I have a better idea, everyone in the UK should just do their weekly personal chart, send to the OCC and the OCC would compile the countries favourites. :D

 

But of course there would be moaning too because some people would not like why the neighbour's chart - who's got the worst taste EVER - counts as much as theirs. The ratio should be changed for those people who's got bad taste. :lol: :P

And the arbiter of taste will be me :D

The multichart to be promoted to official chart status :cheer:

I think for the sake of continuity it is better that they do not change the rate. It does reflect just how prominent streaming has become within the last few years, although it is a shame to see paid for sales dropping at such a fast rate alongside the rise of streaming.

 

If they did change it, they would have to change all of their prior streaming figures so that they all are on the same rate which would be very confusing for all parties that track such things. If they didn't then it leaves the songs that have already benefitted so much from streaming having an inflated figure compared to songs on a new rate. Both scenarios are not ideal and best to avoid.

What do you mean by out of control? :unsure:

 

I mean that songs will eventually "sell a million" in about three weeks and eventually go into the 2-3 millions. In the U.S., it was originally 1 sale per every 1,000 streams, but when streaming grew massively, it was changed to 1 sale every 1,500 streams.

Put it this way, because they count YouTube views in the States as well as streams, Baby by Justin Bieber is 12x Platinum even though it has paid-for sales of less than 5 million.

I think the model needs to be looked at otherwise saws awards will mean nothing and become a bit of a joke - We have songs going silver that don't even make the Top 100 at the moment, 'Flops' get sales awards and it kind of ruins the importance of being awarded a sales disc.

music is dirt cheap. It's cheaper now by far than it has ever been. Relative to income, and inflation, it costs nothing. In the 60's a single was pushing 10 shillings, old money. Average kid pocket money was less than a quarter of that. Over the decades the gap has narrowed gradually and you can buy several singles with average weekly kids pocket money. It's just that this young generation is used to not paying for music at all as if it's some sort of generous gift donated by the people who create it.

 

Any business that gives product away for free would last about a week before going bust - unless advertisers pay for it. :teresa:

music is dirt cheap. It's cheaper now by far than it has ever been. Relative to income, and inflation, it costs nothing. In the 60's a single was pushing 10 shillings, old money. Average kid pocket money was less than a quarter of that. Over the decades the gap has narrowed gradually and you can buy several singles with average weekly kids pocket money. It's just that this young generation is used to not paying for music at all as if it's some sort of generous gift donated by the people who create it.

 

Any business that gives product away for free would last about a week before going bust - unless advertisers pay for it. :teresa:

 

I just mute any ads that come up while I'm on spotify, anyway. :)

Just to throw another idea into the mix - perhaps the effect of streaming should be scaled down, the longer a song is in the charts?

 

e.g. this week Drake OD sold ~60k, 45k of which was streaming - however, its hard to imaging him selling an extra 45k copies this week if streaming wasn't an option, as fans would have otherwise downloaded it months ago. On that basis, ISTM the relative popularity of the song is overstated...

I wouldn't like that idea, as it would be very inconsistent.

 

Especially as some songs take ages to reach their peak (Stitches) and others get there almost instantly (One Dance)

They should make it 1000 streams = 1 sale like in the albums

They should make it 1000 streams = 1 sale like in the albums

And what is the logic behind this other than "I don't like the charts as they are"?

I liked Mint Royale's attempt

 

Mint Royale has had a go at recalculating the chart "using a bespoke formula which used week on week streaming change as a multiplier to give a new total."

 

This would be this week's chart

 

 

Personally I'd tweak it a bit so that it was based slightly more on actual sales/streams but I do like the idea of basing it on "behaviour changes" like the sales chart does.

 

Compare this with the actual chart of that week

http://www.officialcharts.com/charts/singl.../20160129/7501/

 

I do think they need to give something like this a try. Combining sales and streams as if they are the same thing doesn't make any sense, because you can only buy a song once. Streaming needs to be included in the chart but I'd prefer the chart to behave how it used to. If a song was #1 for 12 weeks before it was because more and more people were buying it. Now Drake has been #1 for 12 weeks not because it's building an audience, but because the same people are listening to it over and over again. And it's broken the chart. It's useless as a promotional tool and is severely damaging to the music industry because it means less new artists are breaking through.

