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BuzzJack Music Forum _ UK Charts _ Streaming to count towards albums chart
Posted by: Suedehead2 Feb 11 2015, 08:34 PM
The OCC are trailing an imminent announcement on the albums chart to take effect from 1 March. The obvious guess is that streaming is to be included 
That will presumably mean that, if somebody streams a whole album, that will no longer contribute 1/100th of a sale to each track.
Posted by: JosephStyles Feb 11 2015, 08:37 PM
Oh dear god no 
Posted by: liamk97 Feb 11 2015, 08:37 PM
I was reading about this on UKMIX as someone was worried about Madonna's album missing out on #1 due to the streaming points Ed and Sam would get.
Spotify has a list of their most streamed albums so it obviously can be decided what counts as an album stream. Good decision really - firstly, anything to boost album sales, even though there won't be anywhere near as much effect as there is for the singles.
Posted by: T Boy Feb 11 2015, 08:38 PM
I fail to see how this will make much of a difference tbh.
Posted by: AcerBen Feb 11 2015, 08:39 PM
Yeah, has to be done. I hear the rules are a little complicated though!
Posted by: JosephStyles Feb 11 2015, 08:40 PM
We can look at the Billboard 200 to see why this is such a bad idea (in my opinion of course). Mark Ronson's album is being boosted hugely by Uptown Funk's sales and streams, but in all honesty, very few care enough to buy the album itself and it's being artificially boosted.
The album chart imo should remain a sales chart, especially as the lines are so blurred as to what is and isn't an album. I imagine Spotify's top albums list is just based on the total streams for its tracks?
Posted by: ¡bré! Feb 11 2015, 08:41 PM
Oh ~
Posted by: Ultraviolence1989 Feb 11 2015, 08:42 PM
Ew no 
It is nice seeing a lot of artists on the album chart who would struggle to ever make the singles chart. And if streams are boosting albums because of one big song, it is basically a 2nd singles chart with a few extra tracks added.
Posted by: ETH▲N Feb 11 2015, 08:43 PM
Album sales are at such alarmingly low ebb, I’m guessing this is being rolled out ahead of schedule to shore up the market. Sensible decision IMO! 
Posted by: AcerBen Feb 11 2015, 08:43 PM
I hope you have to listen to a certain number of songs from the album for it to count. How does it work on Billboard?
Posted by: Joe. Feb 11 2015, 08:43 PM
It's so much more complicated than streaming songs. What if somebody listens to 11/12 songs on an album or if they skip two? Makes no sense.
It will of course help the much needed increase in album sales but the top two albums on Spotify are Ed and Sam. It'll be so hard to get passed them.
If it's brought in it should be much more than 100 streams of an album for a sale, in my opinion.
Posted by: ¡bré! Feb 11 2015, 08:45 PM
Surely not even the biggest streaming advocates can act as if redefining album sales to include streaming constitutes increasing album sales?
Posted by: Liаm Feb 11 2015, 08:46 PM
Because we totally need a boost for Sam Smith Ed boosts are always fine because I still love x.
The US chart is such a mess though, Mark Ronson is a good example. One massive hit can really boost an album from its streams when people don't actually care enough to buy it. As long as they don't do that individual track sales thing that the Billboard 200 does.
Posted by: ► ▲ N Feb 11 2015, 08:48 PM
I guess with how low album sales have got it was gonna happen sooner or later, not looking forward to the likes of Ed Sheeran/Sam Smith being #1 for ages because they have popular singles though.
Posted by: JosephStyles Feb 11 2015, 08:49 PM
This was posted on UKMix, and was seemingly on The Mirror's site but isn't available when I click the link on Google now. The 1st March date matches up anyway so here it is:
17:42, 10 February 2015 By Simon Cable
The Official Charts Company chief executive Martin Talbot says the move was designed to compile “the most accurate, reliable and up-to-date charts”
Popular: Services such as Spotify streamed 15bn songs in 2014
Albums played on streaming services such as Spotify and Google Play are to be included in the UK charts for the first time in its 59-year history.
The weekly album chart is currently based on physical and digital sales. But music streaming in the UK has doubled over the past 12 months with almost 15bn songs streamed in 2014.
The Official Charts Company chief executive Martin Talbot says the move was designed to compile “the most accurate, reliable and up-to-date charts”.
He added: “In 2015 that means reflecting the popularity of streaming, alongside downloads, vinyl and – still the most popular album format – the CD.
“This is a timely change for the Official Albums Chart, coming as it does just over a year before its 60th anniversary.
"In those six decades, the chart has showcased the greatest musical artworks of all time – from The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, to Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Adele’s 21, right up to the latest sets by Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran and George Ezra.
