FLOPRA Larsson! Hope she loses more chart relevance as we go on!!!!

 

Plenty with chart dominance have lost it:

Robbie Williams

Will Young

Olly Murs

Paul McCartney

Rolling Stones

Daniel Bedinfield

Mark Ronson

Shawn Mendes

Justin Timberlake?

Maroon 5?

Gary Barlow

Take That

Coldplay - only top 10 was a collab

Elton John - didn’t chart for years then only has done really due to the collabs

Blue

Backstreet Boys

 

They are just off the top of my head

 

Going back to my earlier point, I would argue with most of those would probably still have their chart relevance if not for the way the chart is compiled now. They are artists she generally still have fan bases and the fact that they all held ‘chart relevance’ for at least a decade (Daniel Bedingfield seemingly being the exception here) and are all still talked about. They fall to me in the same category as Madonna, Britney, Kylie and Pink in that the relevance went on so long, are they truly ‘irrelevant’? This is why I really don’t like the term.

 

Kylie, Steps and Sophie-Ellis Bextor no longer have hit singles but Kylie does alright in the albums market!

Ignoring ACR tomfoolery, the chart still does what it's supposed to but the problem is that music consumption is so much less centralised than it used to be. I imagine in the physical era, the vast majority of activity was actually captured on the chart because the peaks were so high and the bottom end went so low that it tailed out due to a lack of there being that many unique records on shelves still widely selling. Now with both online distribution, vastly more means to dig into your own niche, and vastly less collective overlap, the chart is still there, but the listening has spread out so much that it cannot possibly cover everything.

 

If you're a legacy artist especially, you have to compete with the fact that your own audience will spread out a lot, so you can be one of the most popular artists of the moment but not chart because you don't have that one big hit. On the most recent Spotify artist chart, Eliza Rose who has one of the biggest songs on the platform right now is all the way down at #82. Luke Combs who has never had a charting single and his album chart runs have only been brief, is above her at #76. The chart is still working as intended but relevance comes through different means because most people who are fans of specific artists don't go out of their way to pump up a single united song of theirs at a time for all eternity. Reaching the chart usually means tapping into very specific channels to reach a very specific, shrinking audience so they can spin a song en masse for 4-6 months and then move on. A lot of hit songs are so carefully harvested during their evergreen moment, only to disappear after the fact and silently get overtaken in lifetime sales by songs that never got close to the chart.

 

So basically yeah, I don't think artists are suddenly 'irrelevant' just because they stop charting new singles.

I think of the two that Olivia Rodrigo is far more likely to get mainstream chart hits for her next era than Billie Eilish is right now. I don’t mean any bad towards Billie, but given Olivia had such a big debut era, her return is likely to be marked with much chart dominance prior to the release of her next album. Billie will still get some chart success but I feel maybe it won’t be to the same level as Olivia, but to be clear, this doesn’t mean Billie Eilish is irrelevant. I think the general public will be more inclined to stream and buy music from more recent artists who will have larger promotion when the time comes. That’s really what it boils down to, who has the better team behind them and wants them to do well for their eras.

As for Billie it depends on what type of music she ends up releasing,

most of her songs recently have a very short chart life but then we also got Happier Than Ever being a big hit

in time I imagine she's essentially becoming the Gen Z Lana Del Rey (although as I understand it she doesn't like that comparison) and will keep her large fanbase and album selling power regardless of if she has any more big hit singles

Olivia is more likely to cater towards the charts for now so she probably will have more big hits

Is the singles chart the only measure of relevance? As mentioned, Steps can’t chart there but they chart high with albums and are very much talked about so they still seem relevant. Norah Jones only ever managed one top 40 hit and yet you could hardly argue she was never relevant.

FLOPRA Larsson! Hope she loses more chart relevance as we go on!!!!

 

 

You’d have a point if she hadn’t just went top 40?

I do agree with Toby to an extent, charts do not mean relevance nowadays. There are so many acts who sell out tours but don't do anything commercially at all, even pop acts like Madison Beer sold out all her shows and has a massive fanbase. You have acts like Yungblud, Halsey, Holly Humberstone and the list goes on who don't do well in the charts but due their live presence always do well with tours and have solid fanbases.

 

I think Halsey is the opposite, she used to do well when she wasn’t commercial but I feel like she’s always charting now excluding so good which deserved better

Mabel don’t see munch off

 

Then pitball and flo rida

This tbh

Is the singles chart the only measure of relevance? As mentioned, Steps can’t chart there but they chart high with albums and are very much talked about so they still seem relevant. Norah Jones only ever managed one top 40 hit and yet you could hardly argue she was never relevant.

It’s not, but we are discussing singles primarily through this thread (although that was never stated as being the criteria). With Steps, you can’t deny their peak was the late 90’s between 1997-2000 and they would always get a Top 40 hit without fail because charts were much easier to break into them due to physical only releases. Yes, they still chart high with albums even in 2022 so that doesn’t make them “irrelevant” and they probably don’t expect to break into the Top 40 Singles Chart ever again, but they would love to I’m sure. They measure success by how high a song peaks on iTunes or Spotify or maybe if they get included in the latest Now compilation release perhaps.

 

As this discussion has shown, an artist’s objective isn’t always to secure a UK Top 40 single, but that’s always a wish I’m sure.

This tbh

What have you been munching on today? :mellow: