An interesting article from The Guardian today:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/may/...um-chart-broken

 

Last week, Ed Sheeran secured the fastest-selling album of the year so far with his latest release, – (Subtract). The achievement comes as little surprise. Indeed, after six consecutive No 1 albums (a combined total of 46 weeks at the top spot) – and prompting the Official Charts Company (OCC) to rewrite the singles chart rules after he landed 16 songs from ÷ in the Top 20 in 2017 – he’s no stranger to storming the charts.

 

But elsewhere in the official albums chart, things are much less secure. It’s increasingly common for artists to break into the Top 10 for one week before suddenly plummeting or disappearing altogether. Last month, Ellie Goulding reached No 1 with her new record, Higher Than Heaven; but in its second week, it dropped to No 84. Meanwhile, a confusing mix of plucky indie acts with loyal fanbases, decades-old releases and greatest hits compilations sit side by side in the chart, prompting questions about what they actually represent in 2023.

 

“The charts have lost validity as a barometer of the public’s musical interests,” says Gareth Dobson of Wichita Recordings, which represents acts such as Ride and Los Campesinos! One physical sale is equal to 150 song streams, and with artists able to clock up units from pre-order sales drives, including special edition releases, tickets for in-store performances and accompanying merchandise, rather than listens alone, he instead sees a No 1 album as an indicator of a successful marketing campaign.

 

“Chart position seems more about how you’ve managed to incentivise your fanbase rather than how popular you are,” he says, explaining why figures often begin to drop after the initial push. “It’s more of a status symbol than any true meaning of your artist’s value in the world.”

 

From a PR perspective, he says getting into the Top 10 is still an exciting feat, especially for smaller artists and the independent sector: two weeks ago, pop-rockers the Lottery Winners beat career artists Jessie Ware and the National to the top spot. However, with high ranking expected to be short-lived – the Lottery Winners didn’t last a second week in the Top 100 – the charts no longer hold the weight they once did.

 

“You used to put records out and, if they charted well you’d see if you could hang in there for a few weeks,” says Dobson. “Now there’s an automatic assumption that you will disappear from view almost literally the day after the first chart position. It’s not quite a pop-the-champagne moment any more. It’s very different to what it used to be.”

 

Since June 2014, songs played on streaming services such as Spotify have been included in the album chart count, a shift that rewards enduring listenership, rather than real-time enthusiasm. But on the other hand, some argue that with its continuing emphasis on physical product, the chart fails to reflect the public’s listening habits and neglects artists who rely exclusively on digital releases, among them many UK rappers.

 

“When you’ve got a race that relies largely on people purchasing music, it’s going to be skewed,” says Ian Johnsen, manager of Enter Shikari, who recently hit the No 1 spot for the first time in their 24-year career before dropping off the charts altogether the following week. Not to mention that turning to physical releases in order to score a chance of reaching the top of the charts comes with an additional environmental cost. “Everyone is trying to sell vinyl or CDs to make up for the fact that their streaming in the first week isn’t gonna be anywhere near the numbers of an Ed Sheeran or an Adele or whoever the megastar releasing an album at that time is,” he says. “As someone who collects vinyl, I like to see physical stuff out in the world, but it is weird thinking about all that plastic and cardboard.”

 

Though Johnsen believes the chart in its current form is “failing to catch up with the realities of the world”, he’s unsure how it could be amended without further affecting smaller acts. In the meantime, he sees ticket sales as a more honest reflection of the public’s engagement with an artist, partly because it can’t be gamed as much. “It’s very difficult to rally the troops around ticket sales like you can with a record,” he says. “You can buy a ticket for you and your mate, but it’s not like you’re telling your mum to as well.”

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, OCC chief executive Martin Talbot disagrees with the notion that the albums chart is unrepresentative of the nation’s taste, or that it needs fixing. He says the short stints of albums at No 1 is not the fault of the charts, but instead of the artists’ inability to break into the mainstream market via engagement with streaming services.

