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| The Official Singles Chart - what should its future be? |
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 17th March 2024, 10:36 AM
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#21
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 Break the tension
Joined: 7 March 2006
Posts: 89,022 User: 51 
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I guess in a way, ACR could be considered similar to how singles would be deleted or stock reduced to make way for new ones back in the day.
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18th March 2024, 10:08 AM
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#22
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 BuzzJack Climber
Joined: 29 July 2014
Posts: 198 User: 21,106
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While many will disagree, if only because there has to be some acknowledgement that in the 'real world' neither industry nor consumer would really have supported two 'rival' charts being co-published each week, but the simplest and I think fairest solution would indeed have been to just keep both charts alive, and for a suitable moment to be chosen - possibly just the beginning of a new calendar year if no other break-point presented itself - to 'flip' the mantle of the 'official charts' from the sales-only to streaming-only ranking, so that the latter became the chart of record in recognition of the almost complete dominance of streams in the music marketplace and precipitous decline of sales, at least in respect of single tracks (perhaps less so albums although it's catching up and sales are still dwindling). Just think of it - by the 2020s, we could've just had a streaming chart - 200 published positions long potentially - ranked simply and purely on how many listens/views each title had had that week. Granted, there'd remain the debate as to the relative value of a searched-for a la carte stream as opposed to a passive pre-conceived playlisted one, but it would at the least be a cleaner way to measure current consumption, with the old sales-based ranks demoted into a secondary, but still available, and to some of course, still relevant, role as the supporting act to the new top of the bill.
I completely agree with T-Boy and always have that with streaming being such a different and distinct mode of consumption compared to its sales predecessors, splicing the two together was inevitably a recipe for a bad marriage, and has resulted in an increasingly manipulated - and therefore many would say meaningless - official chart, as streaming cannibalises most of what's left of the sales market and arbitrary rules have been ushered in to try and offset the perceived inconvenient and bizarre-looking fall-out on chart behaviour. As to broadcasting, I quite the idea too of Radio 1 doing the streaming chart and Radio 2 the sales one - and ideally re-setting the chart frame back to its more recognisable and conventional alignment with the calendar week. But as we know folks, both industry and to an extent consumer expect a 'single source of truth' for the charts nowadays, and so it was always going to be a tough sell to persuade the powers that be to keep faith with two separate charts, which they'd always insist would be pitched as 'rivals', even though they are in fact nothing of the sort. And if the streaming option had at one point been officially determined as the 'official' chart of historical record, what real harm would there have been to have led with a 'two horses' solution? As it is though, we took the 'Billboard' style route and, while ours aren't as heavily-bogged down as the American charts in arcane and ever-altering rules, we have ended up with a needlessly complicated and artificial jumble of caveats and constraints designed to tackle persistent passive streaming that creates stagnation in the real rankings, conversions to pointless sales 'equivalents', en-masse streams of all tracks on a major artist's latest album release wiping-out the Top 10/20 in a single week, the problem of determining where an oldie must be 're-set' to allow its true renewed chart potential come through... Two charts running parallel for a few years while the transition was made from one form of consumption to another surely could've been less complicated, less damaging, less messy than what transpired adopting the 'let's combine the two as quickly as possible and make it up from there' approach! After all this waffle I've singularly failed to actually answer the original question posed here, which was 'what shall we do with the failing singles chart we now have?'; not 'what should we have done with it a decade or less ago?'. My feeling for what it's worth is that the damage has been done now; we can't go back and revise chart positions on cleaner, more separate rankings, any more than we can turn back the clock and fix the half-arsed transition from physical to digital, the late adoption of various physical formats into the chart, adjustment of dealer pricing, disposing of artificial exclusion rules that applies to various echelons of the chart at different times, or collect more accurate sales data for the pre-computer era. So perhaps we - or rather the OCC and wider industry in charge of the charts - should just sit it out and wait and see, and only look to meddle further when the need is especially strong? At least they have managed to stick to essentially the same rules for almost six years now, instead of the regular chopping and changing seen in the initial years of the awkward juxtaposition of sales and streams. We may disagree or dislike it, but we know where we stand. It's probably too late to just flip over to a streaming-only chart, as it's clear that covering all relevant forms of direct consumption of recorded music is the way forward for an official chart, including even the more niche parts of the market like sales (and within that category, sales of cassettes or USB sticks). Okay, the final positions churned out each Friday evening aren't what you'd call 'real', but at least we can know that all data from all sectors has been recorded, and - albeit never to be seen by us mere music-loving mortals as it could threaten what credibility remains of the artificial; sorry official, chart - we know that behind the scenes a 'real' chart is compiled. The 'Top 200 tracks' chart exists, if only in some OCC database. Anyone feeling hopeless in their quest for unfailing accuracy in logging combined chart impact can take some modest comfort from recognising that - to quote the old 'X Files' cliche - the truth is out there!! But like so many things in modern life, we just don't get access to it. Yet who knows? Maybe in decades' time someone will obtain and publish those true charts and those who still give a hoot will be able to see what the actual picture each week should've looked like. |
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18th March 2024, 10:18 AM
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#23
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 BuzzJack Platinum Member
Joined: 20 April 2009
Posts: 8,562 User: 8,705
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Funnily enough a decade ago I’d have said exactly that - the sales and streaming charts should be kept separate and over time we can decide which we give more weight. But now I think incorporating streaming points when they did was actually one thing the OCC got right. I do think it’s important to have a single official chart to present to the public who don’t take a mega interest like us.
