Future bass Chainsmokers' domination era was more boring.

this summer has been excruciatingly slow in places I'll admit, but as regards to genre variety the charts have been more interesting and varied than they have been since 2014, I think.

 

there's been such a prominent overlap between chart hits and the most critically acclaimed songs this year which I think speaks of the variety. this is the most invested I've been in the charts since 2016 when streaming all of a sudden made the charts painfully dull

All I associate with 2016 now is Drake and probably the lengthy One Dance chart topper, but I still remember more variety and movement in the charts than what 8 years later looks like.

this is a take! in 2016 the chances of a track even vaguely alternative hitting the top 40 were slim to none, at one point it felt that if it wasn't a tropical house inspired radio friendly pop song with trap beats throughout it was impossible for it to be a hit!

2024 is probably not the most boring year in UK chart history but really the chart has been dead for years. It will never come close to the buzz of the pre-streaming days, it's just at the point now where you either take it for what it is now or you just dip out which is what I did.

It's certainly been intriguing reading your replies so far. I knew if I put this question out there it would be a talking point. I'm not disregarding the quality of the music that has been in the charts in 2024, but it's simply a lack of turnover and whilst I don't have the statistics so far, I would ask anyone here who does to post for the last 10 years how many unique songs have featured in the official UK Top 40 per year, and yes this would include Christmas songs too.

I may have miscounted as it's early in the morning but as far as the top 10 goes, 2024 has had 62 unique songs in the top 10, whilst 2023 had 68 to this point. Bear in mind four of 2023's are Eurovision, which didn't produce any top 10s this year, so the two years are more or less on par with each other in that sense.

Chappell Roan has TWO top ten singles and people are already tired of her "dominating"... LOL I've seen it all now.

 

I can see a case with Sabrina Carpenter though - she is enjoying her once in a lifetime success this year.

Edited September 23, 2024Sep 23 by Sour Candy

I think it's a chart that it's exciting and stagnant at the same time

cos there are. lot of unexpected chart performances for old and new artists

who would have thought of Sophie and Natasha back in the charts

but also newish people like Hozier or even Sabrina who has like 5-6 albums with very little success

 

my main issue is the 11-20 chart, which can have the same songs for months and months

but it's hard to change that, you look at the Spotify charts and Hozier-Too Sweat is climbing into #10 today so it's like what can the occ do against that? double ACR?

I think that the first 6 months of the year were brilliant as so many returning artists powered to the top of the chart and streams went from 400k for a no1 last October to a million daily for each big new song until a July. It’s back to normal now but think that’s due to artists realising there’s no point in building their campaigns around Q4 any more. It’ll be interesting to see if things pick up in January again?

I think it's been really interesting seeing the rise of artists like Charli and Chappell on the chart

The chart battles against Taylor and how she has manoeuvred, it may have revealed a flaw in the charts, but still interesting to observe.

 

Sabrina dominating has also been interesting as most countries had different responses to Espresso Vs PPP, Dino Lu one get to #1, did they both? How the two songs changed hands in the UK is relatively unique.

 

The reflection on the charts of the Brat summer has also been great to watch.

Also, not that many men.

oh my stop with the Taylor nonsense this is beyond ridiculous, what Taylor did? put new records for people to buy? yes that's 100000% chart manipulation. If you're bitter cos your fav got blocked by someone selling more, don't follow the charts.

streaming era is inevitably going to be boring forever and a day because people keep using playlists and dont get fed up hearing their favourite songs for YEARS. In the days of physicals, once everyone who liked a record had bought it, that was the end 10-12 weeks in the chart and gone for the vast majority, so there was a fast turnover and constant refreshing until 90's marketing and forced album sales turned that on it's head and made it ridiculously fast except for a few monster hits.

