A new chart-focused article on The Guardian's website today, with some interesting conflicting thoughts on the charts' relevancy from Jack Saunders and a live music agent.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2...st-their-lustre

 

A rosy, nostalgic haze may hang over your memories of the Top 40 chart: having an emotional investment when your favourite act broke into the Top 10, or was caught up in a battle with their nemesis (like Blur v Oasis in 1995); listening to the countdown with eager fingers hovering over the “record” button on your cassette player; moaning to friends that Wet Wet Wet were still No 1; sitting on the sofa, like millions of others in the UK, glued to the sturm und drang of Top of the Pops every Thursday evening.

 

But the chances are you no longer know, or care, who is No 1. If you guessed “probably Ed Sheeran”, you’d be right a fair amount of the time – cumulatively his songs have spent over a year at No 1. Perhaps your ears only prick up when music from your past gets to the top spot, like Kate Bush in 2022 with Running Up That Hill or Wham! with Last Christmas, umm, last Christmas. Meanwhile, the album chart is constantly clogged by hits collections by the likes of Abba, Queen, Eminem and Elton John (Abba Gold has spent 1,159 weeks on the chart and counting). For younger music fans, too, it is harder for the charts to mean anything to them when Spotify, YouTube and TikTok are more powerful than radio, TV and the music press ever were.

 

Faced with its own possible obsolescence, the official charts is having to work harder to find a new, a different or even a slightly reduced relevance. In the days of physical sales, it was a straightforward tabulation process: the single or album that sold the most copies that week was No 1. But the advent of digital downloads shifted that and meant that, as of 2007, any track from any time in history could theoretically qualify for the charts without needing a concurrent physical release.

 

The most profound recalibration of the UK charts was the addition of streaming exactly 10 years ago, via services like Spotify, which warped the whole landscape – and necessitated increasingly complex ways of weighting the apples and oranges of physical and streaming sales. In its summary of the impact of a decade of streaming, the Official Charts Company (OCC) named Someone You Loved by Lewis Capaldi as the “most streamed song of the Official Charts streaming era”. In addition, old and new tracks, because they are all simultaneously and instantly available digitally, now coexist in a way they never had to in the past, and make “consumption” harder than ever to tally.

 

For albums especially, where one download or physical sale is currently equivalent to 1,000 streams, it is still possible to “game” the charts using complex and cunning strategies. UK label trade body the British Phonographic Industry reported that around 86% of albums going straight to No 1 in 2023 saw over half their sales come from physical formats. Acts will put out multiple vinyl editions and do in-store tours of record shops (where fans often get in for the price of a CD or LP purchase), and this can add thousands of sales to their week-one tally. Shed Seven did it in January, and got the first No 1 album of their 34-year career with A Matter of Time. Others doing in-stores as a “belt and braces” approach to getting a No 1 this year include the Last Dinner Party and the Libertines.

 

“The album chart to me is a relic of a bygone era,” says Alex Hardee of live agency Wasserman Music, who represent acts such as Billie Eilish, Blackpink, Blur, Raye and SZA. “It is purely now a battle of record labels manipulating physical sales to get to No 1, which is actually an annoyance to a live agent. The importance of getting to No 1 is irrelevant to us.”

 

Not everyone agrees. Jack Saunders hosts The Official Chart show on Radio 1 every Friday afternoon, which draws on average 1.3 million listeners, 53% of them aged 15-34. “The chart has gone from perhaps feeling tired at points, when you have Ed Sheeran at No 1 for 12 weeks straight, to a really engaging, exciting race for No 1,” he says. “Now you’ve got a really nice balance of new, old, future and classic.”

 

Unsurprisingly, Martin Talbot, chief executive of the OCC, also argues the chart is more essential now, when all the music ever recorded is constantly available and millions of new tracks are released each year. “The chart is there to make sense of a very chaotic, complex and comprehensive music market,” he says.

 

The OCC is keenly aware it must keep finding ways into new and younger audiences. Lauren Kreisler is director of brand and digital at the OCC. One of the first things she did when she joined in 2011 was to create an award to be sent to artists when they got to No 1. It has snowballed, and major acts, including Taylor Swift and the Rolling Stones, now diligently pose with their award and post the photos on social media, giving the OCC brand enormous reach.

 

The OCC’s marketing also increasingly leans towards short-form video on platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts. “We have introduced Top 10 in 60 Seconds to create a bite-size version of the singles chart that can sit neatly alongside the broadcast show and what we do on our own digital platforms,” says Kreisler. “It goes out on all our social media channels, Radio 1 and BBC Sounds. That reaches a huge audience.”

 

According to the OCC’s own research, 69% of Official Chart followers say the chart is their primary way of discovering new music (“more than streaming platforms, radio, YouTube, TikTok and even their friends”), rising to 72% for Official Chart followers under 25. Of course, these numbers are based on people who follow the Official Charts, so are a subset of the total population. Its website gets 3.1 million visits a month and 7.2 million page impressions.

 

Does that echo what actual teenagers think of the charts? Ellie (16) and Luke (14) are a sister and brother from Ballymena in Northern Ireland. They both love music and for them Spotify is everything. “On Spotify, sometimes I’ll listen to the recommended artists and then I’ll see if I like it,” says Ellie on how she discovers music.

 

I ask both of them if they know who is currently No 1. “No,” they say in unison.

