Actually it did probably happen in the download era before streaming counted towards the chart with The Pogues and Kirsty and Mariah Carey as they returned to the chart every year in the late 00s/early 10s! :o

 

Though they did show some signs of slowing down towards the end of the download era. It's possible that some people might've bought it on Amazon one year, lost the MP3 and then bought it again on another store. But I know in iTunes for example it isn't possible to re-purchase a song you have already bought - at least not on the same account! I would imagine it was mostly different people downloading each year, as more and more people started using the services.

While a 'first play' chart would be interesting to examine, I don't think it would make for a valid chart, what we have now I think is fine as is (I dislike the new OCC rules but that's aside the point) even if the nature of it makes it boring. I often feel like there's this weird demographic of people who get all their new music from the charts and then cry foul that the chart isn't exciting enough, even though they themselves are perpetuating that very status quo.

 

It's a weird irony that the chart's focus correlates with how dull it is, because as soon as the top 40/50 specifically reach a big audience, it's a promotional tool just for those big hits, only increasing the hurdle for everything else. This is largely Spotify's fault; just imagine how much the chart would change if they only let people see their own national charts, or changed those top 50s to top 200s like Apple has. It's kind of fascinating how much the user interface of one application affects the chart so majorly.

Why does it feel mostly accurate?

It does what it's meant to - reflects the most popular songs of the week. Of course, playlists skew things in terms of Spotify, but that's just the same as how 59p reductions skew iTunes sales, or any other form of promotion. The system isn't perfect, songs shouldn't have to rely on Hot Hits to do well really, but that's the way it goes and if that didn't exist, it'd be a different playlist instead, there's no real way to avoid it. Generally though, there seems to be less of a disparity between iTunes and Spotify compared to a year ago, and ACR has helped speed up the pace to allow newer music to get more exposure. Not perfect, but it serves its purpose pretty well.

 

That wouldn't work. Registering a whole sale from simply streaming a song for 30 seconds? Doesn't seem right to me. Also it would mean acts with huge fanbases would debut at #1 with ridiculously high sales and then fall off a cliff because everyone had already heard the song.

Oh I'm aware of that, it was just thinking out loud really. Perhaps it wouldn't work but it's slightly more in tune with how the sales chart works at least.

 

Mostly agree with you here but don't forget that a lot of people aren't as sophisticated music lovers as we are here. A lot of people do just put Hot Hits UK, or Spotify Top 50 and leave it on, as if it's the radio.

Perhaps, but ocne again, there's no way to verify who is and isn't being an active listener to the music they're playing, hence why playlist plays couldn't just be ignored.

The article overlooks the fact that all the tracks from ÷ were in the top 40 sales chart in its release week.

 

That aside, it makes some good points. However, the idea of ignoring ever stream from a playlist is just sill. I will often use a playlist list to cherry-pick tracks. Surely they should count just as much as if I had searched for the songs. Besides, I also sometimes pick out tracks from playlists of new songs. That can be the first time I knew the song existed.

 

I do agree though that streams of a whole playlist (or almost all of it) should perhaps have a different ratio from other streams. As I have said before, they could also treat albums the same way and dump the three song rule.

It does what it's meant to - reflects the most popular songs of the week. Of course, playlists skew things in terms of Spotify, but that's just the same as how 59p reductions skew iTunes sales, or any other form of promotion. The system isn't perfect, songs shouldn't have to rely on Hot Hits to do well really, but that's the way it goes and if that didn't exist, it'd be a different playlist instead, there's no real way to avoid it. Generally though, there seems to be less of a disparity between iTunes and Spotify compared to a year ago, and ACR has helped speed up the pace to allow newer music to get more exposure. Not perfect, but it serves its purpose pretty well.

 

Does it though? Is the #1 most listened-to song necessarily the most popular? And there is a way of avoiding it - using the data in a more sophisticated way so it isn't as simple as x streams = y sales.

 

ACR was a step in the right direction but doesn't go far enough.

