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Posted by: Steve201 25th August 2020, 05:07 PM

There's been a lot of chat on the midweeks about the way the albums chart is calculated - feel free to discuss

Posted by: LJ JORD 7 25th August 2020, 05:09 PM

A brilliant idea for its own separate thread!

I’ll think of what it is I want to suggest and reply later but I’m here for this!

Posted by: Steve201 25th August 2020, 05:14 PM

Yeh it probably merits a discussion anyway lol.

Posted by: T Boy 25th August 2020, 05:17 PM

Sales only. Most people who stream don’t stream albums. ‘Sales’ are now overinflated. I know that actual sales are really low but I also don’t see why that’s a big enough issue to artificially inflate everyone’s greatest hits.

Posted by: JosephStyles 25th August 2020, 05:20 PM

I think streaming needs to be included in some fashion but the problem is the constant presence of Greatest Hits albums I think - obviously it's clear that the compilations from Bob Marley, Fleetwood Mac, Queen, ABBA, Elton, etc are unlikely to ever leave the album chart now because their music is timeless and always popular, but does it really reflect the most popular albums of the week? It's a difficult one to manage.

I'm less bothered about situations like Mabel's album and its constantly growing tracklist as it's basically re-issuing the album (even if it takes the concept a bit far).

Posted by: j80 25th August 2020, 05:20 PM

Overall, it has far more fresh talent, movement and a diversity of genres that the singles chart does. It’s not perfect but to me it’s operating relatively well with the 2 songs downgraded rule and the weighting of sales. It feels like it actually measures who cares about an artist or album.

The one thing I think needs changing is the hits compilations. They can’t forever chart it’s wrong - a stream should count to whatever album it’s played from. If you choose Mr. brightside from Hot Fuss, that album gets the stream, if you choose it from Direct Hits, that album does.

It’s the singles chart that’s broken! We decided not to include airplay like the US does, but hitting play on a playlist chosen by a big company now determines what charts - it’s no different to listening to radio. Playlists should be downweighted to the 600:1 ratio regardless of if the play is premium or free. The singles chart used to show what people had paid and *chosen* to consume, that is now not always the case.

Posted by: No Sleeep 25th August 2020, 05:27 PM

Yeah I agree with this, they want to keep the excitement of high sales weeks I guess, but sales are much more spread out. The days of 100k debuts are gone but when these songs rack up 40k/30k/20k per week for a year they “sell” much more in the long run. Bit late now though now that we have so many 2x 3x 4x platinum songs

Posted by: Andrew. 25th August 2020, 05:28 PM

All I’d do for the singles chart is change the ‘cut off’ point for a stream to count from 30 seconds to 1 minute.

For albums, only album tracks would count in terms of streaming (there wouldn’t need to be any downweighting) This would pretty much wipe out old Greatest Hits albums from the chart unless they got good pure sales. If albums as a whole are being listened to than the album tracks rather than the singles is a better representation of its popularity imo

Posted by: Bjork 25th August 2020, 05:31 PM

think we had the same discussion 1 month ago.

the solution is very easy, count only proper album streams aka when someone goes and streams songs from the album
and exclude playlists counts, so when you listen from a playlist like Hot hits, a stream from a playlist shouldn't count for the album charts.

the proper album stream chart on Apple is pretty nice, Mabel is not even top 1500, same for Jax Jones or Becky Hill, none are in the top 1500
cos no one streams those albums, all their streams are from playlists

https://kworb.net/charts/apple_a/uk.html

same with compilations, only count if you really stream the compilation, it's an idiotic situation that now if I go and search for Elton John's album - The One,
and I stream the song The One, I also give a stream to his greatest hits Diamonds
again, if you look at the proper album stream chart on Apple, Elton's Diamonds is at #289, nowhere near the top 10 like on the Albums Chart.

Posted by: JosephStyles 25th August 2020, 05:37 PM

This can't really be avoided I don't think, it's just a sign of the chart environment we've had to adapt to with streaming (and even with downloads though it seemed less prominent). It's become pointless really to compare the sales of hits today to classic hits from years back, but there's always been difficulty in that - look at how many songs had ridiculously low sales in the early-to-mid noughties! It was just an indicator of the market, but it made comparisons harder.

Thankfully, the OCC seemed to realise the previous ratios were overly generous. The fact so many songs from 2016ish seemed to cruise past 1m with ease seemed to devalue the concept, but especially since the introduction of the split free/paid ratios, 1m feels slightly more of an achievement again (albeit not as much as in the physical / download era but still).


