That's where it gets difficult :lol: In the sense that some of McCartney's solo material was solo in the strictest sense, he and Wings are separate acts. However, to confuse matters, some Wings releases were credited to Paul McCartney & Wings. There is no simple rule elating to credits which means having to examine each case individually.

 

If I were in charge of arbitrarily drawing these lines, I'd consider 'Wings' and 'Paul McCartney & Wings' to be pseudonyms of the same act, both separate from Paul on his own.

By the way - anyone that uses Python as a programming language get in contact. I have code that might be useful.

Ah I was wondering where this 'No label' default nonsense for 76-100 in '83 to '91 came from! I never would've guessed it was you KOS.... :rolleyes:

 

The OCC site is SO much better than it was in terms of what it carries. But there remain significant gaps and inconsistencies. I can to a degree excuse or tolerate these, but the glitchiness of the site per se I do struggle with, as a generally impatient chap. I'm surprised to hear that users of it on Android phones report it works well; I find it's pretty cranky on mine for reasons already rehearsed in previous posts. Nothing more irritating than clicking on a link only to find a second or so later it's moved and it's registered your click on something else (quite possibly an ad). Knowing it's little foibles does help to avoid getting frustrated by them though. To know it may not be to love it, but certainly to accept and get the best from it.

just an example of crappy the discography section is, was looking at the discography of Lil Tjay, who's about to have next week's #1

and if you check Lil Tjay you get 5 hits:

Pop Out (Polo G ft Lil Tjay) #41

FN # 69

Mood Swings (Pop Smoke ft Lil Tjay) #5

Losses #84

Move on #65

 

but then there is a separate different entry as Lil Tjay/Fivio Foreign/Smoke

and you get:

Zoo York (Lil Tjay/Fivio Foreign/Smoke) #65

I wonder for a sec who Smoke was, but off course the correct entry should be

Lil Tjay ft Five Foreign & Pop Smoke

 

but then I thought, didn't he also have a song with French Montana? So I went to

check French Montana's discography but there is no entry for anything with Lil Tjay

and then I noticed a separate different entry as French Montana/Blueface/Tjay which has:

Slide (French Montana/Bluefce/Tjay) #81

 

the song is not even of French Montana's main page, and Lil Tjay is wrongly credited as Tjay

and also the credit should be French Montana ft Blueface and Tjay

I suppose if nothing else its an argument to buy the chart books instead of use the website.... Of course, the website is free and the books are not and not everybody can afford too buy the books. Or store them (I have the full set fo the new Graham betts books and they are 1m in length on the shelf.)

its an issue of saving space again, why they never put “Ft” for any song with 3 plus artists regardless of the official credit,

 

and with “Friday” they don’t even have enough space to credit the whole of an artist name, so poor Hypeman is left out of his own duo.

Thinking about this more - and, particularly, about how the OCC receives its information - we may be blaming the wrong people for some of the problems. The number of tracks, albums etc. registered with the OCC each week is far higher than the number of new entries each week. I assume that information is sent, electronically, by record companies etc. It may well be that the character-limited credit used by the OCC is input by the record companies (possibly with some general rules from the OCC) and the OCC simply transfers that credit to its database. The data used to compile an artist's full discography accurately may also be, at least in part, the responsibility of record companies although the OCC would still need a mechanism for combining releases by a single artist via more than one record company.

 

Interestingly, Fatboy Slim's discography does include two singles credited to Norman Cook so there is at least some attempt to combine these things correctly.

Just discovered that Nelly Furtado's chart history has albums from Timbaland and James Morrison included! :lol:

 

https://www.officialcharts.com/artist/10254/nelly-furtado/

Just discovered that Nelly Furtado's chart history has albums from Timbaland and James Morrison included! :lol:

 

https://www.officialcharts.com/artist/10254/nelly-furtado/

Timbaland and Nelly Furtado collaborated so many times it must have thought they were the same artist :lol:

oh my and to make things worst

if you go to James Morrison singles, Broken Strings is listed as:

BROKEN STRINGS

JAMES MORRISON FT NELLY

 

so featuring Nelly (of Dilemma fame) instead of Nelly Furtado :D

What the hell? This site is appalling as a reference guide. Can’t anything be done to update or revise these broken links and wrong data references? Is there not some way of being able to rebuild the website from the ground up, or even a group of chart enthusiasts to replicate the data from the OCC website and making a digital database with search facilities like Polyhex or everyhit?

