Posted July 18, 2024Jul 18 Which songs would have been number one had ACR existed since the charts began rather than 2017.
July 18, 2024Jul 18 ACR specifically only applies to streaming sales and not paid for sales. Until mid 2014 there were no streaming sales counted in the charts. Therefore ACR would have had no impact prior to mid 2014. There is a 3 year window from mid 2014 to mid 2017 where ACR could have been in force but wasn’t. Note even then a high proportion of chart sales were still paid for so the impact would have been less anyway. To know when songs would have gone to ACR back then you would need to look at the split between pure sales and streaming sales for each week which, was usually provided for the #1, and work out when the 3 week decline rule would probably have hit. It’s not a task I think I’m going to get round to anytime soon! :lol: Thinking about it this probably would only have affected a few really long running or slow climbing #1s like “One Dance” and “Shape Of You”.
July 19, 2024Jul 19 It would, of course, have excluded all but three tracks from new albums by one artist in any given week, which is the main reason ACR was introduced in the first place, to avoid total takeovers of single artists across the published chart, and especially in the upper echelons usually in the first week or so of release. Besides the most infamous occasion where this white-out happened with the release of Ed Sheeran's 'Divide' in March 2017, I note that Drake's number of Top 100 'hits' would have been vastly curtailed had ACR been in play during 2015 and '16, as all his brief album track entries bar three would've been starred-out. And although I fundamentally have to question the artificial manipulation of the chart presented to us as consumers - and so ACR doesn't sit well with me in principle - in practice, I must admit that this fact alone would've made me a happier man chart-wise! I'm fairly certain it would've limited the run of the inexplicably popular 'One Dance' too, albeit perhaps through one of those odd scenarios where the official chart-topper was actually neither the most sold or most streamed track of the prior seven days. Edited July 19, 2024Jul 19 by Gambo
July 19, 2024Jul 19 It would, of course, have excluded all but three tracks from new albums by one artist in any given week, which is the main reason ACR was introduced in the first place, to avoid total takeovers of single artists across the published chart, and especially in the upper echelons usually in the first week or so of release. Besides the most infamous occasion where this white-out happened with the release of Ed Sheeran's 'Divide' in March 2017, I note that Drake's number of Top 100 'hits' would have been vastly curtailed had ACR been in play during 2015 and '16, as all his brief album track entries bar three would've been starred-out. And although I fundamentally have to question the artificial manipulation of the chart presented to us as consumers - and so ACR doesn't sit well with me in principle - in practice, I must admit that this fact alone would've made me a happier man chart-wise! I'm fairly certain it would've limited the run of the inexplicably popular 'One Dance' too, albeit perhaps through one of those odd scenarios where the official chart-topper was actually neither the most sold or most streamed track of the prior seven days. ACR and the three track rule are different things all together. I suspect ACR was a response to the chart becoming stagnant with the introduction of streaming (to help fresh songs breakthrough). The three track rule has pretty much been confirmed as being a response to Ed's takeover, to prevent one artist occupying so much space in the chart (where such a phenomenon would already be covered by the album's chart sales). ACR would usually have very little impact on an album's release, as most songs will be released that week, so will not be impacted by it until the hype has settled already anyway!
