We see it all the time, This artist breaks that 50 year or 40 year record etc...

But are they really? We would be foolish to think record companies and/or artists are not paying streaming services to push certain songs. It is rather balant at Xmas time when you ask AI to play an Xmas song, but it is happening all the time.

So what is more real to you, what record is real, the 300k or the 301k? We know that dedicated buyers would of existed way back then, going from chart listed stores buying Physical copies, but I feel it would not be as prolific as "Buying streaming time" now.

What is more real, getting of your butt going to a brick and mortar and buying or "Alexa play..."? and should artists be credited with breaking records from the days of pure sales?

Only sales. Even if you sold 1000 copies for me it's more important than 1.000.000 "sales" from streaming.

Especially weird thing is US album chart, just look how often the acts like Drake have almost zero sales and additional 100+к from streaming.

Physicals are of course 100% real but streaming should absolutely not be downplayed as fake. I'm sure most of a song/studio album's streaming sales come from people actually seeking out what they listen to, especially with the power of TikTok today. Why the Charts Company can't do what Billboard do and only count "on demand" streams is beyond me. I could go on and say how the physical market was also corrupt way back in the day but I don't fancy getting into an argument over it

Edited March 1Mar 1 by gasman449

2 hours ago, gasman449 said:

Physicals are of course 100% real but streaming should absolutely not be downplayed as fake. I'm sure most of a song/studio album's streaming sales come from people actually seeking out what they listen to, especially with the power of TikTok today. Why the Charts Company can't do what Billboard do and only count "on demand" streams is beyond me. I could go on and say how the physical market was also corrupt way back in the day but I don't fancy getting into an argument over it

I think I touched on everything you have said. So many areas though that the basic question I asked could go lol

The argument for the charts not being 'real' shouldn't be down to streaming itself imo, which is for the most part a fair metric of popularity but ACR which distorts it beyond belief - often the case where songs in the weekly top 40 aren't even in the top 100 of the week when you take out ACR

2 hours ago, Last Dreamer said:

Only sales. Even if you sold 1000 copies for me it's more important than 1.000.000 "sales" from streaming.

Especially weird thing is US album chart, just look how often the acts like Drake have almost zero sales and additional 100+к from streaming.

I get that. I think it was two years ago on the US Charts,the number 1 album had sold 2k of physicals and ABBA's "Voyage" had sold 77k physical and came in at number 2 and I was like "how does that happen?"

3 minutes ago, Maestro said:

The argument for the charts not being 'real' shouldn't be down to streaming itself imo, which is for the most part a fair metric of popularity but ACR which distorts it beyond belief - often the case where songs in the weekly top 40 aren't even in the top 100 of the week when you take out ACR

Excellent point, but we are in a forum that prefers constant change rather then what people are listening too. Maybe we should have "Legendary" posters to go along with "Legendary Artists". You know, out of touch with todays music but still involved (I'm joking before anyone says anything)

5 minutes ago, Bleedin Heck said:

I get that. I think it was two years ago on the US Charts,the number 1 album had sold 2k of physicals and ABBA's "Voyage" had sold 77k physical and came in at number 2 and I was like "how does that happen?"

It's very usual thing, just check almost every week when hip-hop act got # 1 in Billboard 200.

For sample : On January 19, 2019, A Boogie wit da Hoodie's Hoodie SZN became the album with the lowest weekly sales figure for a number-one album, with 1,000 sales. It subsequently did not sell enough to enter the sales-only "Top 100 Album Sales" chart. A week later, the album broke its own record when it stayed at number one for a second week, selling 749 copies.

Edited March 1Mar 1 by Last Dreamer

None of it is comparable anymore. You just have to move with the times. It’s not fair to completely strip away streaming figures just so that your number 1 song will literally be #1 with, what? 500 sales?

The charts are continuously adapting to the current climates and always have been. Are you going to take away CD sales from the 90’s so that only Cassettes and 7” vinyl counted? Or take away digital downloads from songs in the 00’s?

