Officially the Big Top 40 is based on iTunes downloads, Apple Music streams and commercial radio airplay, but it always seems heavily weighted towards downloads.

 

Of course to be taken with a pinch of salt, but it kind of makes more sense as a year-end chart than the top 10 we saw on TOTP on Christmas Day. The problem with the OCC one now of course is that songs available from the start of the year have a huge advantage. This chart really shows how less grimey/rappy the chart would be if it wasn't for streams!

 

01 The Weeknd - Blinding Lights

02 Miley Cyrus - Midnight Sky

03 Joel Corry & MNEK - Head & Heart

04 Lady Gaga & Ariana Grande - Rain On Me

05 Jason Derulo & Jawsh 685 - Savage Love

06 Lady Gaga - Stupid Love

07 Lewis Capaldi - Before You Go

08 Dua Lipa - Physical

09 Little Mix - Break Up Song

10 Sigala & James Arthur - Lasting Lover

11 Tones & I - Dance Monkey

12 Saint John - Roses

13 Billie Eilish - No Time To Die

14 Topic & A7S - Breaking Me

15 Little Mix - Sweet Melody

16 Harry Styles - Watermelon Sugar

17 KSI & Craig David - Really Love

18 Paul Woolford - Looking For Me

19 Nathan Dawes & KSI - Lighter

20 Ariana Grande & Justin Bieber - Stuck With You

21 Roddy Ricch - Rockstar

22 Regard & Raye - Secrets

23 Jubel - Dancing In The Moonlight

24 Harry Styles - Adore You

25 Joel Corry - Lonely

26 24Goldn - Mood

27 Dua Lipa - Break My Heart

28 Harry Styles - Falling

29 Clean Bandit & Mabel - Tick Tock

30 Jax Jones & Ella Henderson - This Is Real

31 Powfu - Death Bed (Coffee For Your Head)

32 Becky Hill - Better Off Without You

33 220 Kid & Gracey - Don't Need Love

34 Tate McRae - You Broke Me First

35 Keith Urban & Pink - One Too Many

36 Becky Hill & Sigala - Heaven On My Mind

37 Maroon 5 - Memories

38 Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You

39 Sam Fischer - This City

40 BTS - Dynamite

 

P.S. Apols for incomplete/incorrect credits, cba to check them

 

Listen again - https://www.globalplayer.com/catchup/capital/uk/b8G4tyh/

Edited December 29, 20204 yr by AcerBen

Did they pull this list out of thin air?

Shocked at Lasting Lover & Really Love being that high considering they were never massive long-running hits and had less time to rack up lifetime sales compared to most songs below them.

Did they pull this list out of thin air?

They do that every week so I assume it's the same here

 

Amazing how much less ""griimey"" the chart is when your radio stations play very few hip-hop tracks... :P

Did they pull this list out of thin air?

 

No, like I said, their chart appears to be mostly based on iTunes downloads.

Presumably it can't be that heavily weighted towards downloads if the 3 charity records that would be Top 5 on downloads alone (LadBaby, Live Lounge Allstars and Michael Ball) aren't even in the Top 40! :lol:

 

I think the official chart still feels more representative despite being too weighted towards songs out at the start of the year.

 

We need a rolling 52 week chart!

Shocked at Lasting Lover & Really Love being that high considering they were never massive long-running hits and had less time to rack up lifetime sales compared to most songs below them.

 

It did reach #1 on the sales chart and spent 10 weeks in the sales top 10 though, so that's how. Plus in The Olden Days songs had most of their lifetime sales in a shorter window, which meant the end of the year chart felt more reflective of the most popular songs of the year.

 

P.S. I'm not really saying this is more "accurate" than the OCC chart - it's just interesting to compare and see what the chart might have looked like if streaming wasn't a thing. The Big Top 40 almost feels like the equivalent of Billboard's "Pop Songs" chart compared to the Hot 100, with more emphasis on mainstream pop.

Presumably it can't be that heavily weighted towards downloads if the 3 charity records that would be Top 5 on downloads alone (LadBaby, Live Lounge Allstars and Michael Ball) aren't even in the Top 40! :lol:

 

I think the official chart still feels more representative despite being too weighted towards songs out at the start of the year.

 

We need a rolling 52 week chart!

 

Good point.. I guess the end of the year chart might be points-based then. Certainly all of those were #1 on the weekly Big Top 40.

 

I said in the other thread I'd be interested to see a year-end chart that totalled up all the weekly sales for singles only whilst they were in the top 20 (or 40 maybe), just to try to make it feel like comparing like with like.

Edited December 29, 20204 yr by AcerBen

They do that every week so I assume it's the same here

 

Amazing how much less ""griimey"" the chart is when your radio stations play very few hip-hop tracks... :P

 

Obviously weighting the chart towards downloads is a deliberate choice in order to make the chart reflect their playlist more - but I wouldn't accuse them of making it up. A lot of those grime/hip-hop tracks that did well on streaming did virtually nothing on sales. E.g. Internet Money's "Lemonade" only peaked at number 24 on sales, Pop Smoke's "What You Know About Love" number 46.

