the singles chart. Has entire albums been available as individual singles on import, for free, I'm pretty sure the charts would NOT have included them.

I really dont understand the obsession with defending Spotify. The sales charts (whatever the level of sales) still pretty much have Big Streaming Hits as big sales hits, but are fresher and more inclusive of all age ranges. So Drake and Ed Sheeran dont stay at number one for month after tedious month and they make do with 4 or 6 weeks (just like most popular records throughout chart history), so what? It's like everyone wants a boring dead chart that keeps out new acts, and is a massive promotional tool for Huge acts that dont need the publicity, for goodness sake. Not against streaming inclusion, myself, as long it's properly proportional, singles-based, and paid-for.

problem solved.

Posted by: danG Mar 29 2017, 09:02 PM

Let's not forget 'Shape Of You' spent nine weeks at number one in the sales chart (losing out only to Ed's own 'How Would You Feel' for one week and 'Galway Girl' last week, possibly this week as well). Ed would still have a complete domination of the #1 even without streaming.

Spotify is being defended here because it's how many people consume music today, and so should be represented in the chart. The issue is not with Spotify, but with the OCC doing nothing about the double-counting of album tracks in the singles and albums charts. I've been a Spotify user for nearly five years now so I will always defend it.

Posted by: Lenny Mar 30 2017, 07:23 AM

Absolutely. How can we deny that streaming isn't the way forward for a variety of media? The convenience of it is what we all wanted all along. Remember when we moaned songs were being held back sometimes 2 months or more just two or three years ago?!! We have everything at our fingertips.

Posted by: Bjork Mar 30 2017, 07:50 AM

starting to think that what we're all saying that Scandinavian countries can differentiate when someone streams an album or not, that's a sorta "urban legend" but it's not true at least it did not happen with Ed's album the other week

Posted by: danG Mar 30 2017, 07:54 AM

the so-called Scandinavian model got disproved the other day when Zara Larsson album tracks were around the same positions in the Spotify weekly chart and the official chart of Sweden, so I'm not so sure if the differentiating is actually possible at this stage.

I think for now we're just going to have to get used to album tracks making the chart.

Posted by: Lenny Mar 30 2017, 08:03 AM

...unless as suggested here they adopted a calculation to subtract the album streams total from all album tracks in the singles chart, or create a rule for record
Companies to nominate singles.

Posted by: soundman Mar 30 2017, 10:25 AM

How to change Spotify and the OCC chart:

1 - Only 'paid for' streams count to the top 50 Spotify Chart and the OCC Chart. 'Paid for' meaning streams from the subscription model of Spotify, not the free version. The premium version of Spotify is £9.99 a month which seems good value for money. Personally if I were in charge of Spotify I'd scrap the free version but that's just my opinion.

2 - Introduce a new album tracks chart for Spotify and the OCC chart. All non-single 'streaming hits' would go in those charts thereby leaving the official UK Singles chart free of album tracks.

I can't see any problem with these two suggestions. Free streams should not count to any singles chart and album tracks should not count to any singles chart. The fact the OCC is in league with Spotify and not its rival means the OCC won't implement such suggestions. The OCC should not run the official chart.

In an ideal world the official chart should be the rival of the Spotify Top 50 UK chart and the Big Top 40 chart. That's how it used to be. The official chart was the rival to the Network Chart, the two charts weren't pals! But now we've got the chairman of the official chart representing/marketing Spotify acts so there is no reason for the OCC to implement any changes. Scrap the OCC, remove them from running the chart and we could get major change.

Posted by: cqmerqn Mar 30 2017, 10:34 AM

Why shouldn't free-streams count towards the singles/album chart?

Posted by: soundman Mar 30 2017, 10:42 AM

The entire history of the UK singles chart was based on singles paid for, not heard for free. Prior to streaming every single in the chart was based on units sold. It's unfair to have singles calculated based on free non-paid streams. It goes against the fundamental principle of the chart.

Posted by: JosephStyles Mar 30 2017, 10:53 AM

When people subscribe to Spotify, they're basically paying for no adverts rather than paying because they want to contribute money to the artists surely? That was certainly my reasoning when I had Spotify premium (although I still pay for downloads). Advertising covers the free users' streams and therefore there's no fundamental difference. There would be no logic whatsoever in taking away free streams from the chart.

Posted by: danG Mar 30 2017, 11:31 AM

I think premium subscribers streams are worth slightly more than ad-supported ones, but both should be counted to the chart.

Posted by: Bjork Mar 30 2017, 11:34 AM

The ads sorta pay for your subscription
You generate $$$ too

Posted by: popchartfreak Mar 30 2017, 11:57 AM

...and a record company giving away free singles or free merchandise was also paid for by free-advertising (if the singles charted the album/act gets free publicity) - it's still free for the music fan and paid for by advertising/more radio plays and actual paid-for sales once established. Free-music-users (with or without advertising) should not count towards a "sales" chart. They never did before streaming, and smart record companies getting round the rules found the rules changed to stop them.