“The album is one of the most important art-forms of the past 50 years and this change will ensure that the Official Albums Chart maintains its position as the pre-eminent showcase of the album as a body of work.”
The first chart to include streams will be published on Sunday 1st March – the first chart after The Brits on February 25.
Streaming services including Napster, Music Unlimited and Xbox Music commonly charge subscribers a monthly fee to listen to unlimited tunes, although users aren’t able to download or own the songs.
Ed Sheeran’s X album has been streamed more than 200m times while Sam Smith’s In The Lonely Hour has had more than 140m streamings.
The UK singles charts updated to this system last July. Only audio streams will be recorded and not video streams on services such as YouTube.
Album streams will be counted by compiling the data from the 12 most-streamed tracks from each album. The top two most-streamed songs will be rounded down to the average of the next ten, with all songs being added together and then divided by 1,000.
The overall number will then be added to the physical and digital sales of the album.
Each track will have to be played for 30 seconds before it counts as one stream and only ten plays will be counted per user, per day to stop fans from deliberately cheating the system.
The 1,000 ratio is used to reflect the broad difference in value between a track stream and the price paid for an album. Chart bosses say this method will ensure hit singles do not ‘skew’ the performance of a parent album.
The Official Albums Chart has reflected the UK’s biggest albums every week since the first chart was published by Record Mirror 59 years ago.
On that occasion, in 1956, Frank Sinatra’s Songs For Swinging Lovers was the first number one album.
I think I get it
seems kinda complicated but at least they're recognising that a hit single doesn't necessarily mean a hit album!(bear in mind this could be a load of crap but we'll see)
Posted by: ¡bré! Feb 11 2015, 08:52 PM
If true that is at least much more sensible an application than Billboard's and should stop the album chart just becoming a mirror of the singles chart in low sales week.
Posted by: liamk97 Feb 11 2015, 08:54 PM
Yeah, that seems like a fair enough approach. The OCC seem to be much better than Billboard when it comes to streaming, like not including YouTube video views.
Posted by: MrIndependent Feb 11 2015, 08:55 PM
As long as there is a sales-only chart and Music Week and the OCC still publish the totals of pure sales (Billboard and Soundscan have stopped doing this), I'm fine with this decision because album sales are shockingly low and I fail to see how they will improve in the coming years. The album-buying business is not so good, but the music business, in which streaming is becoming a huge part of, is better than ever, and I feel like it's only right that this is reflected in the charts.
Posted by: ► ▲ N Feb 11 2015, 08:56 PM
here's an idea of which albums to expect to get boosts~ the current top 10 albums on Spotify (desktop)
1. Ed Sheeran - x [how surprising!!1]
2. Sam Smith - In The Lonely Hour
3. Sia - 1000 Forms Of Fear
4. Hozier - Hozier
5. Mark Ronson - Uptown Special
6. Maroon 5 - V
7. Calvin Harris - Motion
8. Meghan Trainor - Title
9. George Ezra - Wanted On Voyage
10. Beyoncé - BEYONCÉ
Posted by: AcerBen Feb 11 2015, 08:57 PM
Oh that's actually quite clever. So really it's judged on how popular the non-singles are.
Posted by: *Ben* Feb 11 2015, 08:57 PM
1. Ed Sheeran - x [how surprising!!1]
2. Sam Smith - In The Lonely Hour
3. Sia - 1000 Forms Of Fear
4. Hozier - Hozier
5. Mark Ronson - Uptown Special
6. Maroon 5 - V
7. Calvin Harris - Motion
8. Meghan Trainor - Title
9. George Ezra - Wanted On Voyage
10. Beyoncé - BEYONCÉ
And Taylor Swift will drop down like a brick
Posted by: Suedehead2 Feb 11 2015, 09:00 PM
If I have interpreted the system correctly, an album with fewer than ten tracks will lose out.
Posted by: Joe. Feb 11 2015, 09:01 PM
Divided by 1000 for a sale? That shouldn't make TOO much difference then?
Or am I misunderstanding?
Posted by: HausofKubrick Feb 11 2015, 09:02 PM
I agree. If implemented correctly (basically like the article that Joseph posted), then it could be a very useful determiner for which albums are actually popular in the country that week. It really cannot be like the Billboard one where one song can elevate an album's sales, but instead if all/most tracks are considered, then i'd very much welcome the inclusion.
Posted by: AcerBen Feb 11 2015, 09:03 PM
Fewer than 12 even, because the top 2 still get points. Maybe if it is a 10 track album for instance they add another 2 imaginary tracks with the average again, so it's always 12 sets of points regardless of how many tracks are on the album.
Posted by: ¡bré! Feb 11 2015, 09:05 PM
I wonder what happens with regards to greatest hits though? Does streaming a song count towards both its parent studio album and any compilations it's featured on?
