I really don't get them sometimes, so lady gaga has gone top in 5 hours, but surely she's not sold more than jessie j and champion have all week? Or has she? AAlso, when a song is released on a sunday, why does it always start low for a few hours before it climbs to number 1? Surely if its more popular its more poular and more people are buying it from the first second, i mean the fans know it's released. So why isn't it number 1 straight away as they obviously are selling more than the others

She's sold more since 2pm than Jessie J has since 8:06pm (at the time of this post) on Wednesday.

 

Pop bars are the relative popularity of each song over the last 48 hours, with the most popular song in that timeframe being given max bars and the rest decided by their percentage of the #1's sales.

 

Pop bars increase when the #1 is having more sales taken away from it because they'd happened more than 48 hours previously, than they are gaining (I know that made no sense but I can't explain it clearer), when a song is gaining sales at a faster rate than the #1, or when a song has been out less than 48 hours and is still 'building up' its pop bar so to speak. The pop bar is only accurate from 48 hours after the release.

Edited February 11, 201114 yr by ★BlindFaithBray★

I really don't get them sometimes, so lady gaga has gone top in 5 hours, but surely she's not sold more than jessie j and champion have all week? Or has she? AAlso, when a song is released on a sunday, why does it always start low for a few hours before it climbs to number 1? Surely if its more popular its more poular and more people are buying it from the first second, i mean the fans know it's released. So why isn't it number 1 straight away as they obviously are selling more than the others

It's a rolling chart. However, Apple have never said what period it covers - whether it's 24 hours, 48 hours or some other period.

Yeah, we think the pop bars represent sales from the past 48 hours (we're not 100% sure, but there's evidence to support that assumption), so going by that, what Bray said.

 

They represent the past 2 days (most likely), rather than the past 7 days! Now THAT would be insane-selling from Lady Gaga's part. Also, if it was a 7 day chart, it'll take songs a whole week to get to their "full" pop bar, so to speak, which would be weird, as that would lead to a lot of #1s getting announced as the #1 not long after they get to #1 on iTunes. A 7 day chart wouldn't be too representative of what's selling most at the time, whilst a, say, 1 hour chart would fluctuate far too much!

I'm pretty sure it is definitely 48 hours. I notice that new releases always tend to peak around Monday night most of the time, and then stabalise in the same area roughly (or start dropping). But on Monday morning they're still climbing rapidly, so it doesn't really make sense that it would be a 24 hour chart IMO, as they'd surely have to "defend" their sales from the day before so wouldn't still be climbing so fast.

 

Like Loick Essien this week was only #43 at the end of Sunday night. Then by Monday night he had jumped up to #25. If it was a 24 hour chart he wouldn't have been able to climb that fast still then if it was a 48 hour chart, as he'd have sales dropping off as well, whereas on the 48 hour chart he wouldn't. By Tuesday he had already started falling. And this pattern goes for most new releases from what I've seen whenever I look, so I don't think it's just that Loick Essien didn't front-load all his sales into one day or whatever.

 

I do wish there was some confirmation though. Has anybody ever tried contacting them about it and asking, or do they try and keep their chart formula a secret? (god knows why they would want to do that though, unless they think people could manipulate it or something if they know how it worked).

Edited February 11, 201114 yr by superbossanova

Why don't they just start from scratch at midnight on a saturday though, and go from there, so a scratch start every week. Surely that would make more sense?

It would fuck the chart up though, so many changes would happen.

 

A rolling chart is best!

It would fuck the chart up though, so many changes would happen.

 

A rolling chart is best!

 

This. If you started from scratch on Saturday mid-nights, the chart would be ridiculous on Sunday mornings, and would not be representative of what's most popular at the time. Plus, around X Factor time the whole initial top 10 would probably be songs performed on the show. :lol:

 

Plus, there's the other issue that it would be FAR too easy to get any old song on the front page of iTunes, so tens of thousands of people see it when they wake up.

I think bars reflect sales from update to update.

I think bars reflect sales from update to update.

 

That can't be possible, because when tracks get made "album only", they can take over a day to fall out of the top 1,000, whilst if the bars reflected the sales between updates, then they'd disappear straight-away, pretty much.

When The Wanted's All Time Low was deleted after being accidentally added early, it didn't vanish from the feed until pretty much exactly 48 hours after it was deleted, that should be proof enough.

 

IIRC it was dropping out from the 700s or so, which pretty much rules out it being a coincidence.

I don't get it.

If that48 hours thing is true than gaga shouldn't be #on itunes until sunday?

I don't get it.

If that48 hours thing is true than gaga shouldn't be #on itunes until sunday?

You misunderstood. I was talking more about the lower new entries when I said they usually peak positions-wise on Monday nights (if you're referring to my post).

 

If a song gets to #1 before 48 hours, it means it's sold more than anyone else in the same time frame with less hours on it. So, Gaga was #1 in like 5 hours, I believe, which means she sold more in those 5 hours than Chipmunk and Jessie J did in the previous 48 hours (as they've been available the entire week).

 

It's highly likely, though, that Gaga's sales will be at their highest in the iTunes time period (at least for this week) on Sunday afternoon, before her sales from today drop off. But that might not necessarily show in the pop bars as it's all measured relative to the #1, and Gaga's bar will always be the same size.

You misunderstood. I was talking more about the lower new entries when I said they usually peak positions-wise on Monday nights (if you're referring to my post).

 

If a song gets to #1 before 48 hours, it means it's sold more than anyone else in the same time frame with less hours on it. So, Gaga was #1 in like 5 hours, I believe, which means she sold more in those 5 hours than Chipmunk and Jessie J did in the previous 48 hours (as they've been available the entire week).

 

It's highly likely, though, that Gaga's sales will be at their highest in the iTunes time period (at least for this week) on Sunday afternoon, before her sales from today drop off. But that might not necessarily show in the pop bars as it's all measured relative to the #1, and Gaga's bar will always be the same size.

hm... interesting, i never thought that way.

I think gaga is #1 because in those 5 hrs she sold more than jessie did in 5 hrs, not 48.

is that why alot of itunes releases have fridays date on them??

hm... interesting, i never thought that way.

I think gaga is #1 because in those 5 hrs she sold more than jessie did in 5 hrs, not 48.

Sorry, but that makes no sense. They have to keep the same time period all the time for the sake of fairness, and just because Gaga got to #1 in 5 hours does not mean the time period is 5 hours, lol. Most new songs do not get to #1 that fast - it varies but the average is probably about 1 day. Some can take up to 2 though, but it's very rare for any to take more than that (although Champion did this week - just, as it got to #1 on Tuesday morning - and Price Tag did, too, funnily enough, but those are the first ones in quite a while, and Price Tag was actually behind in the first midweeks too which suggests it IS 48 hours or less [Chipmunk was ahead, mind, but he did have physical sales too, I believe, and the gap was very small on Monday night between him and Jessie, so that would have cut the lead from Jessie who is only out on downloads]).

 

Gaga is an exception because the song is selling so fast it's already outselling everyone else while it's been out MUCH less time. That's why it got to #1 in 5 hours, because it's simply very very popular right now.

 

Besides, the #1 would be changing all the time if the time period was THAT narrow anyway, not to mention the rest of the chart would be all over the place. It's definitely between 24-72 hours. It's too fast to be any higher, and too slow for it to be any lower. Most people here seem to agree on 48 hours for various reasons, some of which have been stated here already.

Edited February 12, 201114 yr by superbossanova

It's fine the way it is, imo.

We should be glad we have popbars, they're interesting and fun to look at every now and then so you can check up on your favourite artist and see how they're doing :)