 

Album sales chart is easy to fix - the listens to the least-popular track on an album = the actual sales for that album. The rest is cherry-picking tracks and those should either go towards a reduced ratio towards the album sales a la ACR or be solely counted as track sales, but not both. That would stop the chart being clogged up with hits albums to an extent. Record companies would have to make a choice on which priority they prefer - non-singles popping up in the singles chart, or album sales. It's only fair, as in the olden days if you bought an album it was an album sale, zero single sales, and vice versa, so multiple single chart entries for album tracks continues to be very silly when most of them are first-week nosiness "sales". That's not a sale any more than album tracks getting played to 10 million radio listeners is. Weeks 2 or 3 popularity might be argued to be a more accurate base-count of track popularity, and sort out genuinely popular tracks with a long-term run ahead from those you'll never hear in your life again.

oh my stop with the Taylor nonsense this is beyond ridiculous, what Taylor did? put new records for people to buy? yes that's 100000% chart manipulation. If you're bitter cos your fav got blocked by someone selling more, don't follow the charts.

 

Oh come off it, you know as well as anyone that Taylor's team deliberately stole the #1 from Charli that week with underhand tactics. It's crazy to even try and deny it.

to be honest, despite the chart itself being stagnant the music making the chart hasn't been, theres been such a variety of songs making the chart, and plenty of songs i did not expect to be hits making the chart! maybe its just that the official chart and my music taste has never overlapped this much before but i think 2024 has been a great year for music with many interesting hits!

I think it's been really interesting seeing the rise of artists like Charli and Chappell on the chart

The chart battles against Taylor and how she has manoeuvred, it may have revealed a flaw in the charts, but still interesting to observe.

 

Sabrina dominating has also been interesting as most countries had different responses to Espresso Vs PPP, Dino Lu one get to #1, did they both? How the two songs changed hands in the UK is relatively unique.

 

The reflection on the charts of the Brat summer has also been great to watch.

Also, not that many men.

 

And that's entirely because of the UK's 'unique' chart rules - Espresso toing and froing with ACR was why it kept swapping with PPP.

And that's entirely because of the UK's 'unique' chart rules - Espresso toing and froing with ACR was why it kept swapping with PPP.

Only partly: “Please Please Please” did genuinely leapfrog “Espresso” at least twice - the first time when it properly caught fire and the second due to it being much nearer the beginning of the album. Each time it’s then fallen back more quickly due to “Espresso” having more long term popularity.

I've enjoyed 2024, its thrown us a few surprise number ones- Beyonce, Hozier, Eminem, Chase and Status, Charli XCX! The top 10 has seen varied genres. Yes the summer has been quite slow with the same songs hogging the Top 10 (all songs I love though). The YTD top 20 is quite fresh with it filled with genuine 2024 hits. All in all, I'd say 2024 is one of the best years in the last decade.

For the most part, BuzzJack members are going to have fond memories of 2024 for the lack of Ed, Lewis and Drake clogging up the Top 10 every week. :lol:

Album sales chart is easy to fix - the listens to the least-popular track on an album = the actual sales for that album. The rest is cherry-picking tracks

Justin Bieber really fell off that "Believe" high with his less successful follow up album "Justice", yes.

 

Reason chart companies aren't interested in these sorts of simplistic quick fixes, aside from there being nothing in it for them, is because they have the common sense to pick them apart. I almost guarantee that every single 'this will fix the charts' solution that I see pop up will almost certainly either not help it, make it worse, or be so ineffectual that it'll be rendered insufficient in due time.

 

Best anyone can really do is vote with their ears.

I’m not sure I follow the initial thought of this thread, this year has been the pole opposite of boring. I think it’s been the best year musically and for the charts in over half a decade personally. The succession of big hits one after another in Q1/2, country / folk and pop all becoming popular has given more variety, it’s been like a breath of fresh air. Also the surprise comebacks and breakout success stories have made it interesting too.

 

The only issue is how the charts are complied, same as 2016.Ironically I think ACR is the issue, because of its reset rules and loopholes it still allows for big hits to hang around for months. There’s more to be done and I agree you need something like ACR to start it off but it’s just not being executed well at all. The spring of this year though proved that we can still have moments of where the charts are active even in the streaming era.

oh my stop with the Taylor nonsense this is beyond ridiculous, what Taylor did? put new records for people to buy? yes that's 100000% chart manipulation. If you're bitter cos your fav got blocked by someone selling more, don't follow the charts.

 

Interesting that you say that when it comes to Taylor Swift but not when it comes to someone you don’t like it’s usually the complete opposite!