Why can't a person's impact on the chart by listening to a particular song be limited to one chart sale? I.e. based on the current ratio, once X has listened to a song 150 times any further listens do not add to the song's chart total?

Some good points made in that article, they did fail to point out their is a daily cap. But given you can contribute 70 streams per week and 100 = 1 digital download, Its still relatively easy for someone to keep listening to it on loop for a few weeks and keep the song lodged up at the top of the chart.

 

Reducing it so one play = 1 sale is too drastic and personally id feel cheated that by listening to a song once or for 30 seconds would count towards a chart if i was listening out of curiosity. That said there needs to be some kind of permeant cap in place, its a very simple solution and solves many problems. ACR may have speeded up the chart to small degree at the expense of older songs, but it wont fix the problem and Despacito illustrated that in the summer as it still managed to be no.1 purely because its streaming was so huge.

 

 

Some good points made in that article, they did fail to point out their is a daily cap. But given you can contribute 70 streams per week and 100 = 1 digital download, Its still relatively easy for someone to keep listening to it on loop for a few weeks and keep the song lodged up at the top of the chart.

70 streams a week, the maximum, gives you 0.46666... chart sales (as the ratio is 150 streams = 1 download), so not even half a download. One person spinning it on repeat wouldn't be anywhere near enough to keep a song lodged up at the top of the chart, it'd take a hell of a lot of people to do that and it just isn't feasible week on week.

Despacito illustrated that in the summer as it still managed to be no.1 purely because its streaming was so huge.

 

Actually in its final two weeks at number 1 it was #1 on the sales chart too. It was also #1 on the sales chart the week it dipped to #2 because of ACR (21 July 2017).

the charts feel really accurate rn in terms of being a representation of the most popular songs around, no need for any change. they're really not that bad.

Maybe the only solution is to split it into TWO charts? An official sales chart and an official streaming chart? Keep the made-up, irrartional ratios as are, and just make it a new chart. I think the top40 is past saving, too, and is highly irrelevant, with rules made up as they go along.

 

Also, who is skankhunt42 and why has he taken one of my old usernames?? I was called skankhunt42 earlier this year!!

Maybe the only solution is to split it into TWO charts? An official sales chart and an official streaming chart? Keep the made-up, irrartional ratios as are, and just make it a new chart. I think the top40 is past saving, too, and is highly irrelevant, with rules made up as they go along.

That's what they do already, the sales and streaming charts are published on the OCC site!

the charts feel really accurate rn in terms of being a representation of the most popular songs around, no need for any change. they're really not that bad.

 

Agree with this. People just like to complain for complaining's sake. When streaming came in people kept bringing up the ratio, that was altered people still complained, after the Ed-debacle people screamed for artist caps, we now have that & people still aren't happy. It's literally impossible at this stage whatever the OCC do.

That's what they do already, the sales and streaming charts are published on the OCC site!

 

But combined, giving alsoran acts more sales and records than the Spice Girls or Beatles or Madonna!

Also, who is skankhunt42 and why has he taken one of my old usernames?? I was called skankhunt42 earlier this year!!

 

I do not recall you having that name over the past 44 hours tbh.

 

As for the charts, they are what they are. They stopped being of interest to me a while ago, I do not care for streaming. I’m more upset that’s they’ve finally made the Year End chart look ridiculous.

Having been on BuzzJack for almost 12 years I can safely say that when we had new #1s every week people would moan that we need a slower chart, now when we have massive popular hits, people moan that we need faster charts. The fact is people will never be happy.

 

As for the article, it does make some good points but their analysis is also truly terrible. Discounting playlist plays?? Ridiculous. Of course record companies can manipulate playlist positioning etc. but as someone said earlier in this thread, it is hardly different to the old strategy McFly, Westlife etc. used to get #1s.

 

I think the chart right now is a good representation of what is popular right now. We just have to accept that people will jump on bandwagons months after we are all bored to death of the songs!