 

“The fact that Ellie Goulding hasn’t held on in the Top 20 shows how difficult it is,” he says. “It’s always been difficult to be successful, it’s always been difficult to rise up above the rest of the market. That’s kinda the way it is.” He tells me that such a sharp drop is an outlier and that most albums stick in the charts after their initial success.

 

As for the enduring chart positioning of old albums and compilations – Taylor Swift had nine albums in the Top 100 last week – Talbot pegs it to the “odd” albums market. “The fact that two or three years ago was the first time that Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division went into the Top 10, 40 years after it was first released – we have this perception [that]all these iconic records from the past were really big hits at the time, but they weren’t necessarily. So the albums chart has always been slightly strange in terms of the consumption and the music popularity that it reflects.” Less easily explained, then, is the fact that eight of the nine Swift albums currently in the chart have previously reached No 1.

 

While Talbot acknowledges that the rapid turnover of albums has become more common, he believes it can create more opportunity for new artists to experience a big moment. “It can be a profile builder that can help in [getting] their next deal, tours, radio play, all of those kinds of things. Actually having impact with the chart can really mean something,” he says.

 

Johnsen agrees that reaching the top of the charts can be an invaluable opportunity for marketing purposes, but he questions its long-term validity in such a time of flux. “It’s great for the people who it happens to, but once you’re having these battles, you think: is this really the best use of everyone’s time?” he says. “I would say to newer artists, don’t think about it too much. Think about nurturing an audience rather than achieving this one-off thing.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, OCC chief executive Martin Talbot disagrees with the notion that the albums chart is unrepresentative of the nation’s taste, or that it needs fixing. He says the short stints of albums at No 1 is not the fault of the charts, but instead of the artists’ inability to break into the mainstream market via engagement with streaming services.

 

“The fact that Ellie Goulding hasn’t held on in the Top 20 shows how difficult it is,” he says. “It’s always been difficult to be successful, it’s always been difficult to rise up above the rest of the market. That’s kinda the way it is.” He tells me that such a sharp drop is an outlier and that most albums stick in the charts after their initial success.

 

Hmm!! Liar liar pants on fire... http://www.buzzjack.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=262641

 

So, there we have confirmation that the chief executive actually thinks the mess that is the album chart is just fine. Great. -_-

He certainly didn't support his point particularly well there! It's clear to see what happened to Ellie wasn't an outlier.

 

However, he could have perhaps said "the way people consume albums is changing and many acts drop sharply on sales too after their first week, not only streams, Ellie's album went 1-13 on sales while Lottery Winners fell 1-16".

 

It definitely does need fixing imo, although it's hard to argue that the way we consume albums has changed. Many people do buy on the first week now, whereas in the past albums would fall a lot more gently more often than not, probably because there were more casual purchases in supermarkets and music shops over time, and HMV aside and a couple of small shelves in Asda aside, that just isn't possible now. So sales-driven albums fall immediately out of view.

 

I agree with the guy from Wichita Recordings that No.1 at the moment often represents the best marketing campagin and fanbase call to action of the week. But I'm not sure how they could fix it, short of separating streams of random songs from playlists from actual plays from albums, but that doesn't seem viable.

Albums just aren't regarded in the same way as they were in the past where they would have buzz and gather reputation around them month after month even if you weren't a massive fan of a particular artist. You can't really get a chart to measure something that the general public aren't generally interested in - well you can but it's not going to mean much. Times change and all that sadly.

The decimation of the album format started with digital downloads enabling everyone to just cherry-pick their tracklisting, but at least the appeal to buy a full album was still there because it was still cheaper to do so once you hit a certain number of tracks you wanted. With streaming, the appeal of albums is gone since there's no real reason to get the full album anymore.

It's a good article although it contains a couple of factual errors:

 

Streaming data was first included in the album chart count in March 2015 and not June 2014 as stated in the article.

