People think the old way charts were compiled actually represented the reality. But not everyone could afford to buy music they liked. These days even a free Youtube stream contributes to the chart so streaming is much more inclusive in general.

 

Perhaps it’s not the charts that changed due to the new rules but maybe they are now actually much more accurate than before.

 

Not sure affordability was a major factor, the chart has always been hugely influenced by teenagers since the late 50s when that word was created to symbolise the music they listened to and purchased which was of course reflected in the charts. This age group notoriously have the least spending power because they mainly don’t have high paid jobs. That’s not to say they could buy everything they wanted but I’m sure they brought what they really loved.

But then you were listening to something that included the song? It’s just the nature of streaming and we’re bound to stream a song we didn’t mean to. Can’t control that. I make my own playlist to only listen to music I want to.

 

No, not really. Often it plays a "suggested" track after a playlist has finished or if I search something and play a song it will play something afterwards deemed similar.

 

But even so, assuming this does happen a lot in curated playlists it emphasises my point and how representative is it exactly?

I think the current system works as a good halfway point between the chart being a promotional tool for new music + artists, and representing true popularity of a song.

 

Isn't the true purpose of the chart the latter point though? There are other mediums to promote new music, there's no reason to compromise the integrity of the charts just so charts could be "interesting" or for promotional purposes.

 

To answer OP's question; No ACR is already a mistake to begin with that has caused a rift between true popularity and the charts.

I say this every time this ridiculous argument pops up but it bears repeating again. Surely people don't think that streams which come from people not liking a song but accidentally letting it play for 30 seconds before skipping it amount to anything more than negligible noise when songs need hundreds of thousands of streams in a week to make the chart.

I say this every time this ridiculous argument pops up but it bears repeating again. Surely people don't think that streams which come from people not liking a song but accidentally letting it play for 30 seconds before skipping it amount to anything more than negligible noise when songs need hundreds of thousands of streams in a week to make the chart.

Maybe it's just me: but I couldn't tell you how many times I have music on which I haven't really been listening to, and before long 20 songs have played, and they I haven't registered a single one of them...

 

Just because a playlist is on, doesn't mean I care about the songs that are on. If I care about them, I will either buy them or seek to listen to them myself. To me, the chart should be measuring how many people are discovering (and enjoying this newly discovered) music - not what music is being played (that can be covered in airplay and streaming charts).

 

Genuinely popular music will provoke replays, should these replays be counted forever... Probably not. Each person should be able to contribute one sale per song... To me, that means 1 SES per person. 0.1 sales per full play; if the song is played by someone 10 times (in full), they probably like the song and have contributed 1 sale towards its lifetime total. Count stops there - more popular music gets visibility and the charts reflect what music people are discovering!

 

EDIT: And yes; I will forever hammer this idea that's never gonna happen, I just think it's the best way of ensuring all consumption is treated in a similar way. 🙈🙈🙈

Edited December 10, 20204 yr by Juranamo

There are other mediums to promote new music, there's no reason to compromise the integrity of the charts just so charts could be "interesting" or for promotional purposes.

We rank music by popularity primarily because it has utility to the music industry and its various stakeholders. Integrity is worth pursuing as long as it makes the chart more useful, but if it ever reduces the utility of the chart, it ought to and will be compromised. This is how we arrived at ACR in the first place, obviously.

 

Maybe ACR isn't the right way to make the chart function in the streaming era but I don't think this conversation can be had from a place of "maximum integrity is inherently good". For you it's good because it makes the chart more interesting for you if it's more legitimate, but that is obviously personal. If we're to talk getting rid of ACR, we need to talk about who actually benefits from doing that. From my perspective it looks bad for labels and artists, bad for the OCC, bad for music industry stakeholders (e.g. radio), bad for music fans and controversial for chart fans. It looks difficult to argue in favour of the change based on that.

A stream cap per song thats not counted after so many plays by subscribers towards any chart. After a certain amount they can still stream but it would not be chart counted. A paid for sale gets played many times but doesnt get counted so apply the rule in some way to streaming.

Do we actually have any idea how many times people listen to same song? I know I play Gaga tracks like 100 times, but don't think average Joes really have songs on replay that much, dunno.

Do we actually have any idea how many times people listen to same song? I know I play Gaga tracks like 100 times, but don't think average Joes really have songs on replay that much, dunno.

According to this article people listen to 25 hours of music a month, so extrapolate that and it's only about 3,000-5,000 streams a year, so not much room to push the 1 sale equivalent bar.

Edited December 10, 20204 yr by Dircadirca

Oh thanks!

 

It's also worth remembering that for instance Ariana Grande has her fans and way more limited audience than Christmas songs, as everyone listens to the same songs - or maybe not everyone but there is of course huge difference.

Edited December 10, 20204 yr by Sour Candy

I think it depends on your streaming habits

I see a lot of people at work that always listen to the same playlists on a loop, so sure they listen to the same songs a lot of times

For instance people that now only stream Christmas playlists sure they have streamed Mariah a lot of times.

 

A cap sure would be better than ACR but in a way ACR is a sorta cap, so at least they tried something, it's not ideal but it's something.

No, not really. Often it plays a "suggested" track after a playlist has finished or if I search something and play a song it will play something afterwards deemed similar.

If you're not aware, you can turn that off in the settings:

 

perhaps if they limited it to 10 streams per user per song ever ever, these christmas songs wouldn’t be as dominant.

 

exactly!!