Posted by: AcerBen Feb 11 2015, 09:07 PM
Good question.. maybe they'll need to move greatest hits to their own chart, or added to compilations chart?
Posted by: mr_aly Feb 11 2015, 09:07 PM
I was very skeptical (as I'm sure most people were), but that's a very good system they've worked out for it! I'm impressed.
Besides, the Spotify album chart doesn't differ that much from the actual chart.
Posted by: AcerBen Feb 11 2015, 09:08 PM
Or maybe it just depends on whether you are listening to the track off the album or the compilation. Perhaps if you listen to the actual single/EP, it doesn't count.
Posted by: AcerBen Feb 11 2015, 09:09 PM
Besides, the Spotify album chart doesn't differ that much from the actual chart.
Yeah, how novel for OCC to get something right
Posted by: HausofKubrick Feb 11 2015, 09:09 PM
Surely it would count for the album on which it is streamed from? When you stream a song on Spotify or whatever it's always under a specific album or EP or single, so it would just count for that.
So when i type in Madonna - Hung Up on Spotify for example, it comes up with one tagged under 'Confessions on a Dancefloor' and another tagged under 'Celebration' so it would just depend on which one of the two i listen to. And yeah if i listen to the version tagged under the single 'Hung Up' it wouldn't count, because i'm not listening to an album.
Posted by: ¡bré! Feb 11 2015, 09:12 PM
They haven't got it right, they've got it wrong in the least wrong way. Including streaming in the album chart is still a stupid idea regardless of how it's implemented.
So when i type in Madonna - Hung Up on Spotify for example, it comes up with one tagged under 'Confessions on a Dancefloor' and another tagged under 'Celebration' so it would just depend on which one of the two i listen to. And yeah if i listen to the version tagged under the single 'Hung Up' it wouldn't count, because i'm not listening to an album.
That makes sense
I wouldn't know as I have never used any of these streaming services.
Posted by: liamk97 Feb 11 2015, 09:17 PM
How so?
Posted by: §þiŋŋiŋğ Å&# Feb 11 2015, 09:20 PM
Oh dear 
I suppose this was inevitable. Technology always moves on...
Posted by: Envoirment Feb 11 2015, 09:23 PM
Not sure how I feel about this. Granted, their formula is much better than the mess the Billboard 200 chart has turned into and it should help dwindling album sales. However, I can imagine people like Ed being around forever and their sales "overinflated" because of it in the long run. As long as they do a sales-only chart as well (which I'm 100% sure they will) then I'm happy.
So if for instance you have "Uptown funk" getting 2,300,000 streams and then the next song is getting 100,000. Would that mean that they would do the average of those (1,200,000) + the streams of the other tracks (let's say it's ~500,000)? So it'll be around 1,700,000/1000 = 1,700 album sales. The only qualm I have is that the streams for "Uptown Funk" would be used to both count towards the singles & albums chart, so you're essentially overinflating the total sales (singles & albums) of an artist by using streams to count as sales twice if you get what I mean?
It shouldn't affect the peak position that an artist gets or the sales that much though.
Edit: Oh wait! I think I did the forumla wrong:
Top two streamed at 2,300,000 & 100,000 for instance. Then the next 10 average 50,000. Does that mean the 2,300,000 & 100,000 are then reduced to 50,000 each and so you have 12x50,000 = 600,000/1,000 = 600 sales?
Posted by: Joe. Feb 11 2015, 09:27 PM
Sucks for Taylor Swift.
Posted by: Suedehead2 Feb 11 2015, 09:41 PM
So if for instance you have "Uptown funk" getting 2,300,000 streams and then the next song is getting 100,000. Would that mean that they would do the average of those (1,200,000) + the streams of the other tracks (let's say it's ~500,000)? So it'll be around 1,700,000/1000 = 1,700 album sales. The only qualm I have is that the streams for "Uptown Funk" would be used to both count towards the singles & albums chart, so you're essentially overinflating the total sales (singles & albums) of an artist by using streams to count as sales twice if you get what I mean?
It shouldn't affect the peak position that an artist gets or the sales that much though.
Edit: Oh wait! I think I did the forumla wrong:
Top two streamed at 2,300,000 & 100,000 for instance. Then the next 10 average 50,000. Does that mean the 2,300,000 & 100,000 are then reduced to 50,000 each and so you have 12x50,000 = 600,000/1,000 = 600 sales?
OTOH, if there are only ten tracks on the album, all 2.3m streams will count.
Posted by: Doctor Blind Feb 11 2015, 09:42 PM
It looks like their system wouldn't add much to album sales anyway. 22K + 1K is still 23K and laughably low, but if it makes the record industry feel a little bit better about a dying music format that has no place in the digital era then that's all good I suppose.
