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Posted by: vidcapper 27th July 2017, 06:53 AM

Which do you prefer?

There'a always been a battle between the record industry which wants rapid turnover, and consumers who want to buy/listen to what they want, when they want.

For most of chart history, the former has prevailed, due to the limited duration of availability of new music, but ever since downloads, and especially streaming, consumers have been in charge. ISTM the new & arbitrary chart rules are the record companies misguided attempt to turn back the tide.

Posted by: Steve201 27th July 2017, 06:56 AM

Accuracy for me and a kick up the arse for conservative radio to be more radical!!!

Posted by: ThePensmith 27th July 2017, 07:05 AM

Until a month ago, I was on the fence about the matter. But I feel James Masterton said it best where these recent new rules are concerned: http://www.masterton.co.uk/2017/06/the-great-chart-shake-up/

More specifically, what he says here:

The singles chart matters. Far more than many people outside the music industry realise. It is the driver of radio programming, TV production, the promotion of albums and much, much more than I can articulate here. So when it stops working it creates enormous problems for everyone.

Those problems should be fairly obvious to most watching, even if I’ve been one of those stridently insisting that we should wait and see how things shake out. Because those with more influence and less patience than I have called for them to be fixed. They are:

- The slowing down of the singles market. The charts ‘clogged up’ with long-running popular hits that have entered a slow burn decline as streams. Great for longevity records. Hard work for those trying to break new music.

- The single artist dominations. Ed Sheeran’s 9 out of 10 in the Top 10 may have been a genuine freak one-off, but with artists such as Drake, The Weeknd, Kendrick Lamarr and Stormzy demonstrating that their fans will consume new product en-masse and once again clog up the singles chart, it has now become necessary to mitigate the problem.

At the end of the day, he's right. Consider even if you will the Now compilations, which are reliant on a good stream of number one hits. Editions like Now 94 not having any number ones on them are making them harder to shift even to the casual buyer.

I do agree though, that in practice as we've in recent weeks 10 weeks before switching to ACR is too soon particularly for any slow burner hits. I foresee therefore an increase from the OCC to 15 rather than 10 in the next year or two.

Posted by: awardinary 27th July 2017, 07:07 AM

I prefer the variety and seeing more songs chart higher.

Posted by: Houdini 27th July 2017, 11:47 AM

I prefer how the charts were before 2015, when you could get two or more singles being released on the same day which could be massive contenders for #1 that week. When the music charts were more like how the cinema charts are now, during those times it was peak positions that mattered more. The total sales of a song shouldn't be of concern to customers who buy music on a weekly basis.

To be brutally honest it just feels like the OCC are making the numbers up now and DJ Khaled getting to #1 last week was the biggest piss take of all in chart terms. It's pushing me further and further away from following the Official Chart intensely as I used to do years ago.


With that being said I don't know which category my answer would fall into when it comes to your poll.

Posted by: 360Jupiter 27th July 2017, 02:19 PM

I prefer accuracy and still think that if they want a rapid turnover chart, they should just stop airing the 'official singles chart' and air some other kind of chart. They got rid of Singles = Singles Sales and made it web-only quietly enough when that stopped giving them what they wanted.

Instead of constantly changing the rules of the 'official' singles/sales/tracks/streaming/whatever it is now chart to get the kind of chart they want, accuracy be damned.

There's no reason they couldn't air some kind of official chart sales+downloads countdown over on radio 2 or 6 where that demographic would enjoy it as a throwback with a mix of music.

Posted by: JosephStyles 27th July 2017, 02:21 PM

Rapid turnover for me. ACR is a bit messy but it's been fantastic seeing songs achieving top 40 peaks when they wouldn't have under the old rules!

Posted by: Good Old Days 27th July 2017, 03:12 PM

I prefer late 90s - early 00s charts with a peak position on the first week (for most singles) and free falling after it.
Average : 10 new songs in top 40 on every week.

Posted by: Juranamo 28th July 2017, 08:55 AM

I'd prefer an accurate reflection of newly discovered music. I think capped streams must be much lower (and I mean MUCH lower, as in like once you've listened to a song 10 times - which would minimise the impact of curiosity/passive streams, you've contributed to it's one and only streaming sale). That would help streaming have its share of the chart and stop songs from clogging up the top 40, back in the day you only contributed one sale for each purchase early in its career; so why not do the same for streaming?

Does that make any sense, I realise I've just rambled.