 

“The charts are the most recent and most played, but I like to listen to my own music,” says Ellie.

 

Luke adds: “I am not really aware of the charts. I usually choose my own playlist with all the songs I’ve found and put into it.”

 

The cut and thrust of the charts meant pretty much everything to people like me growing up. But that was admittedly 40 years ago, and one has to be wary of overly romanticising their youth.

The “probably Ed Sheeran” bit suggests the author may not be entirely up to date!?

 

I’d say the death of the monoculture means charts will never mean the same thing to the GP as they did 30 years ago, but that’s OK.

I think the charts will always have a relevance, but the way all music is instantly accessible now has changed the necessity of following them. In the past, people would probably look at the charts as a primary source for finding new music whereas now people can just look at a playlist suited to their tastes.

Love that Jack Saunders said “The chart has gone from perhaps feeling tired at points, when you have Ed Sheeran at No 1 for 12 weeks straight, to a really engaging, exciting race for No 1".

 

As Espresso enjoys its 7th week at the top x

I mean Ed Sheeran did enjoy 19 weeks at #1 with four different songs in 2021 but it's hard to get excited about whoever's going to be #1 because it's always going to be a streaming friendly act.

 

Before streaming, you got a bit more variation. Robbie Williams got a #1 single in 2012, he'd have no chance now (even if he released a banger).

I mean Ed Sheeran did enjoy 19 weeks at #1 with four different songs in 2021 but it's hard to get excited about whoever's going to be #1 because it's always going to be a streaming friendly act.

 

Before streaming, you got a bit more variation. Robbie Williams got a #1 single in 2012, he'd have no chance now (even if he released a banger).

If The Beatles can manage it… OK I get that they still have a very dedicated fanbase and hadn’t released a single in decades.

 

I think people always have a rosy view of their youth, but in reality every era including today had its good and bad points.

It’s interesting how every statistic in the article backs up support for the charts, whereas it is just anecdotal evidence that dismisses it. Typical Guardian journalism.

I don't mean to not contribute to this but meh. The Guardian. Probably an old age not enjoying the gradual (or sudden?) changes year-to-year. Nothing new to see.

 

Another case of someone not agreeing to current "majority" tastes as usual because charts happen to be more "youth-oriented" than before.

Edited July 24, 2024Jul 24 by All★bySmashMouth

I swear we get some variant of this article at least once a year.

What was the point of that article?

Old man yells at cloud in article form

Yeah my first thought upon reading this was "here we go again" :lol: it's understandable that people feel nostalgic about the charts of yesteryear, and we know exactly why they're less dynamic now, but there's not really anything that can be done. The likes of stan Twitter etc still very much show an interest in the chart, even if it's just when their fave is releasing, so it's not irrelevant at all to younger people, the chart show's just not the big event it used to be for a number of reasons (that we've discussed to death on here I think lol)

I think it's a good article - the charts are no longer interesting to many people and this is not entirely for the better - and it's not laying this at anyone's feet, just a statement on how the different methods of music consumption make it really impossible to have a chart that both reflects the accurate consumption of people listening or buying music and the release schedule of new music at the point where it invites most commentary - eligible for award shows and part of the zeitgeist.

 

It puts 'current music' more over towards award shows I think if the chart is reflecting less and less what most people see as 'the music of the day'. And it will continue to do that while the chart's movement remains uninteresting.

I was gonna say, whilst I think they do regurgitate this same article annually I don't think this is that bad? I mean, it's balanced and they raise some good points - the chart to younger people and a lot of the general public at large perhaps does hold less relevance and interest than it used to. And that's fine.

pointless article. the Ed Sheeran comment sums it all up really lol

but having 2 random teens from Ballymena in Northern Ireland as testomonials, at least get both sides of the coin and get some chart geek too

also the article has an eye-roll inducing undertone of ‘things were better in the good old days’

but having 2 random teens from Ballymena in Northern Ireland as testomonials, at least get both sides of the coin and get some chart geek too

I'm not sure chart geeks are representative of the general public though to be fair.

The article is more-or-less what we've all discussed constantly for years. Since everybody can choose what music they listen to now for almost free, in addition to the fact that they can track (most of) what people listen to, it means I don't think we can get songs which are phenomenons again. People don't have limited access to entertainment, like 5 TV channels and and analogue radio anymore where everybody just has to consume what's on there and deal with it. The closest we've had in recent years is honestly the Spotify autoplay. That works a bit like radio in the past where you HAD to listen to the songs played and eventually people start to like it and learn who the artist is. I think it's been studied that most people need to hear a pop song a dozen times before it gets stuck in their head and they start liking it, which back in the day wasn't too hard to accomplish, but nowadays it's difficult because you can't force people to hear songs anymore.

I liked the article, it isn't entirely dismissing the charts, it's acknowledging that there is still a lot of importance placed upon them and it can be very relevant, but ultimately they are a completely different beast to how they've ever been, and not all of that's for the best, and I do think there's something to be said about the slow state of the charts and the public's animosity as they reflect the industry and can have pretty bad consequences for newer artists and music.

 

I would also recommend this three part series by Tom Ewing, who has been reviewing every UK number 1 ever for over twelve years now despite some slowing down in recent years and reflected him getting to the 1000th number 1, it's quite personal and you'd get more enjoyment out of it if you'd been following his reviews, but it gives a very interesting overview of how some discussions we have now aren't hugely new, there were issues raised as far back as 2005.