Posted by: §þiŋŋiŋğ Å&# Feb 11 2015, 09:45 PM
Could she put just her albums on streaming then? Assuming she wants to
Posted by: liamk97 Feb 11 2015, 09:48 PM
It may not add much to weekly sales but the effect will be more noticeable in total sales for the album. Of course your point does still stand that it disguises the fact albums are much less relevant in the digital age but it will have its benefits.
Posted by: ¡bré! Feb 11 2015, 09:50 PM
Because streaming a few songs from an album is in no way the same thing as buying an album (and that does still contribute to the album chart under this system even if it is in a minuscule way). The principle of including streams in the singles chart makes some sort of sense because you're still consuming the same product, but that isn't the case with albums unless they literally only count an album streaming 'sale' if someone listenes to the entire album.
The only benefit from this is cosmetically mildly improved 'sales', while the loss is the unambiguity of the chart and the level playing ground. That's of course ignoring the fact that sales aren't a level playing ground to begin with due to various other factors but it'll still make it worse, especially for Taylor Swift and anyone else who follows her example.
Posted by: HausofKubrick Feb 11 2015, 09:51 PM
Is it being put in place to make album sales seem healthier though? Or is it genuinely because it will reflect what albums people are actually listening to on a weekly basis more? The naive me thinks it's the latter.
Posted by: Doctor Blind Feb 11 2015, 09:52 PM
I think you are being incredibly naive. Last week was the first instance of albums in the Top 75 selling fewer than 1,000 copies. I think that was the last straw!
The #200 sold just 419 copies, that's the population of a small village
Posted by: ¡bré! Feb 11 2015, 09:55 PM
The album chart has never aimed to represent what people are listening to, it's always been specifically a *sales* list. If that is the OCC's motivation (which they might claim it to be but in reality Doctor Blind is almost certainly correct here) then they're making a very sudden about turn after decades of sticking to their guns.
Posted by: Mart!n Feb 11 2015, 09:56 PM
I saw this coming a mile off, it had to happen sometime, my only grievance why 1 March, they could have implemented it from 1 January of this year.
Well... we see how it works when the wheels are in motion, and how it will effect the singles chart as well.
Posted by: Envoirment Feb 11 2015, 09:59 PM
Surely if it's only 10 tracks they can just use the average of the next 8 tracks for the top 2? I mean considering it's averages, it should be fine. If not, then perhaps it'll make artists release albums of at least 12 tracks. I mean I'd be all up for that as some artists I like end up releasing just 10 track albums when I'd love a little more material from them.
Posted by: Suedehead2 Feb 11 2015, 10:03 PM
That may be what they do. If so, it would make more sense as it would avoid the figures being distorted by one or two very popular tracks.
On the second point, surely it depends on the length of the tracks. To take an extreme example, Tubular Bells has just two tracks. If CDs had been around at the time, it may well have hd just one. Or, to take a less extreme example, Brothers In Arms has nine tracks on the CD but lasts for 55 minutes. Another album might have 14 tracks but not even clock in at 45 minutes.
Posted by: liamk97 Feb 11 2015, 10:10 PM
The only benefit from this is cosmetically mildly improved 'sales', while the loss is the unambiguity of the chart and the level playing ground. That's of course ignoring the fact that sales aren't a level playing ground to begin with due to various other factors but it'll still make it worse, especially for Taylor Swift and anyone else who follows her example.
It goes back to the argument against streaming being added to the singles due to "the singles chart being a sales chart". It may have always been a sales only chart in the past but that's only because there was no other way of getting your music. I think that applies to albums and streaming too. I do understand your points though and it's quite clear that adding streams to the album chart is much different to adding it to the singles so I think the arguments against this stand more ground than they did for the singles. It's true that it's not strictly fair that you don't have to listen to a whole album - it seems like it's become a joint effort to give an album 'sales' through streaming - but if it's the same for every album then it is fairer in that respect (aside people like Taylor Swift of course, but it's their choice if they're not participating). Sorry that this probably doesn't make much sense!
Posted by: Envoirment Feb 11 2015, 10:13 PM
On the second point, surely it depends on the length of the tracks. To take an extreme example, Tubular Bells has just two tracks. If CDs had been around at the time, it may well have hd just one. Or, to take a less extreme example, Brothers In Arms has nine tracks on the CD but lasts for 55 minutes. Another album might have 14 tracks but not even clock in at 45 minutes.