Chart riggers would create several streaming accounts :heehee:

Edited December 10, 20204 yr by Sour Candy

To respond to replies about listening to music being "popularity". people listen to music passively while doing something else, if you're on the phone you don;t skip tracks, it counts as popularity by not skipping even if it might be something you hate.

 

The function of the charts has never historically been anything to do with what people listen to or how often they listen to it, be it radio, tape, or your own record collection. Charts pre-streaming were entirely about what people felt strongly enough about to BUY. If you weren't bothered enough to buy it it got no sales. a million people "quite liking" something did not register on music charts in the UK, 100,000 totally loving something enough to buy it registered sales for one week only, and as soon as all the people loving it enough to buy it had bought it it dropped out the chart and was replaced by something else that another batch of people were enthusiastic enough about. All ages and genres got represented cos it was a level playing field.

 

That's not the case now. Streaming companies have enormous power to make hits purely by the playlist choices they make, and they are skewed towards a younger age group who have more leisure time to spend on listening to music. Frontload tracks they pick up more plays than tracks lower down the list and busy people listen for half an hour before moving on. It's really no different from radio stations using formula to play only tracks that listeners arent going to switch off by changing channels, it's all geared around feeding you more of the same of what you show you like every time you choose to play a playlist.

 

"Alexa play Xmas songs" Alexa: OK here's Mariah Carey followed by our exclusive new Amazon Xmas single you have to listen to while you're in the iamspamspamamidoing dinner before I get round to Wham!.

 

We have Alexa, I see how it works..... :D

Think we need to resolve the issue of % of money artists get from streaming!

passive playlisting has ruined the charts. It's not representative of what people choose to hear, only the TYPE of things people choose to hear. It's no different from me choosing to listen to radio 2, yet that doesnt count towards the charts.

 

Music charts should reflect what people are passionate about, not what they don't find offensive enough to bother to turn off. If they buy it that shows they are passionate about it. Personal playlists should be the only sort to contribute towards chart places, and album plays should be albums only. It's not 2 plays. It's one play - either the entire album was played or it was individual tracks played. It's not both. This nonsense about 80% of tracks getting a singles play = an album sale as well is just desperate marketing to inflate album "sales". Half the streaming population playing a new album week one is not a reflection of it's popularity, it's a reflection of curiosity about it. If week 2 plays are not as big, it's fair to say that it's not actually as popular or people would have kept playing it.

 

I was probably the exception rather than the rule, but back in the day when the charts were mostly physical I used to buy singles because I was passionate about collecting them, and about not having obvious gaps in my collection, and not because I was neccessarily passionate about any particular individual single. Fast forward to now and I have boxes and boxes of cassettes and cds in what is supposed to be the broom cupboard, plus a spare room full of vinyl, all of which cost a lot to collect, and yet I usually just use youtube to listen to/watch music nowadays.

I think the charts should be a level playing field, and that ACR goes against that as it is, so I don't think double ACR should happen. The more complicated, confusing and arbitary the chart rules get the harder it is for the average person to understand how the chart is compiled, and therefore the harder it is for them to understand what significance being number one is even meant to have. The chart has always had rules, but in the old days it was a straight tally of sales (admittedly in the very early days this was extrapolated from a small sample of retailers), with the highest seller at number one, which was really simple for even the most casual of chart music followers to understand, and any rules that did exist were there to keep the playing field level. Nowadays there are so many rules, and they mostly exist to purposely make the playing field less level rather than more level, and also serve to make things too complicated, to the point that even the more dedicated chart enthusiast is likely to get confused with it all at some point. Another point is that if the chart rules are so complicated, doesn't it make it harder for us to know if we can even trust they are calcuated correctly, and therefore potentially easier for the compliers or industry to just straight make it up (not saying they actually are making anything up, but all the different ratios etc would be the perfect obfuscation for it were they to decide to start making it up to purpose hinder or favour any particular release, artist or label).

Double ACR is pointless

I think the charts should be a level playing field, and that ACR goes against that as it is, so I don't think double ACR should happen. The more complicated, confusing and arbitary the chart rules get the harder it is for the average person to understand how the chart is compiled, and therefore the harder it is for them to understand what significance being number one is even meant to have. The chart has always had rules, but in the old days it was a straight tally of sales (admittedly in the very early days this was extrapolated from a small sample of retailers), with the highest seller at number one, which was really simple for even the most casual of chart music followers to understand, and any rules that did exist were there to keep the playing field level. Nowadays there are so many rules, and they mostly exist to purposely make the playing field less level rather than more level, and also serve to make things too complicated, to the point that even the more dedicated chart enthusiast is likely to get confused with it all at some point. Another point is that if the chart rules are so complicated, doesn't it make it harder for us to know if we can even trust they are calcuated correctly, and therefore potentially easier for the compliers or industry to just straight make it up (not saying they actually are making anything up, but all the different ratios etc would be the perfect obfuscation for it were they to decide to start making it up to purpose hinder or favour any particular release, artist or label).

 

they do make errors, but we're only humans

a big one I recall is when Eminem released his Revival album and one album track In Your Head charted in the top 20 despite being one of the lowest in all streaming sites/sales etc and it was cos there was an error with the song's code or something so was getting extra sales from somewhere else... of course the occ never corrected it afterwards... same happened with One Direction I think...

 

but that's a proper genuine error

 

the Mariah thing is just silly conspiracy theories from loons especially those YT sales... people that think that clearly don't follow the charts much especially the YT chart