 

The comment in the article about one physical sale equalling 150 song streams is wrong. The conversion ratio is 1 physical sale = 1,000 streams aggregated from a maximum of the 16 most streamed tracks on the album.

I thought it was a reasonable article and certainly highlights a point we have been banging on about for a while but...

 

Being a success on the album charts shows how good the campaign was... No way... You're kidding :P

 

The OCC CEO doesn't think it's broken... Really... What a surprise :P

 

I think the better discussion would be... What is better? Throwing everything at Week 1 and getting a No.1, and if not at least a Top 3 but dropping like a brick the next week or... releasing a number of formats over a number of weeks so that your album sticks around for a while but maybe doesn't chart quite as high (and gives the fans the chance to spread the expense).

I think it would be better that all streams mattered for the albums (= the US system). That's how those GHs wouldn't be as high as they are now and some albums with only 1 or 2 hits could do better if all the album tracks mattered.

I think it would be better that all streams mattered for the albums (= the US system). That's how those GHs wouldn't be as high as they are now and some albums with only 1 or 2 hits could do better if all the album tracks mattered.

 

There are still quite a number of GH albums on the US chart. The US chart also doesn't have a track limit for albums.

 

I think a couple solutions could solve the album chart issue:

 

Move all Greatest Hits albums to the compilation chart (or assign streams to the original studio albums, which would pretty much kill greatest hits albums streaming).

 

Change the formula for calculating streaming from albums. Removing the downweighting of the most popular tracks and the 16 track limit would likely cause a decent increase for a lot of albums, particualrly those with currently charting hits.

 

 

Change the formula for calculating streaming from albums. Removing the downweighting of the most popular tracks and the 16 track limit would likely cause a decent increase for a lot of albums, particualrly those with currently charting hits.

That's the worst thing they could do. We don't need "fake" hit albums that are driven by one or two popular tracks.

 

The current formula is great & quite clever, actually.

Edited May 18, 20232 yr by Voodoo

That's the worst thing they could do. We don't need "fake" hit albums that are driven by one or two popular tracks.

 

The current formula is great & quite clever, actually.

 

Removing the downweighting of the most popular tracks shouldn't cause too big of an increase in general as it's still averaged across the entirety of the album (wouldn't be as extreme as the US chart for example).

 

I'll disagree about the formula. At first I thought it was good, but it's caused the album chart to become the mess it is in currently with newer albums dropping like flies most of the time or struggling to maintain higher positions.

Edited May 18, 20232 yr by Envoirment

That's the worst thing they could do. We don't need "fake" hit albums that are driven by one or two popular tracks.

 

Exactly - look at how many albums get Gold / Platinum certifications in the US but it doesn't really reflect their popularity at all. The truth is, album sales in general and the interest in them is down and the charts does reflect that. I don't think artifically inflating sales is the answer here.

No, thanks. I'm not reading pop music articles on The Guardian.

 

The problem is less on the chart or chart rules, it's more on the appeal of albums in the larger public. The "low" weekly sales give many acts higher chances to chart higher in the first week, with the help of their established, loyal fans. It's just more apparent how interest (physical, streaming) differ from act to act or album to album. Some UK rappers (e.g. D-Block Europe, Nines) tend to stay afloat because of the fans that constantly stream them, not so much of paying for tangibility.

 

One can go blame the issue on how music is consumed and all, but much of the UK industry (at least) has focused on hit songs than hit albums because physical albums have a niche/selective appeal. Now, as a "casual", how do you make albums look more appealing and worth getting despite the strong interest in on-demand streaming? And I'm not talking about collecting freakin' vinyls like an audiophile.

Edited May 18, 20232 yr by All★bySmashMouth

I'll disagree about the formula. At first I thought it was good, but it's caused the album chart to become the mess it is in currently with newer albums dropping like flies most of the time or struggling to maintain higher positions.