Yes, times could be an issue. Although I think overall it won't be too much of an issue. Album tracks less than 30 seconds long should be exluded (such as interludes) and those with few tracks that are very long could be weighted? I'm not sure if you make more money streaming a 20 minute song vs a 3 minute song but I would think you do. That could get quite messy though at defining times/streaming 30 seconds of a 10 minute long song isn't the same as 30 seconds of a 1-2 minute long track etc.
Posted by: Doctor Blind Feb 11 2015, 10:26 PM
No doubt the OCC will be back-dating this streaming for year-end purposes to some arbitrary point in time, telling us that this is apparently for the end-of-year chart and then not actually incorporating all of it into the end-of-year chart anyway and constantly referring to "chart sales" since said arbitrary point in time even though in the million sellers list they aren't counting it. MESS.
Posted by: AcerBen Feb 11 2015, 10:33 PM
What? Why would they do that?
Posted by: Suedehead2 Feb 11 2015, 10:59 PM
That depends on whether the calculation method in the report is an example. If it is always a case of adjusting the two most popular tracks to the average of the rest of the album, then they will always be mitigating the effect of one or two very popular tracks. Regardless, it still means that an album with eight long tracks will suffer against an album with twelve short songs.
Posted by: MJ2014 Feb 11 2015, 11:10 PM
Here's the official announcement.
http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/uk-official-albums-chart-to-include-streaming-data-for-first-time-3479/
Posted by: AcerBen Feb 11 2015, 11:18 PM
I don't see what the length of the songs has to do with anything.
Posted by: Suedehead2 Feb 11 2015, 11:20 PM
Because an album with eight six-minute songs is arguably better value than an album with twelve three-minute songs.
Posted by: Ryan. Feb 11 2015, 11:26 PM
I feel like Taylor Swift is waiting for this Apple/Beats Music streaming thing that is coming this spring/summer apparently, especially due to the reports about Apple buying her record label or something!
Posted by: AcerBen Feb 11 2015, 11:29 PM
Well they haven't explained whether they will do any weighting for tracks with fewer than 12 tracks yet, but I suspect they will.
Posted by: girl_from_oz Feb 11 2015, 11:31 PM
Well not issue with this, just happy it happened after Bob Dylan's album came out cause his album isn't streaming anywhere. I wonder if this will affect streaming release dates, if an artist withelds an album for streaming for a few months like Sam Smith did, he may not have had a number one straight away. The other good thing about this is it probably means that spotify etc won't get exclusive rights to streaming albums like they do with a few artists- Led Zeppelin etc
Posted by: Suedehead2 Feb 11 2015, 11:32 PM
I see you have already asked the question on Twitter. You beat me to it!
Posted by: Joe. Feb 11 2015, 11:37 PM
I have to fully admit that I don't completely understand the methodology.
If all the songs streams of an album are being averaged out and then divided by 1000, how does this affect singles streaming? Could the same stream technically be giving steaming sales to the album and single at the same time?
Posted by: Robbie Feb 11 2015, 11:54 PM
I notice the OCC article refers to taking (up to) the 12 most streamed tracks on the standard version of an album. This would suggest that all additional tracks available only on a deluxe version of an album will be ignored.
Posted by: AcerBen Feb 11 2015, 11:57 PM
If all the songs streams of an album are being averaged out and then divided by 1000, how does this affect singles streaming? Could the same stream technically be giving steaming sales to the album and single at the same time?
Yes I think it will. Except if the track you're listening to is one of the top 2 most popular songs off the album, and it'll only contribute to the singles chart.
Posted by: Envoirment Feb 11 2015, 11:58 PM
If all the songs streams of an album are being averaged out and then divided by 1000, how does this affect singles streaming? Could the same stream technically be giving steaming sales to the album and single at the same time?
I believe so. Unless they subtract the weighted down averages of the top 2 tracks/singles from the streams that count towards the singles chart, you're essentially counting the same streams twice and so an artists' total sales (Album + Single sales including streams) will be somewhat inflated although not by much.
Posted by: girl_from_oz Feb 12 2015, 12:00 AM
I notice the OCC article refers to taking (up to) the 12 most streamed tracks on the standard version of an album. This would suggest that all additional tracks available only on a deluxe version of an album will be ignored.
The standard version of albums are not always on streaming sites, in the case of Meghan Trainor for example only the deluxe version is available
Posted by: Envoirment Feb 12 2015, 12:01 AM
I notice the OCC article refers to taking (up to) the 12 most streamed tracks on the standard version of an album. This would suggest that all additional tracks available only on a deluxe version of an album will be ignored.
Surely the deluxe edition tracks would still count but only towards the streams on the deluxe version of the album? As it's easy to distinguish between the standard and deluxe versions of albums I would assume they apply the formula to both albums separatley then add the sales of both together.