In good all times 90-99 % just bought / download a single / album only once.

Now any insane hit like "Despacito" with billion streams (Spotify/Youtube) will gave very huge unfair boost for album (!!!) numbers.

In past you could listen favourite album or some favourited tracks hundred times, but for chart you gave only 1 sale.

Edited March 1Mar 1 by Last Dreamer

3 minutes ago, Tafty said:

None of it is comparable anymore. You just have to move with the times. It’s not fair to completely strip away streaming figures just so that your number 1 song will literally be #1 with, what? 500 sales?

The charts are continuously adapting to the current climates and always have been. Are you going to take away CD sales from the 90’s so that only Cassettes and 7” vinyl counted? Or take away digital downloads from songs in the 00’s?

I'm not sure where you are going with this. My point in this thread is 300k people got in the car, bus, train and went to brick and mortar to buy that song. 301k turned on the phone and asked AI (slight overreach on both sides, but you get the drift). Is it really comparable in the artist with 301k streaming gains a reward for over taking a song that 300k actually got out of the house to buy

1 minute ago, Last Dreamer said:

In good all times 90-99 % just bought / download a single / album only once.

Now any insane hit like "Despacito" with billion streams (Spotify/Youtube) will gave very huge unfair boost for album numbers.

In past you listen favourite album or some favourited tracks hundred times, but for chart you gave only 1 sale.

As it should be, one listen one sale, ip excluded from there on. that includes vpn ip's.

We still have a record of pure million sellers. It’s there in The Chart Vault. 185 songs or so have got there and it’s virtually a closed group now - a few more songs might trickle over the line if you give it a couple of decades.

Of course a million paid for sales is more of an achievement than a million streaming equivalent sales. But nothing will likely ever sell a million copies again. Likely nothing will ever even sell 300k paid for copies again. We can recognise that certain totals meant more in the past while still celebrating current hits reaching those milestones.

Of course 1 stream = 1 sale and nothing further counts, while making the chart much faster, would mean first week “sales” could be in the millions. So that would surely only aggravate the distortion between old and new totals.

27 minutes ago, Bleedin Heck said:

I'm not sure where you are going with this. My point in this thread is 300k people got in the car, bus, train and went to brick and mortar to buy that song. 301k turned on the phone and asked AI (slight overreach on both sides, but you get the drift). Is it really comparable in the artist with 301k streaming gains a reward for over taking a song that 300k actually got out of the house to buy

Not a fair comparison, for a song to achieve 300k sales from streaming it would need to be streamed at absolute minimum 30 million times assuming that all streams were 'premium streams'

If we're calling hip-hop sales into question, then don't forget that "4X4" by Travis Scott is probably the best selling single of the year in America, and maybe even globally(?) by a country mile.

Comparing sales numbers & streaming often gets into territory akin to the millionaire vs. billionaire (ie the literal magnitudes of difference) shock realisation. If we were given the iTunes chart in the same way as the Spotify chart, the general insignificance of it would be more blatantly highlighted.

Really though, comparing eras, getting into the kinds of stan wars that entails, it's just a fool's gambit. Different eras are more conducive to different kinds of milestones and achievements, and those who are holding onto the ones of the past will move the goal posts anyway. 15 years ago digital sales were considered cheating by some, the idea that infinite shelf-life could (and did) produce higher sales figures than had ever been achieved before. When sales are held up as the standard even now, the people doing so generally choose to ignore how much of it is boosted through double-triple purchasing, or rather just prefer to sweep it under the rug in the long term. That's ignoring how incongruous it is to compare different eras with drastically different populations (there are 2.5x as many people in the world now than during the height of Beatlemania), different accessibility, and different lifestyles that cultivate different levels of interest.