You just know labels will try and flout this rule with songs getting prominent exposure (via TikTok or playlists) yet never promoted to official singles - it blurs the lines and I think it would ultimately end up being messy. Singles are part of albums too anyway and I think they have to be counted in some capacity (especially when being a single doesn't necessarily dictate the most popular songs from an album these days - look at Wishing Well being Juice WRLD's highest song in the chart currently, ahead of singles Come & Go and Smile!)

I agree with the suggestion that songs should count only to the album they're streamed from - so a stream of Whitney's I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) via the Whitney album would only count to the Whitney album in the chart, and not to The Ultimate Collection as well. Playlists seem quite unavoidable though - and where is the line drawn? What if you stream 5 songs from Mabel's album via a playlist? That's a pretty significant number and feels worthy of counting in some small capacity to the chart.

Posted by: ts7sfkptm 25th August 2020, 05:37 PM

the problem you have there is that a song's streams are tracked by the OCC (I think) by ISRCs and most of the time when in a compilation and album both, they have the same ISRC, so I assume that would bring up problems with tracking I think streaming counting towards greatest hits is a flaw, it's an albums chart, for actual albums rather than compilations... a stream should count to the album that song is from originally in my opinion, and greatest hits basically only charting on pure sales... It's a tough one though

Posted by: JosephStyles 25th August 2020, 05:39 PM

This is interesting - thanks for mentioning! I think GH albums charting only on pure sales would put them at a disadvantage, it's difficult for albums to have any sort of longevity without streams these days (hence legacy artists generally entering high and dropping quickly, far quicker than on the sales chart for example). Perhaps this explains the OCC's decision to count to both the album + the GH then, seeing as there's no real way of distinguishing?

Posted by: LJ JORD 7 25th August 2020, 05:41 PM

Playlist sales should not count for the album charts.

I adore Dua but her debut album should’ve been out of the top 40 a long long time ago yet it’s still there! That’s just one example there’s many more pretty much all of Ed’s discography still regularly charts and then there’s the compilations / greatest hits type albums too which for me I’ve always felt they should chart on the compilations anyways the way soundtracks now go into that chart.

Apple actually having an album chart as well (which I presume is which albums as a whole are being streamed) means nothing when by end of the week albums that are way behind end up ahead officially. Like last week for example on the streaming chart Teenage Dream was ahead of Chromatica on streams when there’s no way it’s really being streamed more as a whole album.

Posted by: ts7sfkptm 25th August 2020, 05:44 PM

which one is actually a compilation, OCC? Greatest Hits or Greatest Showman soundtrack?! still annoyed at them for that.

I guess that's it tbh.
But I also don't see the problem with putting them at a disadvantage, after all, they're just greatest hits albums? don't know really

Posted by: Dircadirca 25th August 2020, 05:46 PM

Do you count user made playlists with this? Because I feel like they're doing the lion's share of the action (since instances of artists having 3 or more popular tracks in rotation in the big hit playlists is relatively rare). If so it opens up issues of its own. Like if someone put in the effort to make their own playlist with a trimmed down version of Drake's "Scorpion" with the filler tracks removed, should it not count while someone just looks up Nonstop and plays it, ending up half-heartedly listening to any amount of the next 23 tracks as well because it never got too jarring to bother switching it off and it totally counts?

The situation with greatest hits & pseudo greatest hits isn't great admittedly but I feel like trying to isolate the intent of a listener solely on the source of their stream(s) leads to no shortage of false positives. Sometimes I look up songs and artists on playlists that I know they're on because Spotify's search function is so painfully slow that it's honestly easier. No matter the source, a stream is a stream.

Posted by: j80 25th August 2020, 05:48 PM

I see your point, but I just don’t see it as a messy line. The album chart is supposed to measure popularity of albums, not songs. If 5 Mabel tracks are on a playlist the chances are it’s not an album specific or even Mabel specific playlist, so the person clearly hasn’t chosen to engage with that album.


Similarly, for a song I agree a stream is a stream, but for an album I don’t, an album has always be a specific and explicit way of consuming music as opposed to radio and singles and (now to me) playlists. I agree the user made playlist is a difficult one to get right, but I can’t imagine one album only specific playlists are that bigger thing which is the only grey area.

Posted by: Tangela 25th August 2020, 05:48 PM

After a few years of mixing downloads and streaming for both singles and albums chart, I feel that they're not similar enough to be measured together as a combination.

I don't really know what the solution is, in an era where we continue to move more and more towards streaming.

With regards to albums, I stream them now. I buy them on vinyl in the end if I really like the album.