Posted by: AcerBen Feb 12 2015, 12:02 AM
I notice the OCC article refers to taking (up to) the 12 most streamed tracks on the standard version of an album. This would suggest that all additional tracks available only on a deluxe version of an album will be ignored.
1. Where does it say that? That makes no sense at all.
2. Possibly a good idea because some artists would release "streaming only" tracks which would distort the figures
Posted by: AcerBen Feb 12 2015, 12:05 AM
That'd be ridiculous. Think how many versions of the album Union J would release. They'll probably just count the tracks that are available on all formats.
Posted by: Wall-e Feb 12 2015, 12:07 AM
SIA TO EVENTUALLY COME TOP 10.
Posted by: Envoirment Feb 12 2015, 12:09 AM
It's no different than the sales chart when they combine album versions? It's not as if fanbases can abuse that given the 10 stream cap, so people would only be able to contribute to an average of 10 streams on each album. So 10 streamsx2/1000 = 0.02 sales a day. It'd take someone 50 days in order to just get one sale counted if streaming both the standard and deluxe, so I can't see any issues with it.
Posted by: Hadji Feb 12 2015, 12:13 AM
If they're gonna introduce streaming to the album chart, they should may as well re-introduce compilations to the album chart
Posted by: JosephStyles Feb 12 2015, 12:37 AM
Why?? What does streaming have to do with compilations?
Posted by: Hadji Feb 12 2015, 12:53 AM
They both slowed down the album chart
Posted by: DanChartFan Feb 12 2015, 04:48 AM
I assume they are actually limited to 10 plays per track, per album. So if a normal and deluxe version where both available separately on streaming, and if the OCC were then choosing to combine the separately calculated 'chart sales' for each together, then a fan could contribute a maximum of 20x12=240 streams towards it in a week, or 0.24 of a chart sale. So say Union J (or similar with a dedicated sizeable fanbase) have both a regular and deluxe availlable, and that the OCC decides to combine the 'chart sales' of each for the purposes of the album chart, and estimate that they have, say, 100k fans prepared to do this sort of mass streaming, then they could amass 24000 extra Album sales in a week (or 12000 per version of an album) from the addition of streaming.
Posted by: Joe. Feb 12 2015, 07:21 AM
It's kind of annoying that some artists like FKA Twigs and Jessie Ware who were consistently in the Spotify top 50 with their albums last year for some while won't benefit from this. They could really do with the sales boost.
Posted by: SKOB Feb 12 2015, 07:22 AM
I don't see your logic here
Besides, I don't think anyone will miss artists who jump out of nowhere into top 20 and drop out the week after (from statistic point of view I mean, if you're a fan it's a different story
)I think the formula is fantastic, better than in the US. Interesting to see the results, which won't be that different to earlier sales only chart in the ten.. however, a lot will change in the lower regions of chart.
This could eventually be the right formula to do this inclusion in all countries.
Posted by: fchd Feb 12 2015, 08:27 AM
It isn't actually boosting sales. It might boost *sales numbers* but not the sales themselves.
Posted by: FleetSeb Feb 12 2015, 08:50 AM
Good decision and seems a good method for deciding it. Happy with this.
Posted by: ▲Rob▲ Feb 12 2015, 09:17 AM
The big question is, will it benefit Britney?
Posted by: James1987 Feb 12 2015, 09:37 AM
I knew this was going to happen...I just hope it doesn't have the same impact as on the singles chart and slows everything down though I can see Ed Sheeran staying top 10 for a long time with this now...
Posted by: Joe. Feb 12 2015, 09:42 AM
Can anyone work out how many extra album stream sale numbers say for example, Ed would be adding to his sales total for a week on average?
Posted by: Mango Feb 12 2015, 10:30 AM
Yeah it would be good to get an idea of this. It doesn't sound like streaming will have as much of an effect on the albums chart as it does on the singles chart, at least to start with.
Posted by: Joe. Feb 12 2015, 10:49 AM
I have no idea how many streams something would get but I THINK i'm working it out correctly when I put a 12 track album with:
Track 1: 300,000 53,000
Track 2: 100,000
Track 3: 20,000
Track 4: 40,000
Track 5: 50,000
Track 6: 500,000 53,000
Track 7: 70,000
Track 8: 80,000
Track 9: 50,000
Track 10: 40,000
Track 11: 50,000
Track 12: 35,000
= 641,000
So this would equate to 641 Streaming album sales?
Posted by: Mango Feb 12 2015, 10:53 AM
^^ Except I think the average comes out as 53,500 so multiplying that by 12, the total is 642,000 equating to 642 sales. That's pretty much how I understood it aswell, but hopefully someone else can confirm.
