Okay, I know this may be a silly question, but why is that late of year releases (September - December hits) suffer so much when it comes to end of year charts even if in the grand scheme they're bigger than many hits that came at the start of the year as well as some filler hits from a previous calendar year that are able to secure spots in the top 40?

 

Like what was the shift because even if you consider streaming, this has only been a pattern since 2017/18. And the download era didn't have this problem either.

 

It's just nigh on impossible to compete with songs that have been racking up respectable numbers for the entire 52 weeks of the year. The long tail of streaming is much fatter than that of downloads. (Downloads still had a significant influence on the charts for a couple of years after the introduction of streaming hence the effect not being as pronounced at first). Even at most big hits' peaks, they're not doing that much more per week than 'Mr. Brightside' et al.

End of year charts are all about the long game now. Songs that are available all year can rack up sales for all 52 weeks and if they are consistent (which most big hits are) they will do similar sales for much of the year allowing them to stay ahead. Newer releases have no chance unless they are giga-hits. The newest song on the 2024 YE chart is Taste released in August which spent more weeks at the top than any other song and is still only at 21. Also there are songs that just consistently do well no matter what which always beat out newer hits that have no longevity (see Dog Days Are Over and Naive)

My main gripe is that they don’t publish a Top 200 anymore. In the ‘00s they always published Top 200s and ithey would be including almost 200 hits from the year in question. Now it’s only a Top 100 and a significant proportion are oldies.

 

I don’t think the timing issue is all that big a deal. Sure songs like “That’s So True” not making it doesn’t feel representative of 2024 but it will be in poll position in 2025. If you get a big enough hit you will make it at some point.

Still, it's an even game - artists should play it and release in Jan-Feb more. Also a giga hit released in October will obviously chart high in the following year. It's a choice really.

The way I've been seeing it for a while is that most big hits nowadays have a lifespan of about 3 years before their daily streams recede into steady points that you shouldn't expect to drop down. In that respect, a year just isn't long enough to capture it. The measure of a hit I feel is less about how high it can get in these lists, but just how many of them it can make. "Someone You Loved" was released in November 2018, terrible for making that year's list, but it's made it in 6 years in a row now, so it's all about the long game.

 

Something though that I think sometimes gets overlooked with this is that though there's an 'advantage' for hits around the start of the year, not all recurrent hits are made equal. Even accounting for ACR, I was looking through this year's EOY chart and was constantly surprised at just how much similar-sized hits early in the year seemed to drastically change their pecking order after they were out of the charts. I think a lot of chart fans disregard songs that are past their peak/out of the charts, but they are being listened to by real people all the same who might not know or care that the song in question is no longer 'in vogue'. I love that the EOY charts/all-time data recognises this. In some regards it's more accurate than ever.

My main gripe is that they don’t publish a Top 200 anymore. In the ‘00s they always published Top 200s and ithey would be including almost 200 hits from the year in question. Now it’s only a Top 100 and a significant proportion are oldies.

 

I don’t think the timing issue is all that big a deal. Sure songs like “That’s So True” not making it doesn’t feel representative of 2024 but it will be in poll position in 2025. If you get a big enough hit you will make it at some point.

Well at least we have the second best thing being my calculated points chart which I’ll post shortly

But even that is very much skewed towards earlier hits cos songs have very long chart runs