I agree that ACR is arbitrary, and they need to come up with a better way of doing it. But since streaming is now part of the sales chart, we have to accept that it's no longer possible just to add each sale/stream up and say "this is the chart", because adding sales to streams together like that is in itself meaningless. We have to work out what we want the chart to reflect and keep tweaking the rules until we get something that does mean something. For me, the song that deserves to be #1 isn't necessarily the song that has racked up the most streams that week.

Yeah I do agree, streaming + sales aren't congruent interactions and the sheer differing nature of how the two operate (with the added spanner of how certain streaming platforms operate...) makes the chart arbitrary in both what it represents and how it acts. I kind of get the feeling that ACR was a rushed idea done to quickly satiate the outcries of what the chart is like now in order to return it to a more familiar & engaging one (though based on the OCC comment threads, it hasn't done much change there) because everyone's been raised on an ideal where the chart should be inherently interesting & exciting, something that current streaming users won't go out of their way to allow for. You can tell it wasn't fully thought through because now it's turned into all sorts of messy situations like with re-entering Christmas/post-mortem songs seemingly arbitrarily having the rule applied, and current hits having their time in the spotlight arbitrarily decided by how long the song can be propped up every 3 weeks. While I'm still not favourable to the idea either, I think I preferred the suggestion that's been made where ACR is a gradual application, like 10% each week (potentially with no cap?), so you always know there's a sense of progress if say, you thoroughly dislike a song that rhymes with Crepe Of Shoe and find its inertia to be a weekly annoyance.

Definitely agree that the 'slowly increasing ACR ratio' is the way to go. This would also encourage labels to begin promoting a different single.

Here's an interesting article on the state of the top end of the chart in 2017: http://popbitch.com/2017/12/whine-of-the-times/

 

I've included some interesting GRAPHS below because we all like a good GRAPH.

 

Percentage of chart weeks that had a number one hit in a minor key or major key

http://8ec.bf7.mwp.accessdomain.com/Gr56ann17y/uploads/2017/12/MajMinorWeeks1997.jpg

 

Average BPM of UK #1s in each year

http://8ec.bf7.mwp.accessdomain.com/Gr56ann17y/uploads/2017/12/Tempo2017.jpg

That's a brillant article that DB!

2017 was the worst year ever in terms of music for me. A distinct lack of interest and only a handful of decent songs released in what was mainly a disappointing year for me.

2017 was the worst year ever in terms of music for me. A distinct lack of interest and only a handful of decent songs released in what was mainly a disappointing year for me.

 

Both 2016 and 2017 haven't been good years for the charts for me!

Dunno.

We did have more different number ones than 2016 (which had like 10)

2017 was another rather boring year. Better than 2016, but not by much. My interest in the charts has waned quite a bit over the last couple years. 2017 didn't have much music that I really liked either, but that could be attributed to most of my favourite artists not releasing anything.