EDIT: Also, the OCC article says that Ed Sheeran's album has been streamed more than 200m times. So using that album as an example, it got roughly 100 streams for every copy sold (seems like quite a high ratio to me but let's go with it). Now since the streams get divided by 1000 when added to the sales figure, that means that 0.1 would be added for every sale, in other words streaming is likely to add roughly 10% to sales. Of course that's just taking 'x' as an example, and the stream/sale ratio will be different for different albums but it does give us some idea of how much the 'sales' figure will be affected by streaming.
Posted by: vidcapper Feb 12 2015, 11:06 AM
It will of course help the much needed increase in album sales but the top two albums on Spotify are Ed and Sam. It'll be so hard to get passed them.
Not really - if/when Adele releases an album this year, she'll blow past them in one week!
Posted by: ¡bré! Feb 12 2015, 11:33 AM
This would not happen because there is nowhere even close to 100k people who'd care enough to do this (for ANY act, let alone Union J). People said similar things to this when streaming was added to the singles chart and so far that has not happened, and it never will because it's just a ridiculous suggestion.
And even if this were the case there'd be a much bigger impact from fans just buying multiple copies of an album since that doesn't involve spending time to stream over and over, and also doesn't involve the 'dividing by 1,000' thing.
Posted by: girl_from_oz Feb 12 2015, 12:23 PM
Two albums doing well on spotify right now but not in the UK top 40 are Beyonce and Echosmith
Posted by: *Tim Feb 12 2015, 12:26 PM
But with for example, Uptown Funk, which is getting over a million streams a week (don't judge me, idk the actual number), that'd mean Mark would get at least 1000 sales extra? Am I seeing this correct?
EDIT: nvm I just read about the average thing
Posted by: April Feb 12 2015, 12:30 PM
No. The top 2 tracks get rounded down to the average of the next 10. Joe's post above explains it well.
Posted by: Mart!n Feb 12 2015, 12:45 PM
OCC have published the most streamed albums of 2014
http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-official-top-40-most-streamed-albums-of-2014-revealed-3480/
Posted by: Rush Feb 12 2015, 01:00 PM
Thinking Out Loud 1,181,819
Don't 625,523
Sing 523,057
Photograph 380,326
Tenerife Sea 219,305
I'm A Mess 204,457
One 188,136
Nina 167,368
Bloodstream 155,915
Afire Love 134,406
Runaway 126,410
The Man 100,097
The average of #s 3-12 comes to 219,948, so I believe TOL and Don't get adjusted to that, which brings the total to 2,639,372 -> 2,639 sales; maybe about 3,000 with non-Spotify services. If I've understood correctly.
Posted by: Yorkie2 Feb 12 2015, 01:10 PM
That article says George Ezra is #3 and then lists him as 13 in the list at the bottom, odd...
I was against adding streaming to the singles chart, but I accept that it is a reasonable thing to do because it's easy to measure the popularity of singles this way, even if I don't like how hard it's made it for new songs to enter. This, on the other hand, is an utterly pointless thing to do and I'll never support it. Album sales are beyond saving and artificially increasing them in this way makes no sense, but I suppose there's no point complaining as the OCC are just going to do it anyway...
Posted by: AcerBen Feb 12 2015, 01:43 PM
EDIT: Also, the OCC article says that Ed Sheeran's album has been streamed more than 200m times. So using that album as an example, it got roughly 100 streams for every copy sold (seems like quite a high ratio to me but let's go with it). Now since the streams get divided by 1000 when added to the sales figure, that means that 0.1 would be added for every sale, in other words streaming is likely to add roughly 10% to sales. Of course that's just taking 'x' as an example, and the stream/sale ratio will be different for different albums but it does give us some idea of how much the 'sales' figure will be affected by streaming.
Yes you're right
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-31421438
Posted by: britster Feb 12 2015, 01:44 PM
MUCH better system than Billboard, but I'm not sure I understand this "down-weighting" they refer to 
- Does it mean they ignore the 2 most streamed tracks, average the other 10, then multiply the average by 12 ?
- And for a 10-track album, ignore the 2 most streamed tracks, average the other 8, then multiply by 12 as well ??
Posted by: AcerBen Feb 12 2015, 01:45 PM
Q&A with Martin Talbot here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-31425685
Looks like tracks with fewer than 12 tracks will lose out, but they reckon it doesn't make much difference once you've divided by 1000 anyway.
Weird bit at the bottom where, unless he was misquoted, says 2.5 million streams = 2,500 sales in the singles chart, when it's of course 25,000.
Posted by: AcerBen Feb 12 2015, 01:47 PM
Thinking Out Loud 1,181,819
Don't 625,523
Sing 523,057
Photograph 380,326
Tenerife Sea 219,305
I'm A Mess 204,457
One 188,136
Nina 167,368
Bloodstream 155,915
Afire Love 134,406
Runaway 126,410
The Man 100,097
The average of #s 3-12 comes to 219,948, so I believe TOL and Don't get adjusted to that, which brings the total to 2,639,372 -> 2,639 sales; maybe about 3,000 with non-Spotify services. If I've understood correctly.