 

The albums that fall off hard after one week are ones that have negligible streaming numbers, the vast majority of which don't even have one significant streaming hit so the downweighting formula has no bearing on them. If anything changing the formula would probably make the second week drops of sales-focused albums even bigger as it would populate the chart even more with streaming mainstays that never go away which are currently at least slightly held back by the formula.

The albums that fall off hard after one week are ones that have negligible streaming numbers, the vast majority of which don't even have one significant streaming hit so the downweighting formula has no bearing on them. If anything changing the formula would probably make the second week drops of sales-focused albums even bigger as it would populate the chart even more with streaming mainstays that never go away which are currently at least slightly held back by the formula.

 

I wouldn't say that. A number still manage 1k+ in streaming sales (Ellie Goulding, Jessie Ware, Enter Shikari & The Lathums as recent examples). Removing the downweighting of the top 2 songs to the average of the next 14 would have a noticeable impact for a lot of acts, even those that aren't necassrily big streaming forces. Given the sales differences get smaller and smaller the lower down the chart you go, it would likely soften falls. So instead of Jessie's 3-68 & Ellie's 1-84 they would be more likely to do something of 3-42 & 1-62.

 

The forumla also benefits greatest hits disproportionately, particularly due to the way song streams are assigned to albums. If someone was listening to Queen studio albums it's more than likely the label has assigned the streams of those songs to count towards the greatest hits instead. Between changing the formula slightly and changing the way greatest hits chart (whether by moving them to a different chart or changing the way streams of a song are allocated to a particular album), we'd see slightly higher album sales with newer albums having improved chart runs.

Edited May 18, 20232 yr by Envoirment

They don’t seem to be offering any solutions though. The real problem is with how streams are double counted towards singles and albums when that’s just not how albums are consumed. I’d rather have a bunch of new albums topping the charts then freefalling the next week than have The Weeknd’s “greatest hits” playlist clogging the top 10 for years

They don’t seem to be offering any solutions though. The real problem is with how streams are double counted towards singles and albums when that’s just not how albums are consumed. I’d rather have a bunch of new albums topping the charts then freefalling the next week than have The Weeknd’s “greatest hits” playlist clogging the top 10 for years

 

Because they don't think there's anything wrong with the chart based on the OCC chief's opinion (posted in the article above). :(

I wouldn't say that. A number still manage 1k+ in streaming sales (Ellie Goulding, Jessie Ware, Enter Shikari & The Lathums as recent examples). Removing the downweighting of the top 2 songs to the average of the next 14 would have a noticeable impact for a lot of acts, even those that aren't necassrily big streaming forces. Given the sales differences get smaller and smaller the lower down the chart you go, it would likely soften falls. So instead of Jessie's 3-68 & Ellie's 1-84 they would be more likely to do something of 3-42 & 1-62.

 

I feel like you're not taking into account that removing the downweighting would add free sales to everything else in the chart as well.

 

But anyway, even if you are right about this, I think any benefit of slightly smaller second week falls would be overshadowed by the bigger problem of albums with just 1 big hit being able to permanently hog spaces on the chart i.e. what the rule was meant for. I think a lot of the OCC's rules are questionable but that is one that I've always thought is unquestionably the right approach.

If someone was listening to Queen studio albums it's more than likely the label has assigned the streams of those songs to count towards the greatest hits instead.

I’m fairly sure that hits included on both a studio album and a Greatest Hits contribute to both albums - not an “either or” situation?

 

Also I’d imagine that removing downweighting would be way more beneficial to albums such as Teenage Dream and The Fame with absolutely huge “top 2 tracks” singles, compared to Ellie Higher than Heaven whose Top 2 tracks aren’t hugely streamed. So old albums full of hits would take up higher spaces and the new albums would fall more harshly?

 

The point of that downweighting is to neutralise the impact of the two biggest hits, and that’ll be more significant on a Greatest Hits, or studio albums that practically are Greatest Hits, such as the two I mentioned. That’s the one current rule in the album chart I see the need for!