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18th March 2024, 10:56 AM
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#24
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BuzzJack Legend
Joined: 22 December 2009
Posts: 30,374 User: 10,275
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I have to remind that sales and streams are not always competing against each other. Very often big REAL sellers are big streaming hits too - like "Texas" at the moment.
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18th March 2024, 02:20 PM
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#25
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BuzzJack Climber
Joined: 29 July 2014
Posts: 198 User: 21,106
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Well, I did start by making acknowledgement that people will disagree with me, and that the two consumption modes shouldn't be seen as competing with each other - and the last two posters have gone along with that! It is of course reality that the industry wanted a singular combined chart, and nobody was surprised when they rushed headlong into creating one, after the three-year farce that was the dilution of digital with physical sales (and they were at least still based on a single paid-for purchase, with only the purchasing mode, pricing and environment differing). And of course it is true that some titles max-out in both sectors; there have been plenty of streaming No 1s which were also sales No 1s in the last decade. That's good to see when it happens, as it does still impart a sense of a really genuine, authentic number one hit, even in a market where actual sales are of relatively little consequence and streaming is in charge. But for slightly older music and chart fans, it's hard to shake off the full 62 years of chart history before 2014 where we only recognised recorded music success through the medium of sales, and so for us it still feels like it should retain some importance.
The weirdest situation that the post-new-rules world has imposed on us though is every now and then we get a chart-topper on the combined, 'sanitised' published Top 100 that is neither the preceding seven days' most-streamed or sold title!! As far as I can recollect it's maybe only occurred about five or six times since July 2017, but when word gets out about it it can only undermine the chart even further, and make even the more casual observer of it query what the hell it is supposed to be measuring if neither the streaming or sales chart-topper matches the one on the official version. |
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18th March 2024, 07:23 PM
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#26
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BuzzJack Platinum Member
Pronouns: He/Him
Joined: 28 July 2013 Posts: 5,076 User: 19,614
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I'm curious because it's before my time but was there ever any discourse surrounding the validity of records in the '80s/'90s etc that charted high (or often got to #1) on the basis of charity/not-necessarily-wanted gifts and the like? Because it feels like a parallel to the whole thing with intentional vs. incidental streams*. It feels like nowadays there's just an accepted validity to the word of the sales figure of yesteryear and only controversy when it happens nowadays because we have the empirical data that tells us not that many people are actually listening to the LadBaby singles or things of that nature.
*I still suspect that there's an inherent belief that this is making the chart 'worse' because everyone thinks their favourite songs have more active support. In reality I think labels work overtime to try and push us onto new hit songs and the charts would be even less fresh if left to actively pursued streams. Like it's the difference between TikTok hits that get a marketing push and the ones that don't and just flutter away after a couple of weeks. |
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18th March 2024, 09:42 PM
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#27
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 The owls are not what they seem
Pronouns: He/him
Joined: 11 July 2009 Posts: 37,133 User: 9,232
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I think while the charts will never will reach the height of peak interest of the olden days (changing consumption habits makes this impossible, streaming something will never feel as much of an 'event' as buying a physical copy and sadly, they are in little demand outside fanbase buys), I do feel they are at a bit of a happy medium now. They still get a decent amount of media coverage from time to time, it's pretty much just for old songs returning or legacy acts like The Beatles, Kate Bush, Sophie Ellis Bextor and the obligatory Christmas number 1, but that's the audience that grew up with the charts at their peak and I've personally seen a bit more interest in the last couple of years than I had prior.