That sounds about right
Posted by: AcerBen Feb 12 2015, 01:50 PM
Some more quotes from Martin
http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2015/feb/12/streaming-data-sales-first-combined-uk-albums-chart-spotify
Posted by: britster Feb 12 2015, 01:53 PM
Thinking Out Loud 1,181,819
Don't 625,523
Sing 523,057
Photograph 380,326
Tenerife Sea 219,305
I'm A Mess 204,457
One 188,136
Nina 167,368
Bloodstream 155,915
Afire Love 134,406
Runaway 126,410
The Man 100,097
The average of #s 3-12 comes to 219,948, so I believe TOL and Don't get adjusted to that, which brings the total to 2,639,372 -> 2,639 sales; maybe about 3,000 with non-Spotify services. If I've understood correctly.
So it's not going to have that much of an effect.
Posted by: Mango Feb 12 2015, 01:58 PM
From the article:
For instance, Mark Ronson's recent album Uptown Special sold 9,800 copies over the counter in its first week of release, but it made the top 10 of the US Billboard 200 with a final tally of 48,582 sales, propelled by streams and downloads of the hit single Uptown Funk.
Weird bit at the bottom where, unless he was misquoted, says 2.5 million streams = 2,500 sales in the singles chart, when it's of course 25,000.
No, 2.5 million divided by 1000 is 2,500 so he's right
Posted by: britster Feb 12 2015, 02:00 PM
Isn't the singles chart divided by 100 though?
Posted by: Joe. Feb 12 2015, 02:02 PM
Yes, but dividing by 1000 makes more sense for albums as your adding more than 1 song together before dividing.
Posted by: britster Feb 12 2015, 02:06 PM
I know that, I'm just backing up AcerBen in the misquote in the BBC article.
ie, 2,500,000 streams would be 25,000 in the singles chart.
Posted by: AcerBen Feb 12 2015, 02:08 PM
I emailed OCC earlier (before I found the BBC article) about the albums with fewer 12 tracks thing.. they've responded
The actual analysis for albums with fewer tracks is quite extensive and complicated - we tested this with a large sample of albums and as an example;
· The last Foo Fighters album was only 8 tracks long
· The average across the 8 tracks is higher than that (on average) across a 12 track album, which means the top two get levelled “less”, therefore the sum of the 8 is not dissimilar to that of a 12+ track album
Posted by: Mango Feb 12 2015, 02:15 PM
So then the rule is actually the top two songs get down-weighted to the average of the next N tracks, where N is the number of remaining tracks on the album, but capped at a maximum of 10 if there are more than 12 songs. Or something like that.
Sorry, yeah I misread that, I thought it was relating to albums rather than singles.
Posted by: britster Feb 12 2015, 02:21 PM
The actual analysis for albums with fewer tracks is quite extensive and complicated - we tested this with a large sample of albums and as an example;
· The last Foo Fighters album was only 8 tracks long
· The average across the 8 tracks is higher than that (on average) across a 12 track album, which means the top two get levelled “less”, therefore the sum of the 8 is not dissimilar to that of a 12+ track album
Maybe it's because with less tracks you stream what's there more.
Eg, at the cinema, there will be more showings of a 90 minutes film than a 3 hour film, so theoretically, they could make more money in a weekend from the shorter film.
Posted by: Taylor Jago Feb 12 2015, 04:58 PM
A good rule would be that when an entire album is streamed, points go to the album and not to every track. It would be nice to avoid the situation on the first week where streaming was included and there was loads of Ed Sheeran songs.
Posted by: §þiŋŋiŋğ Å&# Feb 12 2015, 05:11 PM
I'm not really keen on streaming counting in anything, but trying to see OCC's methodology and reasoning, even though the likes of Ed and Sam boosting up even more on both charts, it seems they have been working hard to make sure that the calculations are fair enough as they have done with the singles chart (though imo it should be 200 streams = 1 sale) but here's hoping that the change is for the better!
I don't know if this point has been raised already in the thread but will their be a sales only album chart?
Posted by: Suedehead2 Feb 12 2015, 05:31 PM
I don't know if this point has been raised already in the thread but will their be a sales only album chart?
Yes, I did read somewhere that there will still be a sales-only albums chart.
Posted by: §þiŋŋiŋğ Å&# Feb 12 2015, 05:34 PM
Great!
So will there also be a streaming only albums chart? Obviously it works differently to the thing with singles but will this happen also?
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