 

Any app developers in this BuzzJack community that could make a basic app that could be funded on Kickstarter or something similar to help facilitate this?

there used to be one done by a chart enthusiast called chartstats, but the OCC gave them a cease and desist and this was even before they did their own site upgrade to include chart runs and histories.

there used to be one done by a chart enthusiast called chartstats, but the OCC gave them a cease and desist and this was even before they did their own site upgrade to include chart runs and histories.

I miss the graphs they used to do. :(

there used to be one done by a chart enthusiast called chartstats, but the OCC gave them a cease and desist and this was even before they did their own site upgrade to include chart runs and histories.

How come Polyhex is allowed to exist and maintain chart runs then?

 

I know everyhit.co.uk stopped updating over a decade ago but still a useful resource.

The problem is the OCC are so insular and locked-down about their precious chart products that they probably wouldn't accept any assistance offered from independent outside people, however well-intentioned, IT-literate, professional and alive to the restrictions of copyright etc they may be. That said I suppose they did condescend to bring Graham Betts on board to do the legwork on their official chart books, but he was a seasoned author with strong credentials and already had access to a lot of their content, so perhaps that's why they made an exception for him in order to get their printed project to proper fruition. I honestly think from what I know of their operation that if somebody with suitable proven capability volunteered to fix all these issues with their website and database for free they would still ignore the offer. They seem so paranoid about misuse of their data that they'd rather prevent any external party from getting at it, even if it were with a legitimate view to improving its consistency, scope and presentation online.

How come Polyhex is allowed to exist and maintain chart runs then?

 

I know everyhit.co.uk stopped updating over a decade ago but still a useful resource.

I think Polyhex is safe because they don't actually have a chart archive like the OCC, and all they do is chart runs and histories (and only for the singles chart too).

there used to be one done by a chart enthusiast called chartstats, but the OCC gave them a cease and desist and this was even before they did their own site upgrade to include chart runs and histories.

 

That was a great site. The pragmatic thing to do would have been to make him an offer for his database.

 

I think Polyhex is safe because they don't actually have a chart archive like the OCC, and all they do is chart runs and histories (and only for the singles chart too).

 

That's always been my assumption. Chartstats was built so that you could look at chart runs and individual charts. Polyhex only does chart runs.

Chartstats had many of the same issues as the OCC's own database - notably it did not even attempt to have features appearing alongside lead artist credits on artist pages (and for much of its existence all collaborations appeared as separate pages only although they did eventually change to have 'Artist X feat. Artist Y' songs also appear on the page for Artist X).

It’s a real shame I didn’t see this chartstats website at the time, and even more so that they were told to cease and desist. I just can’t fathom why it’s such a protective database when there is clearly little effort in updating and maintaining historical records and no willingness to welcome assistance such as on Wikipedia.

 

It just isn’t fit for purpose in 2021, it might have been acceptable 10 years ago, but people’s standards and expectations have changed and that’s why the digital world is much more made for this time period with graphics and visuals etc. There’s been no visual update to the OCC website in as long as I’ve ever used it. This is frustrating thing for any chart music lover and yet again nobody’s views matter except their own.

It’s a real shame I didn’t see this chartstats website at the time, and even more so that they were told to cease and desist. I just can’t fathom why it’s such a protective database when there is clearly little effort in updating and maintaining historical records and no willingness to welcome assistance such as on Wikipedia.

 

It just isn’t fit for purpose in 2021, it might have been acceptable 10 years ago, but people’s standards and expectations have changed and that’s why the digital world is much more made for this time period with graphics and visuals etc. There’s been no visual update to the OCC website in as long as I’ve ever used it. This is frustrating thing for any chart music lover and yet again nobody’s views matter except their own.

They have a lot more on their website now than they did before the 2015 update! I certainly prefer how the site is now to how it was before then.