It might have some good points but for me that's bad journalism as the main fact that the article is build on

is actually wrong

poor Ed Sheeran, love him or hate him, the Divide tracks did not chart only thanks to streams as all the tracks from the regular version

where charting on itunes pure sales too

a lot of album tracks have charted only cos of their streams (Drake, Kendrick) but not Ed, so

journalists should get their facts right, especially when that's the central point of the article

 

Also making a point about fans being able to stream tracks on a loop and mis-influence the charts, when there's a daily cap in action that we all know about except the article writer

 

also I think it's very exaggerated and over the place, sure the occ is not perfect, but the situation is not as bad as depicted

and he proposes at least some alternative, although it's not a reasonable one

 

in regards to playlists, I also mainly listen to playlists but hardly ever starting from track 1 til track 50, mostly I checked the songs and listen to the ones I like only, and I skip things I don't like, I also listen to a lot of artist-created playlists, all those This is Damien Rice, This is St vincent, This is Alanis Morissette

 

I actually disagree 100% with the 3-song-per-artist rule, if Eds tracks sell well on itunes and all should be top 40, so be it, thats what people are buying. In cases like Eminem or Drake, it's all cos of streams but actually I wouldn't put a limit, the better solution would be to separate album streams, cos most people are streaming the whole album or most of it, not just randomly streaming 1 song

 

thats one of the biggest issues I have now actually, double counting, cos songs are streamed and count for both singles and album charts, especially all those album streams

 

the only thing that I agree is with the equivalence to sales, I wouldn't use a 1:1 cos many people use spotify just to check tracks, curiosity streams, but fot instance I would use a rule that after 10 streams, you get a sale, and that's it, you don't contribute to the charts anymore

 

70 streams a week, the maximum, gives you 0.46666... chart sales (as the ratio is 150 streams = 1 download), so not even half a download. One person spinning it on repeat wouldn't be anywhere near enough to keep a song lodged up at the top of the chart, it'd take a hell of a lot of people to do that and it just isn't feasible week on week.

 

Ah yes I keep forgetting the weekly one is different. That said whilst I personally haven't streamed a song 10 times each week for several weeks I'm sure some people do, especially given some of the spotify posters Ive seen over the xmas period where people have streamed something 3-4000 times over the year. Whilst that may be an extreme case and obviously not all of those streams would have converted into chart sales, I'm sure a lot of people manage to at least stream something 10 times or thereabouts in a week over a 4-5 week period. Christmas songs being a very good example actually based on each year being added up. It would be better if once it is streamed enough to count as one download equivalent it should no longer be counted.

 

 

Actually in its final two weeks at number 1 it was #1 on the sales chart too. It was also #1 on the sales chart the week it dipped to #2 because of ACR (21 July 2017).

 

Yes but my point was even with ACR clamping its sales in half it still managed to be no.1.

the article is largely correct, and the proposed solution makes much more sense up to a point: the point being we still need to show albums as albums, not as individual tracks, unless they are actually highlighted and promoted as singles. If 10 out of 14 tracks are downloaded or listened to by the same person, it's an album more or less. Sheeran clearly was album sales masquerading as singles.

Having been on BuzzJack for almost 12 years I can safely say that when we had new #1s every week people would moan that we need a slower chart, now when we have massive popular hits, people moan that we need faster charts. The fact is people will never be happy.

 

As for the article, it does make some good points but their analysis is also truly terrible. Discounting playlist plays?? Ridiculous. Of course record companies can manipulate playlist positioning etc. but as someone said earlier in this thread, it is hardly different to the old strategy McFly, Westlife etc. used to get #1s.

 

I think the chart right now is a good representation of what is popular right now. We just have to accept that people will jump on bandwagons months after we are all bored to death of the songs!

 

I think it is different - a song coming up in a playlist and you not being bothered enough by it to skip it (which is no different to a radio station playing a song and you not bothering to change stations - so pretty much the same as airplay then!)

 

vs.

 

spending a lot on promotion, and manipulating release schedules - but in the end the customer still makes their own decision to part with cash to own the single

 

very different