Posted by: Dircadirca 25th August 2020, 05:58 PM

I think a lot of people have big playlists built from cherry picking albums they like, which they may or may not listen to in order but I don't think that should matter. Heck, I think Chris Brown banks on the fact that people will just put a bunch of his album tracks into their own playlists and because there are so many of them, they're more likely to show up on shuffle.

Posted by: Andrew. 25th August 2020, 06:07 PM

I get this, but the vast, vast majority of hit singles are pre-album and will be pushed to radio, if this rule came in then Jax Jones isn’t gonna not push their next single to radio and not call it a single. I’m sure their could be criteria for a single aka it’s sent to radio, added to hot hits etc

Posted by: slowdown73 25th August 2020, 10:08 PM

There is still a market for albums. The Killers are likely to sell over 50k this week. Yes, album sales are a fraction of what they used to be but record companies are becoming more creative to generate sales. I do wonder whether compilations should now be included in the general album chart again.

Posted by: JosephStyles 25th August 2020, 10:10 PM

I don't see any benefit to compilations being included in the main album chart, it's not exactly going to change the situation at hand.

Posted by: Steve201 26th August 2020, 07:18 PM

The fact that there are so many greatest hits albums is becoming tedious!

Posted by: jimwatts 26th August 2020, 07:41 PM

In an ideal world I'd suggest something like:

- if you only stream 1 or 2 tracks from the same album consecutively, or perhaps over the course of a day, those count as singles streams for those tracks but not towards the album

- whereas if you stream 3 or more tracks from the same album together, whether it's a studio album or greatest hits, those count as album streams but not singles streams for any of those tracks

Posted by: JosephStyles 27th August 2020, 02:55 AM

re. Mabel not being top 1500 on Apple Music, I find that an odd situation. Mabel's a strong presence and she has been pretty much since Don't Call Me Up came out, I'd be gobsmacked if she wasn't in the top 1500 at all considering some of these are lower down:

1332 -104 LSD - LABRINTH, SIA & DIPLO PRESENT... LSD |
1342 NEW Madison Beer - As She Pleases
1354 -399 ZAYN - Icarus Falls
1435 NEW Akon - Freedom (UK Version)

Are more people really actively seeking out an old Akon album than Mabel's recent album with hits you still hear on the radio? I feel like that's a glitch?

(obviously it's still being bolstered a lot by the new singles being tacked on, but equally I don't believe it'd be doing THIS bad without them...)

Posted by: Dircadirca 27th August 2020, 05:04 AM

I've wondered the same thing. Apple's chart on kworb has seemed notoriously glitchy, like with "Someone You Loved" spending months at roughly tenfold its correct position for seemingly no reason, and (at least on the Australian one), "Blinding Lights" constantly flickering between top 10 and top 40. Do we even know the exact mechanics of how their album chart even works?

Also do we want a chart where Baby Lullaby Academy is permanently in the top 40 instead?

Posted by: T Boy 27th August 2020, 07:33 AM

I wouldn’t be surprised if hardly anyone is buying Mabel’s album. To me, she doesn’t scream an artist I want to here more from.

Posted by: Bjork 27th August 2020, 07:57 AM

another thing the album charts is getting wrong is indie albums
we see these huge drops on week 2
but if you look at the real album streaming chart without playlist counts those albums do pretty well on week 2
for instance I remember The Streets album was top 20 on week 2, but ended up at like #70 or something on the official chart
cos their songs are not on playlists and the real album streams are under-counted
if counted properly indie albums wouldn't have those crazy 2nd week falls

and it's not even indie artists only, look at Gaga, she was like #70-ish on the official streaming album chart
but if you look at the real album streaming chart she's still top 20
but she has just the 1 song (Rain on me) on playlists, not 11 like Mabel, so playlists are not helping her album sales and she's far lower than she should

Posted by: Andrew. 27th August 2020, 09:14 AM

I think it’s a Kworb problem. High Expectations is #84 on the pop albums chart on Apple Music. 5SOS are #85 and are at #484 in the overall chart, so Mabel’s probably about there. Top 1500 or not, going from below #400 to #15 is hardly representative

That pop albums streaming chart is really interesting, wasn’t expecting to see Lily Allen’s It’s Not Me album up there. Can that be top 100 plz

Posted by: Rush 27th August 2020, 10:17 AM

I have no idea how that chart works, but could it be to do with counting exactly which album a track is played from?

For example, on Spotify, all of LSD's singles and all the ZAYN singles from that album were deleted long ago, so all plays of those songs would be from the albums. Even if you'd added, say, 'Sour Diesel' (#promo) to a playlist when it was a single and go to play it now, it plays it from the album (as the single is gone, but it's the same track so it picks a version that is available). It's not an obvious difference since the audio is identical, but you do see the album cover instead of the single cover.