Look, it honestly is NO different to someone buying a track and playing it a million times at home, or someone taping music onto casette/downloading free mp3's and playing it a million times at home, or a jukebox, or listening to the radio (playlists chosen by someone else that you passively listen to aka Spotify).

You either have all forms of consumption counted twoards the chart, or you make it sales/paid-for, the current mess is a mess because it's not logical. Again, as I said, anyone arguing that album tracks should qualify is flawed - how many times have us album-buyers bought the whole album for 3 or 4 tracks because it's cheaper, and the rest are pretty naff? The problem with Spotify playlists/double-counting is the naff ones are also getting charted on the back of the playlisting.

The main thing everyone seems to agree with is the current chart compilation system is flawed.

Re: my sales chart argument, well the fact that Ed Sheeran had 9 weeks on the sales chart, and a further 2 number ones, kinda proves that he is huge on sales and there's nothing wrong with the sales chart in reflecting that accurately, it isn't actually broke in reflecting popularity, all it doesn't do is reflect repeat weekly listening habits of the same fans....

Posted by: danG Mar 30 2017, 12:22 PM

Let's look at that same sales chart, new songs from Kasabian and G-Eazy make the sales top 40 but only scrape the official top 100 because they're not popular on streaming. It would be a poor representation of popularity if those two songs did make the top 40 officially, just like it was a poor representation of popularity pre-streaming when boybands no one had ever heard of could get top 40 hits from fans multi buying, to give one example.

Posted by: mr_pmt Mar 30 2017, 12:26 PM

Isn't the reason they're not performing as well on streaming because they haven't been promoted to prominent playlists (i.e. they've not had the payola?)

I know it's a point that keeps being repeated, but that is essentially what this all boils down to...

Posted by: danG Mar 30 2017, 02:00 PM

Well yes, neither have been pushed onto Spotify playlists, I can't speak for G-Eazy as I haven't heard the song but Kasabian's doesn't sound like the sort that would become a big streaming hit anyway. So even if they were on a big playlist they wouldn't be doing amazingly well.

Posted by: ___∆___ Mar 30 2017, 05:52 PM

Interesting that this week Take That will open with a 100,000+ selling album and will have one song from the album re-enter at the bottom end of the Top 100 yet other artists selling the same or less can clog up the Top 40 with album tracks.

Regardless of who you are/aren't a fan of this is a prime example of how screwed the charts are and how easy it is to manipulate if you can get your fan base into streaming for free rather than spending £12 on an album - stream for free and you could get 15 Top 40 hits and a #1 album.

Posted by: Doctor Blind Mar 30 2017, 05:54 PM

Hmm, I think it more likely highlights how irrelevant Take That are beyond their rabid fanbase.

Posted by: ___∆___ Mar 30 2017, 06:15 PM

But that's not the point is it?

Take That will sell 40,000+ more copies than Drake did in week 1 - he ended up with 20 Top 75 hits while Take That will probably end up with their lead single 'Giants' re-entering in the low 90s.

It's making streaming the superior format regardless of overall poularity - why should an act sell 50% less than another but achieve 20 hits just because sales cannot be separated between single streams and album plays properly and because they can engage their fan base in a free format that gives them more benefits than someone shelling out £12?

Posted by: JosephStyles Mar 30 2017, 06:24 PM

It just shows the difference in age between Drake and Take That's fanbases. Stereotypically, younger people will stream, hence Drake's success, while older people will buy the CD, explaining Take That.

Posted by: ___∆___ Mar 30 2017, 06:30 PM

Which gives streaming an unfair advantage.

That's like going back in time when all physical formats were prominent and saying CD sales are worth triple vinyl sales - the way the charts are compiled shouldn't reflect the age or preferences of an artists fanbase.

On paper Drake looks like a major success with his recent album (And I'm not taking away anything from his status as a successful artist) but he achieved 20 hit singles and a #2 album on 50% less sales only because his fan base stream, I don't see how that can accurately reflect anything other than Drakes fans prefer to listen to music for free?

Posted by: Doctor Blind Mar 30 2017, 06:50 PM

Sorry- I'm totally lost. Yes there is a problem with streaming being double-counted (See my suggestion of DNQing tracks that register <10% paid-for sales), but that doesn't mean we should have had the entirety of Michael Ball and Alfie Boe's album in the Top 40 at Christmas just because a load of arthritic pensioners bought shovel loads of the 'thing' and the technophobes don't know how to stream on the interwebs.

Posted by: popchartfreak Mar 31 2017, 11:35 AM

well speaking on behalf of arthritic pensioners, who are spotify (and its fans) to decide that people who buy music should be excluded from charts because they dont like it? (Ie appeal to 15-year-olds). The charts represent popularity amongst all age groups, that's its function. Take That a core fan group of 100,000? Drake has a core fan group of not far off that. That's more than, say, the latest pop divas have. Can Chainsmokers sell out the O2 for a few nights?