Posted by: Bjork 28th July 2017, 09:20 AM

^agree, a cap on number of streams would have been a better solution than the accelerated ratio thing

Posted by: Robbie 28th July 2017, 10:52 AM

That would be the best solution but it would involve an even more convoluted set of chart rules the amount of streams an account holder at Spotify etc could contribute towards. When it was the old 100:1 ratio an account holder could only contribute a maximum of 0.7 of a sale in every week, with 0.1 sales per day maximum. The amount of streams per user would have to reduce to make it plausible for someone to contribute a sale in any one week - and most people wouldn't manage 10 per day / 70 a week. It would downplay streams to such an extent that the chart would once again become a download chart unless streams could be counted until the person had streamed enough to make it equivalent of one sale, which could take weeks, months or even years. Which would bring in problems of its own... the only way around that would be to reduce streams to something like 10 in a chart week to count (and then no more streams would count for the rest of all time). That would then make even more of a mockery of the chart as the ratio would be 10:1, an unrealistic figure.

Posted by: GTH 28th July 2017, 12:09 PM

I don't think they can accurately show what is most popular these days with streaming and downloads. I certainly don't believe one dance was the most popular track in those last few weeks at the top, nor would I say all those ed Sheeran tracks were the most popular individually.

ACR isn't perfect but it is a step in the right direction to balancing the chart. I wish the OCC would provide more detail regarding full sales still as that is more where my interest lies rather than position in the chart.

Charts at the end of the day are a marketing tool for music, so when it makes it more challenging for new music to break into it changes are necessary.

At least we aren't like the US with airplay/YouTube involved as well. Things would be even more stagnant then.

Posted by: Supercell 28th July 2017, 12:35 PM

I don't like how stale the chart has been the past two years, even though it was showing signs of speeding up this year prior to these stupid ACR rules. I do miss the "good old days" where you'd have multiple new entires each week and that if a song managed to hold onto no1 for 7+ weeks it was a huge achievement and streaming has made a mockery of that.

However, I hated the way record labels manipulated the chart to the extent they did to achieve that. It was fair game during the 90s ect as that's just how everything worked. But when downloads were introduced it created this unfair advantage to pre album singles that were on pre-order for 8 weeks, compared to post album releases which would have a natural progression up the charts. I think only Gaga and the BEP were the only two acts that actually managed to have post album no.1 hit without having a big tv performance to boost it there (Telephone, Pokerface & I Gotta Feeling).

Streaming has brought it this wonderful new digital era that is boosting both albums and singles sales and has created a new fair level playing field once again. But I do agree with most comments on here that it just hasn't been calculated into the chart very well the past year or so. I have mentioned it before so don't want to be a stuck record (pardon the pun ) but removing the daily cap of streaming and setting a permanent cap is the best solution I can think of rather than forced manipulation.

Posted by: Juranamo 28th July 2017, 02:18 PM

That's exactly what I was trying to explain. I don't think it would make the chart a mockery, for years people have purchased songs (equating to the chart entry sale) and then no further repeated plays have contributed to the chart. I think 10 listens is more than enough to judge it off, it shows that whoever is listening to it likes it enough to contribute a sale, it would speed up the chart and newer tracks would get their time to shine without the ridiculous farcical artificial drops that happen when a record gets put onto ACR (i.e. 'We automatically deem a song as less popular once it's hit 10 chart week', at least this method would have some logic behind it!)

Posted by: Robbie 28th July 2017, 03:06 PM

I agree with your thoughts on how to cap streams but when would the 10 streams kick in? The chart is based on weekly "sales" but what about someone who listens to a track, for example, 5 times in week 1, 3 times in week 2 and then once for the next two weeks? Those streams wouldn't count. But if someone was to listen to a track for 10 times in one week then they would count. Neither would really equate to the equivalent to a download but one would be spread over 4 weeks, the other would be in one week. As I posted, unless it was the second option then it would return the chart to almost being download based. At the moment the streams used are are an amalgamation of the various streamers who stream a track. Under a cap that wouldn't be possible as each account holder would have to be treated separately as it otherwise would be impossible to tell when the user had streamed their maximum contribution.

Posted by: Juranamo 28th July 2017, 08:07 PM

I was thinking 0.1 of a sale for each stream, but capping it at no more than 10 per song over a lifetime period! Oh well, it's merely wishful thinking on my part lol.