On the other hand, almost all of Mabel's singles are individually available (at least in Australia). If I search 'Boyfriend', the single version is the first result (and the album version is buried below all the remixes). If I search 'Don't Call Me Up', the mixtape and single versions are first and the album version is much lower (probably not helped by them repeatedly deleting and re-uploading it to add new tracks). If I search 'West Ten', it doesn't even have an album version (it's on the album but not uploaded as a track on it; if I play it from the album, it shows the single cover). So whether you search one of her singles and click on the first result that comes up, or listen to a playlist that has the single version, the play would probably come from the single.

Incidentally, this is why I feel the idea of assigning streams to which album they were played from wouldn't work - because what percentage of plays come from someone (a) searching the track and (b) deciding which version to play (out of single/album/compilation/etc versions that are all identical audio-wise) for any reason other than which comes up first? I do but I'm probably in the 0.01%. It would put a lot of stock into how Spotify's search algorithm orders results, but even more so, into meaningless differences like whether a track on a playlist (personal or curated) is the single or album version, or whether an artist's singles get deleted or not. (Theoretically, if they were somehow that desperate, Elton/Queen/etc could even delete the album versions of their hits so all plays would be fed to the compilations - it's rare but there are occasionally cases like that; for example, although the Stereophonics album that includes 'Dakota' is on Spotify here, the song is only uploaded as part of their GH, so if I click play on it from the album, it gets it from the GH.)

Posted by: Colm 27th August 2020, 09:04 PM

If their albums are being played more that other albums then they are more popular albums that week.

Posted by: JosephStyles 27th August 2020, 09:06 PM

But are their greatest hits albums really more popular than other albums, just because if you stream Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, it will count to both its studio album + a greatest hits? This is the issue people are having.

Posted by: Colm 27th August 2020, 09:11 PM

I see. Sorry.

Posted by: TomJ1991 27th August 2020, 09:34 PM

It seems weird that a sale can count towards both the Greatest Hits collection and the studio album...but I think the album format is quickly dying, so if they didn't do that, we'd have albums selling 1000 copies and making the top 40. Even with the current format, we had an album that sold 1,625 copies and made #49 just last week.

They are trying to keep the album chart interesting, but I presume the thinking is "why would anyone care about the album charts if you can get a top 40 with so few sales?" - although we are heading towards that reality either way.

Posted by: HausofGhibli 28th August 2020, 06:33 PM

What Mabel is doing with her playlist album is an actual JOKE and mockery of the artform of an album Surely the rule should be at least 50% of the album's contents need to have been streamed in order for the sale points to count (with maybe said points offered for less streams to account for that). What an absolute joke!

And then popular songs counting for sales for two or more albums is an even bigger mess. This has to be fixed soon surely!?

Posted by: ___∆___ 28th August 2020, 07:33 PM

Totally this! I love her singles and have streamed them but have zero interest in her album and haven’t listened to it since it was released.

Posted by: Jay* 28th August 2020, 11:34 PM

Mabel's sales this week...

3,400 streaming [97.48%] (#7 in streaming chart)
79 physicals [2.26%] (n/a in physical chart)
9 downloads [0.26%] (n/a in download chart)
= 3,488 overall (#12 in album chart)

I think that continually adding the latest hits to a pre-existing album is pretty iffy, I dislike it! Evidently it's allowed, so I don't blame labels for exploiting this rule... but I think there should at least be a limit to the number of times this can be done.

Mabel's album has absolutely become a glorified playlist at this point. The Top 12 songs that count towards the methodology of her streaming units must all be singles or promo singles?* Therefore it doesn't matter anymore how little her actual album tracks are being played. To me it makes its presence so high up in the album chart feel very artificial.

* Finders Keepers, My Lover, Fine Line, Cigarette, Ring Ring, Don't Call Me Up, Mad Love, OK (Anxiety Anthem), God Is a Dancer, Boyfriend, West Ten, Tick Tock

Posted by: jimwatts 29th August 2020, 06:38 AM

Boyfriend is still on Spotify Hot Hits UK (8 tracks below Tick Tock), so Mabel currently has 3 'album tracks' there.

Posted by: T Boy 29th August 2020, 08:55 AM

I think you’re seriously overestimating how many people will care about poor sales. Most people don’t even know the album chart let alone the sales. And so what if sales get really low? The current streaming rules aren’t making the charts more interesting, going in the opposite direction in fact. Newer albums by artists trying to break out aren’t getting any exposure because if an average person checked the charts to see what’s out, they just see Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, Eminem, Oasis, Queen and bizarrely Mabel. Other artists are in one week out the other because their songs are not all over playlists. Jack Garratt’s album, my favourite of the year so far, had one week only in the top 100 at no.8. Albums like this aren’t even getting a chance.