I don't think any of the methods suggested would make it better - the random cassette release dates are very transparent and manipulative and make chart runs look untidy, but they are keeping physical media alive. ACR definitely isn't perfect, but like...do people genuinely want it going back to the slowness of 2016/17 with one artist potentially clogging the whole top 10? That's not only dull but potentially damaging to the industry, how are newer artists going to break through or labels take a chance with self-made musicians if the metrics of popularity constantly drag them down with the same songs getting streamed? Unless you go viral on Tik Tok, it's pretty hard to stand out these days, this at least gives more of a chance of higher turnover. I feel the authors need to accept that the charts are simply never going to be that popular again, what we've got now at least does enough to raise interest every now and then and allow many big hits to be recognised rather than just one dominating forever. |
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18th March 2024, 11:19 PM
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#28
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BuzzJack Climber
Joined: 24 February 2021
Posts: 78 User: 124,622
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QUOTE(Dircadirca @ Mar 18 2024, 07:23 PM)  I'm curious because it's before my time but was there ever any discourse surrounding the validity of records in the '80s/'90s etc that charted high (or often got to #1) on the basis of charity/not-necessarily-wanted gifts and the like? Because it feels like a parallel to the whole thing with intentional vs. incidental streams*. It feels like nowadays there's just an accepted validity to the word of the sales figure of yesteryear and only controversy when it happens nowadays because we have the empirical data that tells us not that many people are actually listening to the LadBaby singles or things of that nature. *I still suspect that there's an inherent belief that this is making the chart 'worse' because everyone thinks their favourite songs have more active support. In reality I think labels work overtime to try and push us onto new hit songs and the charts would be even less fresh if left to actively pursued streams. Like it's the difference between TikTok hits that get a marketing push and the ones that don't and just flutter away after a couple of weeks. Going back to that point in 1993 that I spoke of, The Bluebells was a re-issue of a 1984 single that was used on the Golf advert and the Queen record that knocked it off the top was George Michael singing "Somebody To Love" at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert was was a charity record, so yes very much so. In 1993 I was very much into music but I never bought any singles that year and most of my collection was copied tapes. The same could be said of many of my friends too. Nirvana were the most popular band at school but they never had a number one. At the same time the popular bands were at least in the Top 40 and there did seem to be something for everyone in there. These days there doesn't appear to be much rock music at all in the charts. Dance music wise in the 90s there were numerous records that gained a following in the raves/clubs which led to mainstream success but the record remained credible. These days it appears a dance records chart success is down to how popular the DJ is on Instagram or whatever the latest social media thing is and the record is the modern equivalent of 2 Unlimited who no genuine dance music fan liked in the 90s. |
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18th March 2024, 11:54 PM
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#29
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Buffy/Charmed
Joined: 18 April 2013
Posts: 44,116 User: 18,639
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Gry rid of acr and move men who have 30+ year old songs onto a historic chart!!! Combats chart sexism AND keeps it fresh, without needing acr ever again!
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19th March 2024, 06:16 AM
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#30
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BuzzJack Platinum Member
Pronouns: He/Him
Joined: 28 July 2013 Posts: 5,076 User: 19,614
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QUOTE(My Random Music @ Mar 19 2024, 07:19 AM) Going back to that point in 1993 that I spoke of, The Bluebells was a re-issue of a 1984 single that was used on the Golf advert and the Queen record that knocked it off the top was George Michael singing "Somebody To Love" at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert was was a charity record, so yes very much so. In 1993 I was very much into music but I never bought any singles that year and most of my collection was copied tapes. The same could be said of many of my friends too. Nirvana were the most popular band at school but they never had a number one. At the same time the popular bands were at least in the Top 40 and there did seem to be something for everyone in there. Oh, I understand the dissonance in that regard. To an extent the album chart tips the balance as a lot of those bands with unremarkable single success sold truckloads of albums instead. Growing up in the 2000s I didn't really understand or experience much of the appeal of CD singles (outside of one novelty single I got my parents to buy when I was 7). Further to that, my version of your events was that everyone I knew just illegally downloaded & burned CDs, which made for a lot of widely distributed artists who were gaining notoriety without sales to match. The funny thing about all this is that when I started reading charts & chart discussions, I would find people for whom this disparity served their interests well (people who like the charts are more likely to keep following them, not shocking), and they would drum out lines about how if people really were fans of so-and-so, then they would buy their music. I found early Spotify charts in Australia very interesting in that regard because they opened things up to the kinds of things the sales chart never envisioned: The xx & Flume flooding the chart with their new albums, artists like Grimes & Alpine skirting around the