 

I think there could at least be some form of ACR in the album chart to dilute the impact of really old albums. If old songs are penalised in the singles chart, why have a Greatest Hits of music from the 70s (for example) count the same as a 2023 album’s streams? That would be a surefire way of making new albums fall less harshly.

 

I’d also strongly consider having Greatest Hits in their own separate chart (I would call it an “Artist Compilations” chart), as they’re a totally different beast in the streaming era. Unfortunately I think the OCC actually likes the constant presence & ever increasing total of weeks spent in the chart, from the likes of ABBA Gold. I think we’ve more than got the point after many decades that people consistently enjoy playing ABBA hits, but does that really have to be reflected with it being Top 20 in the albums chart until the end of time? :thinking: When instead we could see it in the Top 5 of a compilations albums chart until the end of time. :lol:

 

Meh, it seems even more futile to discuss it when the chief thinks the album chart as it is has zero problems. How he can be so out of step with chart nerds, I’m not sure. And it continually surprises me that record labels are satisfied with albums being one week wonders.

I’m fairly sure that hits included on both a studio album and a Greatest Hits contribute to both albums - not an “either or” situation?

 

Also I’d imagine that removing downweighting would be way more beneficial to albums such as Teenage Dream and The Fame with absolutely huge “top 2 tracks” singles, compared to Ellie Higher than Heaven whose Top 2 tracks aren’t hugely streamed. So old albums full of hits would take up higher spaces and the new albums would fall more harshly?

 

The point of that downweighting is to neutralise the impact of the two biggest hits, and that’ll be more significant on a Greatest Hits, or studio albums that practically are Greatest Hits, such as the two I mentioned. That’s the one current rule in the album chart I see the need for!

 

I think there could at least be some form of ACR in the album chart to dilute the impact of really old albums. If old songs are penalised in the singles chart, why have a Greatest Hits of music from the 70s (for example) count the same as a 2023 album’s streams? That would be a surefire way of making new albums fall less harshly.

 

I’d also strongly consider having Greatest Hits in their own separate chart (I would call it an “Artist Compilations” chart), as they’re a totally different beast in the streaming era. Unfortunately I think the OCC actually likes the constant presence & ever increasing total of weeks spent in the chart, from the likes of ABBA Gold. I think we’ve more than got the point after many decades that people consistently enjoy playing ABBA hits, but does that really have to be reflected with it being Top 20 in the albums chart until the end of time? :thinking: When instead we could see it in the Top 5 of a compilations albums chart until the end of time. :lol:

 

Meh, it seems even more futile to discuss it when the chief thinks the album chart as it is has zero problems. How he can be so out of step with chart nerds, I’m not sure. And it continually surprises me that record labels are satisfied with albums being one week wonders.

 

Oh really? So songs get double counted? Sorry I think I'm confusing it with the US chart rules (or maybe I'm making them up at this point!).

 

Yes to the bolded, that makes a lot of sense. ACR applies to songs across both charts, decreasing passive stream sales of older albums in favour of newer ones. Then put greatest hits on the compilation chart (or their own chart) and I'll be quite happy with that! But as you say, change is unlikely to happen anytime soon - at least to the extent we would want to see given the current atittudes.

 

I feel like you're not taking into account that removing the downweighting would add free sales to everything else in the chart as well.

 

But anyway, even if you are right about this, I think any benefit of slightly smaller second week falls would be overshadowed by the bigger problem of albums with just 1 big hit being able to permanently hog spaces on the chart i.e. what the rule was meant for. I think a lot of the OCC's rules are questionable but that is one that I've always thought is unquestionably the right approach.

 

Oh no definitely, it's more so it would be done in combination with removing greatest hits. So larger sales & softer drops overall. Although I like the ACR idea Jay mentioned - I think something like that would work really well on the album chart.

Edited May 18, 20232 yr by Envoirment