It varies from song to song I think. Like Skinny Love by Birdy went top 10 on iTunes, but didn't climb very much. But you see other songs climb loads when they get in. Like if, say, a Lady Gaga song randomly went top 10 on iTunes, everybody would rush to see what it was, so it would get a huge boost.

 

vidcapper is right that people only buy songs they like (usually), but people also only buy songs that they know exist. Being in the top 10 on iTunes puts you on the front page of iTunes, and it's great promotion for the song. I'm sure a lot of people bought Cannonball because they saw it in the top 10 on iTunes, listened to see what it was, then realized they heard the song on X Factor a few days ago, and that they really liked it.

 

There's also the fact that there's often a huge gap between #11 and #10. I'm sure the most common positions for songs to "peak" on iTunes are #1 and #11. Which is evidence for the top 10 effect.

 

That's basically a good summary of what I wanted to say - it affects established artists more because they have the kind of casual fans that might download a song without hearing it if it goes top 10. The effect on iTunes is pretty apparent given that the gap between #10 and 11 is almost always larger than the gaps between #9 and 10 or #11 and 12, this will have some effect on the official charts given that the majority of chart sales come from iTunes.

 

Case in point one: "I Can" by Blue was very close to climbing into the top 10 following Eurovision, but stalled at #11 and then proceeded to drop back down and only charted at #22.

 

Case in point two: replace "I Can" with "Know Your Enemy", "Blue" with "Green Day" and "Eurovision" with "American Idiot" and you have the reason for why I'm so bitter about the UK charts.

 

Case in point three: "Loser Like Me" by the Glee Cast was easily top 10 combined at some point during the week of the episode's airing, but because this was split between the album and single versions neither ever dented the top 10 and the song fell short officially. By contrast, their cover of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" just about broke into the top 10 and proceeded to vault to #2 within a few hours, charting at #9 officially.

Case in point three: "Loser Like Me" by the Glee Cast was easily top 10 combined at some point during the week of the episode's airing, but because this was split between the album and single versions neither ever dented the top 10 and the song fell short officially. By contrast, their cover of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" just about broke into the top 10 and proceeded to vault to #2 within a few hours, charting at #9 officially.

 

I remember Thriller/Heads Will Roll and another one of the mash-ups both peaked at #11 aswell.

 

Various versions of Turn My Swag On also had mutliple peaks at #11, which annoyed me greatly. It's a very common place to peak on iTunes. I think if we could collect data of the most commonly peaked iTunes positions, #11 would be one of the most common, and #10 would be one of the least common (at least higher up the chart).

To clarify a little more :

 

I intended this thread to be about whether the itunes effect had a significant effect on the overall chart, not just itunes own. Most people here seem to agree that it does on the latter, but it appears as though it doesn't on the former.

 

 

The point of the thread is the question:

 

"Does the top 10 effect exist?"

The answer is simple: 'Yes.' Debate Closed.

The only thing that can be said is it will have different effect on different songs/artists.

Edited September 24, 201113 yr by Karma

well, in that case then yes it does, Bass Down Low wasn't top 10 in the midweeks then went as high as 8 on Itunes on Friday/Saturday and went in at 10 on the official chart, also I'm pretty sure Super Bass did a similar thing

Edited September 24, 201113 yr by C.W

*Reaches for pedant's hat*

 

There is a difference between mathematical proof and common sense. Getting into the iTunes top ten does appear to be followed by a boost in sales. The evidence for that is pretty strong. However, that does not prove that there is a causal relationship. All we can say is that there are common sense reasons to believe that there is a causal effect and that there are no other plausible explanations.

 

*Returns pedant's hat to cupboard*

 

 

The point of the thread is the question:

 

"Does the top 10 effect exist?"

The answer is simple: 'Yes.' Debate Closed.

 

I'd like to modift that a little - the effect exists, but it is not quantifiable.

 

 

I'd like to modift that a little - the effect exists, but it is not quantifiable.

 

Why does it need to be quantifiable? That's a completely different question.

*Reaches for pedant's hat*

 

There is a difference between mathematical proof and common sense. Getting into the iTunes top ten does appear to be followed by a boost in sales. The evidence for that is pretty strong. However, that does not prove that there is a causal relationship. All we can say is that there are common sense reasons to believe that there is a causal effect and that there are no other plausible explanations.

 

*Returns pedant's hat to cupboard*

 

I suppose one way would be to see if there are fewer songs peaking low in the T10 than there were a few years ago, and if any difference was statistically significant.

I suppose one way would be to see if there are fewer songs peaking low in the T10 than there were a few years ago, and if any difference was statistically significant.

That still wouldn't prove that there is a causal effect although it would strengthen the belief that there is.

None in my opinion.

LMFAO climbed to #11 on Thursday afternoon, it's taken them about 92 hours to climb to #10, let's see how much they can climb in the next couple of days....

LMFAO climbed to #11 on Thursday afternoon, it's taken them about 92 hours to climb to #10, let's see how much they can climb in the next couple of days....

 

It's up to #8 now.

And it's now #6. 47.1% of #1 in comparison to just 29% for the #11. Fairly safe to say this is yet another example of the top 10 effect in clear sight, as it climbed nowhere near that fast in all the time it was #11 for.

Hi I've often felt some of my favourite songs were often stalling at number 11 or finding it a struggle to get past that particular chart position. I'm thinking this could be why. Bre please could you tell me if you have stats for how many peaks below the top 10 this year and specifically how many at number 11, which I'm willing to bet is a rather higher number than for number 10.

Hi I've often felt some of my favourite songs were often stalling at number 11 or finding it a struggle to get past that particular chart position. I'm thinking this could be why. Bre please could you tell me if you have stats for how many peaks below the top 10 this year and specifically how many at number 11, which I'm willing to bet is a rather higher number than for number 10.

 

There have been 6 #11s this year so far (excluding F**k You! which has a 2011 peak of #11)

 

For the rest of the top 15:

 

1 #12 (as with #7 this seems odd, but 'Wonderman' is really the only song this year that's peaked at #12!)

5 #13s

6 #14s

6 #15s

 

So yes, it is far more likely for a song to stall in the top 15 than to peak at #10.

Thanks for that Bre. I also get the feeling that teen oriented music gets into the top 10 whilst 'older' oriented stuff will stall just before number ten. The one I remember personally was few years ago when a Pet Shop Boys comeback stalled at 11, that I was convinced would be a bigger hit.

And it's now #6. 47.1% of #1 in comparison to just 29% for the #11. Fairly safe to say this is yet another example of the top 10 effect in clear sight, as it climbed nowhere near that fast in all the time it was #11 for.

After taking around 90 hours for it to climb from 11 to 10, it's taken about 55 to overtake 9 of the songs that it stalled behind!

After taking around 90 hours for it to climb from 11 to 10, it's taken about 55 to overtake 9 of the songs that it stalled behind!

As clear as it ever needed to be. And conversely, the song that was hanging on in the top 10 (Pixie Lott's All About Tonight) with a stable pop bar prior to LMFAO's entrance, has now dropped to #17 in that same 55 hour period.