top 20, "Retrograde" by James Blake going top 5 on the official streaming chart. It all really gave voice to the fact that the sales format was creating a distorted version of things since it represented such a small sample of the music listening audience. Inevitably this ended up being true of the early streaming chart as well but it was still boasting a higher audience reach than the sales chart so there was at least something in it. So I guess what I really meant to ask is whether or not there were ever articles written in a tone of 'What's to be done with the Singles Chart?' in response to an endemic of charity singles & the like diminishing the credibility of a #1 hit. Because I sure see a lot of takes based on nebulous conjecture that it's all the fault of passive streams. Not saying I actually agree with the former (a sale is a sale, that's what the chart is/was for). Honestly I think they're both in a similar bucket of elitism, the kind that never gets called out because it's in the context of mainstream music chart fandom. |
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19th March 2024, 07:39 PM
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#31
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BuzzJack Climber
Joined: 24 February 2021
Posts: 78 User: 124,622
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QUOTE(Dircadirca @ Mar 19 2024, 06:16 AM) Oh, I understand the dissonance in that regard. To an extent the album chart tips the balance as a lot of those bands with unremarkable single success sold truckloads of albums instead. Growing up in the 2000s I didn't really understand or experience much of the appeal of CD singles (outside of one novelty single I got my parents to buy when I was 7). Further to that, my version of your events was that everyone I knew just illegally downloaded & burned CDs, which made for a lot of widely distributed artists who were gaining notoriety without sales to match. The funny thing about all this is that when I started reading charts & chart discussions, I would find people for whom this disparity served their interests well (people who like the charts are more likely to keep following them, not shocking), and they would drum out lines about how if people really were fans of so-and-so, then they would buy their music. I found early Spotify charts in Australia very interesting in that regard because they opened things up to the kinds of things the sales chart never envisioned: The xx & Flume flooding the chart with their new albums, artists like Grimes & Alpine skirting around the top 20, "Retrograde" by James Blake going top 5 on the official streaming chart. It all really gave voice to the fact that the sales format was creating a distorted version of things since it represented such a small sample of the music listening audience. Inevitably this ended up being true of the early streaming chart as well but it was still boasting a higher audience reach than the sales chart so there was at least something in it. So I guess what I really meant to ask is whether or not there were ever articles written in a tone of 'What's to be done with the Singles Chart?' in response to an endemic of charity singles & the like diminishing the credibility of a #1 hit. Because I sure see a lot of takes based on nebulous conjecture that it's all the fault of passive streams. Not saying I actually agree with the former (a sale is a sale, that's what the chart is/was for). Honestly I think they're both in a similar bucket of elitism, the kind that never gets called out because it's in the context of mainstream music chart fandom. I don't remember anything about the charts as a whole but there was a perception that successful chart acts were cheesy commercial rubbish and the lower reaches, or music that didn't make the charts at all was more credible. There was outrage in 1993 at Mr. Blobby getting Christmas number one ahead of Take That. We had an end of term school disco and the DJ gave a prize to the best dancer to a couple of songs, the prize being the Mr. Blobby single and the same was probably happening at school discos across the country. |
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22nd March 2024, 10:28 AM
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#32
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BuzzJack Climber
Joined: 29 July 2014
Posts: 198 User: 21,106
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I have thought further about this and have decided that for now the manipulated published chart must (and in all reality probably will) remain as-is, for all its faults, but ideally, someone somewhere should start obtaining the 'real' Top 200 tracks charts from OCC dating back to July 2017 and leak them to us!
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22nd March 2024, 10:32 AM
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#33
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BuzzJack Platinum Member
Joined: 20 April 2009
Posts: 8,562 User: 8,705
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QUOTE(Gambo @ Mar 22 2024, 10:28 AM) I have thought further about this and have decided that for now the manipulated published chart must (and in all reality probably will) remain as-is, for all its faults, but ideally, someone somewhere should start obtaining the 'real' Top 200 tracks charts from OCC dating back to July 2017 and leak them to us! Yes please Gambo. I’d pay very good money for that chart! 
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22nd March 2024, 10:54 AM
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#34
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Break the tension
Joined: 7 March 2006
Posts: 89,022 User: 51
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Yeah, there's so many singles in the last few years I've been invested in which I'm pretty sure have narrowly missed out on a top 100 place and I'd be curious to see by how much!
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22nd March 2024, 10:57 AM
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#35
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BuzzJack Legend
Joined: 4 November 2013
Posts: 30,554 User: 20,053
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Still no idea why they got rid of the 101-200 chart positions.