I can never understand the want for an artificial chart just so you feel like the market is doing ok. The album format appears to be dying and this is a massive shame.

Posted by: Rush 29th August 2020, 10:05 AM

Yep, this is quite likely now that there are 11 singles and 2 sort-of-promo-singles. The gulf in Spotify playcounts between the singles and album tracks is huge (presented in tracklist order because it's most striking this way):

004,237,822 - Tick Tock (with Clean Bandit ft. 24kGoldn)
022,238,988 - West Ten (with AJ Tracey)
001,005,730 - High Expectations - Intro
016,832,339 - Bad Behaviour
590,923,121 - Don't Call Me Up
001,928,472 - FML
001,751,987 - We Don't Say...
004,625,169 - Selfish Love (with Kamille)
000,922,202 - Lucky - Interlude
205,232,719 - Mad Love
001,558,205 - Trouble
001,774,797 - Put Your Name On It
000,831,874 - Stckhlm Syndrome - Interlude
033,537,898 - OK (Anxiety Anthem)
000,936,223 - I Belong To Me
000,695,865 - High Expectations - Outro
061,895,863 - Boyfriend
082,544,754 - Finders Keepers (feat. Kojo Funds)
048,558,558 - Fine Line (with Not3s)
063,373,687 - My Lover (with Not3s)
102,623,848 - Ring Ring (with Jax Jones feat. Rich The Kid)
049,713,160 - Cigarette (with RAYE & Stefflon Don)
001,024,100 - Not Sayin'
116,204,544 - God Is A Dancer (Tiësto & Mabel)

And even though some of those old hits aren't getting a lot of plays anymore, they're still easily outdoing the album tracks. These are their plays in the last 4 weeks (worldwide of course, which may be more slanted towards the singles than the UK alone would be, but still):

14,055,364 - Don't Call Me Up
10,801,633 - West Ten (with AJ Tracey)
5,918,652 - Boyfriend
5,076,838 - God Is A Dancer (Tiësto & Mabel)
4,913,889 - Mad Love
4,237,822 - Tick Tock (with Clean Bandit ft. 24kGoldn)
924,111 - Ring Ring (with Jax Jones feat. Rich The Kid)
839,290 - OK (Anxiety Anthem)
724,623 - Finders Keepers (feat. Kojo Funds)
662,813 - My Lover (with Not3s)
545,494 - Cigarette (with RAYE & Stefflon Don)
397,183 - Fine Line (with Not3s)
351,801 - Bad Behaviour
140,441 - Selfish Love (with Kamille)
56,289 - Put Your Name On It
42,191 - Trouble
38,684 - Not Sayin'
37,854 - FML
34,192 - We Don't Say...
22,038 - I Belong To Me
20,547 - High Expectations - Intro
20,219 - Stckhlm Syndrome - Interlude
19,955 - Lucky - Interlude
14,274 - High Expectations - Outro

Also on that note, I feel like one of the most outstanding (and fascinating) things is how they don't just insert new singles onto the album; they add them at the start and then move them to the end once they're done. These are the editions of the album I can find on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/album/7G9QcvG6U223NqJzVIMNrZ: the original standard 14 tracks + 'Finders Keepers', 'Fine Line', 'My Lover', 'Ring Ring' and 'Cigarette' tacked on, and 'Not Sayin'' (I have no idea why this random track is placed there)
https://open.spotify.com/album/50eFRxkS2WByJ1aPVV2c2J: 'God Is A Dancer' inserted at track 1
https://open.spotify.com/album/6F27rBrk46OYCvseC76yaq: 'Boyfriend' placed as track 1; 'God Is A Dancer' moved to the end of disc 2
https://open.spotify.com/album/0eGRIDKOV8wfy41bzr4J1I: 'West Ten' placed as track 1; 'Boyfriend' moved to the start of disc 2 (not even a new non-collab is worth keeping as part of disc 1!)
https://open.spotify.com/album/2X7koaJ4bojj8zMqacqIhW: 'Tick Tock' placed as track 1, but with 'West Ten' kept as track 2 this time because hey it's still in the top 10

Posted by: Klaus 29th August 2020, 10:18 AM

The charts have become a joke and artificial anyway so what Mabel is doing just amuses me

What is annoying is that you have to keep deleting and re-adding the album on streaming!! Just had a look there on my Apple Music and it had randomly divided the songs into two albums so for about the 5th I’ve had to delete the whole thing and re-add

great to see that OK (Anxiety Anthem) love though