Edited July 2, 20169 yr by AcerBen

I liked Mint Royale's attempt

Compare this with the actual chart of that week

http://www.officialcharts.com/charts/singl.../20160129/7501/

 

I do think they need to give something like this a try. Combining sales and streams as if they are the same thing doesn't make any sense, because you can only buy a song once. Streaming needs to be included in the chart but I'd prefer the chart to behave how it used to. If a song was #1 for 12 weeks before it was because more and more people were buying it. Now Drake has been #1 for 12 weeks not because it's building an audience, but because the same people are listening to it over and over again. And it's broken the chart. It's useless as a promotional tool and is severely damaging to the music industry because it means less new artists are breaking through.

 

I agree with that, thought the only way around it would be if the OCC just registered the first stream from somebody's IP address or Spotify/Apple Music etc account as a sale - equivalent to a paid for sale - and then never counted another stream from the same source again. That would put streams and sales on a completely level playing field and they'd both mean exactly the same thing.

 

Like you say, the charts were always about reflecting the popularity of songs as people gradually discovered them, so a 12 week #1 would have been a well-loved slow burner or a giant smash hit that more and more new listeners heard and bought as time went on and it reached new areas of the general public - basically something well loved and ingrained in popular culture.

 

The chart - at the very top end at least - partly now reflects how long it takes for people to get bored of something...

agree with that, or at least count only the first 10 times, but not ad infinitum

Yes the first stream idea count is a very good point. When you are look at sales verses streaming its totally unfair, as the point was made a sales is only counted once regardless of purchased more than once. At the moment its far too unbalanced in favour of streaming.

 

For artists though i am sure a singles that sells 100,000 in sales is far more profitable than a single that reaches 300,000 with streaming included but sales are hardly nothing.

 

When we look at Drake for example a 12 week run at number 1 sounds like huge, but in terms of actual sales it hasnt huge sales. I understand if people couldnt stream they may have purchased it but i still dont think it would be a huge huge hit only for streaming.

 

 

Yeah. I'm thinking possibly one stream a week to count per song per person toward the chart.

I agree with that, thought the only way around it would be if the OCC just registered the first stream from somebody's IP address or Spotify/Apple Music etc account as a sale - equivalent to a paid for sale - and then never counted another stream from the same source again. That would put streams and sales on a completely level playing field and they'd both mean exactly the same thing.

 

Like you say, the charts were always about reflecting the popularity of songs as people gradually discovered them, so a 12 week #1 would have been a well-loved slow burner or a giant smash hit that more and more new listeners heard and bought as time went on and it reached new areas of the general public - basically something well loved and ingrained in popular culture.

 

The chart - at the very top end at least - partly now reflects how long it takes for people to get bored of something...

 

I think it'd need to be a bit more complicated than that. If a record does 8 million streams in its week of release, how many individuals is that.. over a million?

I asked Mint Royale yesterday if he'd done any updates

 

I spent a whole day a while ago building a spreadsheet that imported sales data and applied a formula I could tweak to make a chart. I was aiming for something that applied a multiplier to downloads based on streaming change from the previous week. It was extremely complicate but in the end I gave up because 1) I couldn't find a fair formula which made enough of a difference

and 2) with streaming growing weekly it became obvious I could only find a formula that would apply at this precise moment in time. No formula could fairly take into account the growth overall in streaming (and the decline in direct downloads).

He makes a good point, any adjustment made to (as many people see it) ‘make the charts fair and more interesting’ would soon be swamped by yet another decline in sales and boost in streaming. I don't have any major objections to the ratio being changed, but don't be fooled into thinking this will be a solution to the chart stagnation, it merely delays the inevitable.

Edited July 3, 20169 yr by Doctor Blind