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25th March 2024, 03:56 PM
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#36
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BuzzJack Climber
Joined: 29 July 2014
Posts: 198 User: 21,106
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One thing I have been told by someone who is similarly interested in seeing the real-world singles charts, but unlike most of us has had the benefit of actually seeing a few over the years, is that the lack of exclusions of en-masse-streamed new album tracks through the three-track-per-artist cap, and the forcing downwards of many older hits and artificial uplifts of newer ones via ACR, the real Top 200 chart does get very clogged up with short-lived non-singles, and ageing but still-regularly-playlisted titles hang around even longer than they do on the manipulated version of the rankings. I appreciate that this is an obvious observation anyone could guess at, knowing the nature of the Jul '17 rules and reasons for their introduction. But the point is, having seen a selection of Top 200s since, he reminded me that they are in fact mostly very stagnant, and suffer from the sudden oddities of LP tracks making huge but brief impacts - they are not mirrors of the sort of Top 200s we enjoyed in the 'pure' sales-only era when all formats were eligible (Jan '07 to Jun '14), where there was a more reasonable mix of chart behaviours and movements that created more diversity and therefore more interest, but without too many extreme odd outliers that made it look disproportionate (such as those which streaming being included has created). Those songs you'd found making some impacts for a week or more in those 101-200 positions on sales only in the pre-streaming period almost certainly now won't be able to make enough of an impact to appear in the equivalent ranks now, as so many millions of listens are now needed to reach even the unadjusted position of 200, and with actual paid sales contributing so little to most tracks' chart traction.
Indeed, I think it was Alan Jones who reported recently that the amount of total weekly streams that are made up the Top 75 official chart titles are "vanishingly small", as inevitably so many of people's listens are derived from a vaster-than-ever catalogue of music past and present, meaning that only a few handfuls of titles garner enough to accrue streams into the six or seven-figure realms in seven days, with most of the 25 million-or so listens/watches online each chart week are divided up between millions of songs attaining just two, three, four-figure tallies, which can never chart, even under the current rules. So my point here is that it would likely be a disappointment for those expecting to see more of their preferred singles getting a chart position at least on the 'real' Top 200 - the reality nowadays is that they are LESS likely to achieve it there than on the manipulated published chart - and that would still be the case even if they'd elected to retain that listing as a 200 rather than truncate it to just the 100 berths. That won't of us course dampen enthusiasm for seeing the true Top 200s based on actual most-consumed titles in a week if one's main motivation is not to see more of one's own liked songs get a chart profile, but rather just to see what the real weekly positions (and peaks) of every title are, free of restrictive and misleading arbitrary eligibility rules. But right now, I think the chances of getting that information, either retrospectively or from some point in future, are sadly somewhere between 'fat' and 'no'! This post has been edited by Gambo: 25th March 2024, 03:58 PM |
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25th March 2024, 04:12 PM
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#37
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BuzzJack Platinum Member
Joined: 20 April 2009
Posts: 8,562 User: 8,705
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Yes I don’t think a song that charts at #100 on SCR would even be in the “true” Top 200, so everything fresh in the Top 200 and a bit beyond apart from album bombs we are already seeing. That’s one aspect of the current rules that I do actually think is quite neat.
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25th March 2024, 04:31 PM
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#38
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BuzzJack Platinum Member
Pronouns: He/Him
Joined: 28 July 2013 Posts: 5,076 User: 19,614
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QUOTE(Gambo @ Mar 25 2024, 11:56 PM) So my point here is that it would likely be a disappointment for those expecting to see more of their preferred singles getting a chart position at least on the 'real' Top 200 - the reality nowadays is that they are LESS likely to achieve it there than on the manipulated published chart - and that would still be the case even if they'd elected to retain that listing as a 200 rather than truncate it to just the 100 berths. Have always suspected as much. Just this week's chart has goddard. & Dylan Gossett converting their #185 & #192 weekly Spotify ranks (with no appearance on Apple's chart at present) to #58 & #67 on the OCC chart. Polyhex also tells an interesting story: The number of new entries on the chart is relatively stable post-ACR/3-track rule, but the average weeks on the chart comfortably lifted past the highs of 2015-2016, suggesting an increasing disconnect between the mega-hits and the also-rans that are given a whimpering breath of life by the rules. But then I wonder if we're on the brink of a dam burst, somewhat like the album chart where the average number of new entries has started to decline. |
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25th March 2024, 09:28 PM
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#39
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BuzzJack Gold Member
Joined: 12 March 2006
Posts: 2,145 User: 194
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Whatever happened to the TikTok Music streaming service. I was intrigued whether that could inject some life to the charts (for better or worse)
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26th March 2024, 12:11 PM
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#40
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BuzzJack Regular
Joined: 14 December 2009
Posts: 251 User: 10,194 
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Best thing for them to do is get rid of streaming on the official charts and have the official charts for sales only. As for physical the should be no rules on it to in courage people to spend money on artists instead of the cop out streaming.
This post has been edited by kimberley88: 26th March 2024, 12:18 PM |
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