July 19, 2024Jul 19 The hilarious thing I remember about the 3 track rule is that the OCC were absolutely adamant that the Divide situation was an extreme "one-off" then literally 2 weeks later Drake released More Life resulting in 24 songs out of the top 40 being either Ed or Drake. Edited July 19, 2024Jul 19 by Dobbo
July 19, 2024Jul 19 Had a quick look out of interest, and it's worth noting that when streaming was introduced, it was still normal for tracks to be held back, and therefore debut high and fall quickly. Most of them would be nowhere near #1 by the time they reached their 10th week on chart (and therefore eligible for ACR) Here is a full list of weeks between July 2014 (introduction of streaming) and July 2017 (introduction of ACR) in which the #1 was in its 10th week or later on the chart: 08/11/2014 Thinking Out Loud 13/12/2014 Thinking Out Loud 28/01/2016 Stitches 04/02/2016 Stitches 16/06/2016 One Dance 23/06/2016 One Dance 30/06/2016 One Dance 07/07/2016 One Dance 14/07/2016 One Dance 21/07/2016 One Dance 28/07/2016 One Dance 05/01/2017 Rockabye 12/01/2017 Rockabye 23/03/2017 Shape of You 30/03/2017 Shape of You 06/04/2017 Shape of You 13/04/2017 Shape of You 27/04/2017 Shape of You 06/07/2017 Despacito Thinking Out Loud is the most difficult to estimate since it spent a long time in the lower reaches of the chart before climbing to the top; it's entirely possible that it would have had 3 weeks of decline but I think it's also safe to assume the label would have asked for a reset when it was looking to reach #1. It did have 3 weeks of overall decline between its two weeks at #1, but in fact because pure sales were still so strong in 2014, even if it was on ACR by the time of its second stint, it would still have still been #1 narrowly beating Union J, so no changes here. Stitches I think we can immediately discount as it increased every week on its way to #1 and only spent two weeks there. One Dance's streaming points went 83k-75k-66k-61k during weeks 6-9 on chart (weeks 5-8 at #1), so it seems fairly safe to presume it would have fallen to ACR at the earliest opportunity. For the following 7 weeks it had a very small lead over #2 and would certainly not have remained #1 on ACR, so we would have ended up with Can't Stop The Feeling (1 week), This Girl (4 weeks), Don't Let Me Down (1 week) and Perfect Strangers (1 week). Rockabye's streaming points went 42k-40k-39k-36k during weeks 6-9 (weeks 4-7 at #1) and total streams were increasing, so again it would've hit ACR at the earliest opportunity. It had a big spike in sales on week 10 (gift card effect) but streams continued to drop, so it wouldn't have been reset. However, the big sales would have been enough to keep it at #1 even on ACR. Therefore the only change would be its final week, when we'd have had Human instead. Shape of You had a big spike when the album was released, so I think its first week on ACR would have been week 13. We would've had Galway Girl (1 week) and an extra week for Symphony. Finally, Despacito had a small increase in the week Artists for Grenfell was #1, so I think it would have gone to ACR on the same week even if ACR had existed earlier. So I think these would be the only changes if ACR had existed since the chart began: 16/06/2016 One Dance Can't Stop the Feeling 23/06/2016 One Dance This Girl 30/06/2016 One Dance This Girl 07/07/2016 One Dance This Girl 14/07/2016 One Dance This Girl 21/07/2016 One Dance Don't Let Me Down 28/07/2016 One Dance Perfect Strangers 12/01/2017 Rockabye Human 13/04/2017 Shape of You Galway Girl 27/04/2017 Shape of You Symphony Let me know if you spot any mistakes!
July 19, 2024Jul 19 Just thinking of Frankie Laine’s I Believe streams being cruelly cut in half! I howled!
July 19, 2024Jul 19 Yay thanks for that brilliant analysis Yorkie3! A few huge #2s that were “robbed” looking at it that way then!
July 19, 2024Jul 19 Yeah, I remember being so irritated every week seeing One Dance remain narrowly #1 (over, dare I say it, much better songs...) so this definitely seems like the better timeline overall :lol:
July 19, 2024Jul 19 Thank Christ he robbed himself of #1 with 'Galway Girl', even if the alternative isn't wildly better.
July 19, 2024Jul 19 The hilarious thing I remember about the 3 track rule is that the OCC were absolutely adamant that the Divide situation was an extreme "one-off" then literally 2 weeks later Drake released More Life resulting in 24 songs out of the top 40 being either Ed or Drake. I still maintain that it kind of was a one-off, or at the very least the most extreme culmination. From my recollection it took nearly 6 years for Taylor Swift to have 9 out of 10 on the weekly Spotify chart (and no one else has done it?), itself such an extreme she couldn't even do it with her latest album. But the doom-and-gloom posting of the time seemed to think that Ed's scale of domination was going to become the new normal.
July 19, 2024Jul 19 What we would see if the 3 track rule was removed is the occasional weird chart where an album bomb decimates everything briefly. But they rarely last long and given how slow the chart is they would rarely significantly affect the peak for any other songs.
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