Obviously weighting the chart towards downloads is a deliberate choice in order to make the chart reflect their playlist more - but I wouldn't accuse them of making it up. A lot of those grime/hip-hop tracks that did well on streaming did virtually nothing on sales. E.g. Internet Money's "Lemonade" only peaked at number 24 on sales, Pop Smoke's "What You Know About Love" number 46.

Yet there's also no sign of Cardi B's WAP and Doja Cat's Say So, both of which were sales hits...! Stupid Love in the top 10 is extremely fishy too. I'm struggling to see this chart as even slightly representative when I'm sure Capital and Heart airplay counts to a massive chunk of it, and that's probably a clearer reason for the lack of hip-hop impact (notably they snubbed WAP from their playlist).

WAP and Say So both reached number 6 on sales so might have only just missed out?

 

Stupid Love does feel a little high.. but it was still a number 1 on sales and a Big Top 40 number 1? This end of year chart may well be points based.

 

I wouldn't completely rule out them making "editorial choices" on certain records but I don't think the weekly chart is made up, and I can't see much evidence of it reflecting airplay.

 

Going back to a recent chart before the Christmas songs came back, this was the Big Top 40 from 1st November, compared with the Official Download Chart for the same week (don't forget they cover slightly different periods, and Big Top 40 is only iTunes sales). Seems pretty close.

 

1 KSI & Craig David (1)

2 Paul Harvey & BBC Philharmonic (3)

3 Little Mix (2)

4 Miley Cyrus (6)

5 Sigala & James Arthur (5)

6 Joel Corry & MNEK (7)

7 Ariana Grande (4)

8 Wes Nelson & Hardy Caprio (10)

9 Keith Urban & Pink (11)

10 Tate McRae (9)

Edited December 29, 20204 yr by AcerBen

Didn't they suspiciously completely snub The Kunts despite them pretty unambiguously doing extremely well on downloads? x

 

I really don't think there's any legitimate defending of this chart, it's been obvious bullshit from day 1. Sure it's good if you don't like hip-hop music and thus prefer the songs that make up this list, that's fine, but you still have to acknowledge that it's ultimately meaningless.

 

Is their 'methodology' even public knowledge? People always seem to only be able to give a vague guess/explanation as to what this is based on. I know the OCC chart can be equally called 'meaningless' these days if you're in the 'DAE streaming bad' camp but at least we know how their chart works, and they provide separate component charts for those who are skeptical of the combined one. Maybe I'm wrong and there is a specification of the BT40 formula out there that I just don't care enough to look up.

They did yes ^ they didn’t turn up in the top 40 at all I believe. Chart’s completely made up as far as I’m concerned. Always entertaining to see what they come up with tho

It's not ideal that they removed The Kunts rather than skipped it, and that there's a lack of transparency in the compilation methodology - but I think my above analysis does suggest it is more or less based on real figures rather than "made up". Since the OCC chart is no longer (understandably) based on pure data, you could argue that that is "made up" too.

 

And whilst I agree by not including streaming data it's not giving us the full picture, it's not meaningless either. We wouldn't bother with an iTunes thread if we considered downloads totally irrelevant.

 

I think it's at least better now than when it was just the top 10 based on the live chart, and 11-40 based on the weekly sales & airplay. Or going back further when it was the official top 10 with 11-40 mostly airplay with a bit of sales.

Edited December 29, 20204 yr by AcerBen

I preferred when it was using the live iTunes top 10 because it was at least possible that they'd have to play songs they wouldn't ordinarily play on those stations :D

 

Understandably they stopped doing that when sales fell considerably, but now it really has no transparency and they pretty much do just make it up as they go along, it seems.

 

It isn't even a representation of what it would look like without streaming since they claim to use Apple Music streaming data too.

the big top 40.. seems more weighed towards radio imo... not sales... midnight sky has spent more weeks at #1 than any other song and it had very strong airplay this year.

I can remember they seemed to make it up when they took something against George Ezra. ‘Shotgun’ had a good sales, streaming and airplay yet barely made it into their chart of the year. I don’t think it even made number 1 on their weekly chart.

Don't Start Now is stranglely absent here, that can't be down to a lack of airplay.

Is this what middle aged white people listened to the most this year?

the big top 40.. seems more weighed towards radio imo... not sales... midnight sky has spent more weeks at #1 than any other song and it had very strong airplay this year.

 

There might be a bit of radio in there, but considering songs with barely any airplay or streams like Paul Harvey and Baccara went number 2 or 3 it must be mostly sales.

 

And Midnight Sky spent 7 weeks at number 1 on Big Top 40 - compared to 4 weeks at 1 on official downloads and 5 weeks at 2. The difference there could just be explained by it being only iTunes sales and/or because the chart week is different.