There are all sorts of weays of guaging popularity, includign radio play. Older people listent to radio 2, younger people listent to Spotify Playlists. same thing, minus the chit chat, but with added annoying adverts. Its easy to record stuff of the radio and play it, it's easy to play free music on spotify. Neither are Sales. 10 million people listening to a track on Radio 2 (presumably liked by a good proportion) is as fair a way of judging popularity as a dull track stuck in the middle of a popular Playlist for months on end.

Surely the main issue here is that younger music fans love Spotify cos it's free, and they are happy to get to have the charts reflect their music taste (above everyone else's). That's not inclusive, and unfair on music fans who DO spend a fortune on music. The chart system is broken, older are excluded from singles, younger from albums. At the end of the day, Spotify will still be there to use for free (at present), and it doesn't matter whether the listens count or not as far as your enjoyment of free music goes, the playlists will still be there.

The artists now excluded from the charts, however, will not get the same amount of free publicity that Spotify-pushed acts get which is bad for new music. That's more important than recording how frequent Ed Sheeran, Drake and Bieber fans listen endlessly to the same tracks month after month.

Posted by: JoséphStyles Mar 31 2017, 12:30 PM

People who buy music aren't excluded from the chart though and if you buy a CD, vinyl or download, your sale still counts for over double for what someone's maximum weekly streams can count for (70 maximum per week, divided by 150 is 0.4666...). Obviously Spotify works differently to sales in that you only buy a song once, but you can stream it for weeks on end, but the charts have always catered more towards the younger generation surely, the singles chart at least. It's not like Take That's most recent single has set the singles chart on fire. The Chainsmokers however probably won't sell loads of their album but can get hit single after hit single because that's the type of artist they are. They aren't even comparable as they're entirely different types of artists.


There is absolutely no good that can come of radio being included. You can choose to play songs on Spotify, you don't choose what's played on Radio 2, it's not the same at all. If you shuffle a popular playlist, you can still skip if you want, or turn the song off and it won't count. Even if you turn off the radio during a song you dislike, it will still count for the chart. They aren't similar at all.


I really don't see how it's unfair when sales have a stronger weighting over streams. It just so happens that streaming is incredibly popular while sales are decreasing. I speak as someone who still downloads songs and buys CDs for the record, but I realise that these methods are less popular at the moment and the chart has to reflect that. Having said that, I don't think the chart is flawless right now because it isn't, but if we use Take That as an example, they're definitely more of an album artist than singles unlike Ed Sheeran who is able to capture both audiences with ease.

Posted by: mr_pmt Mar 31 2017, 01:06 PM

... but only if you do that within the first 30 seconds.

Posted by: d♀nG Mar 31 2017, 02:18 PM

If you don't like a song you're more likely than not to skip it within the first thirty seconds surely.

If you stream it for more than thirty seconds then you must at least think the song is okay.

Posted by: popchartfreak Apr 4 2017, 11:49 AM

not if youre doing your homework, dishes, ironing, reading and are engrossed with Spotify playing along obliviously in the background (as my friends do - they don't change the track at all). So it still counts towards sales.

OK, so make Spotify (in their business guise) be made to limit "sales" to one per track and one per album (for every 100 plays) per person and the story ends. One sale one week. Users must have an account and accounts must be monitored as they count the plays. Chart distortion ends....

Re: radio listening - this has been done in the USA for decades. radio is very good at dropping unpopular tracks, so they tend to be geared towarsd big tracks for big audiences (Radio 1 and 2 apart, which are paid for directly by listeners via licence fees and have a mandate to feature non-chart stuff). Don't get me wrong, I dont like the idea of radio-influenced charts anymore than I like spotify-playlist charts, but it's naive to think (and the evidence kinda proves it every christmas) that people switch off tracks that annoy them within 30 seconds. Unless it's appalling, and is innoffensively meh they'll just let it run on to the next one....

Katy Perry is the most-popular track on radio, Sheeran is in decline now (having had a long-run). tens of millions of people heard it on radio last week, so it's still much more popular than it's official charts position would suggest (which is based on streaming-age bias, not sales, where it also popular).

There isn't going to be a perfect system. sales have one week preference to streaming, but then it's an actual paid-for SALE. Advert-pushed weekly replays of a track don't bring the same revenue to an artist that sale does, so why should they count more and have a greater say? Sales hits (singles) are largely irrelevant now as far as charts are concerned, even though they aren't catastrophic in total sales (yet) - so the ratio must need adjusting until sales fall to negligable levels historically.

Posted by: mr_pmt Apr 4 2017, 11:57 AM

I've accidentally streamed stuff on playlists before because I was too engrossed in something else to change it within 30 seconds, so I can't say I agree with that.

Posted by: Bjork Apr 4 2017, 12:03 PM

I've noticed that Spotify does this thing, if you play some playlist that you made, once it finishes, it starts playing random songs, related to your playlist but not chosen by you...

so now I was listening to this singer-songwriter playlist and when it finished Spotify started playing James Arthur wtf!!! Took me a couple minutes to realise, so I accidentally gave a stream sale to James Arthur although I hate the guy and would never ever listed