I'll be the first to point out the various shortcomings & issues with the collation of streams, and the way most pundits tend to interpret it, but I think it's very good that we now have a very wide audience from which to cast this net. Leaving everything in charge of just the people who have disposable income is not going to survey the population in a particularly useful way when most revenue comes elsewhere. Signed a person who still does purchase everything I listen to.

Official chart are messed up ages like get jimin fake bot make song high should be get to many old song clog low chart mr brightside never leaves In till Christmas. December get Christmas song because Alexa then get knock on effect January old song for year get rest back scr then take ages go back acr. Like this year still not had 2025 song go number 1 yet. Should be limit how may time song can avoid acr and how many time aloud go back scr stop like the sound of silence keep avoid it find official chart so boring to munch old song clog chart top 40 song over 50 week don’t how people can hear same song over and over most get bored here same song on Friday. Chart munch better on Sunday as Sunday is end of week. I stop listen radio 1 on Friday since January 2024 as get so boring plus Jack Saunders keep mess up does help. Need some fresh ideas make chart more interesting agin

It is akin to making football that has been 45 minutes per half forever suddenly 150 minutes per half. Of course more records will be broken and more goals scored. Both are real but can’t really compare with each other anymore.

33 minutes ago, Dircadirca said:

If we're calling hip-hop sales into question, then don't forget that "4X4" by Travis Scott is probably the best selling single of the year in America, and maybe even globally(?) by a country mile.

Comparing sales numbers & streaming often gets into territory akin to the millionaire vs. billionaire (ie the literal magnitudes of difference) shock realisation. If we were given the iTunes chart in the same way as the Spotify chart, the general insignificance of it would be more blatantly highlighted.

Really though, comparing eras, getting into the kinds of stan wars that entails, it's just a fool's gambit. Different eras are more conducive to different kinds of milestones and achievements, and those who are holding onto the ones of the past will move the goal posts anyway. 15 years ago digital sales were considered cheating by some, the idea that infinite shelf-life could (and did) produce higher sales figures than had ever been achieved before. When sales are held up as the standard even now, the people doing so generally choose to ignore how much of it is boosted through double-triple purchasing, or rather just prefer to sweep it under the rug in the long term. That's ignoring how incongruous it is to compare different eras with drastically different populations (there are 2.5x as many people in the world now than during the height of Beatlemania), different accessibility, and different lifestyles that cultivate different levels of interest.

I'll be the first to point out the various shortcomings & issues with the collation of streams, and the way most pundits tend to interpret it, but I think it's very good that we now have a very wide audience from which to cast this net. Leaving everything in charge of just the people who have disposable income is not going to survey the population in a particularly useful way when most revenue comes elsewhere. Signed a person who still does purchase everything I listen to.

This is the closest to what I am getting at. I think OCC should be clearly seperating these achievements. What should be reported is "Artist B number 1 streaming record stands next to the number 1 physical sales record of Artist A"

1 hour ago, Bleedin Heck said:

This is the closest to what I am getting at. I think OCC should be clearly seperating these achievements. What should be reported is "Artist B number 1 streaming record stands next to the number 1 physical sales record of Artist A"

People are free to do that if they want, but I fall on the other side of it. Records are made to be broken. I think too many people cling to records of yesteryear and invent excuses to stop it from actually counting when they are broken. They want the prestige of an 'all time' record, but they only want the 'all time' to include the time period that's convenient to them. They want everyone else to acknowledge the achievements and prestige accomplished by those that they're interested, but they won't return the favour the other way around. They're not actually interested in the records as a concept, but the fact that the records they choose to consider important help embolden their perspective. Once someone does that, it's no surprise that they'll cling onto it in perpetuity. What should be a celebration of accomplishment and intrigue just turns into more generational superiority wars. It sure is convenient that the people who complain about the nature of the charts nowadays seem to have a strong Venn diagram overlap with the people who complain about the quality of the music nowadays. The two shouldn't be linked, and yet one view seems to galvanise the other.

Of course both sales and streaming are real but they’re not the same thing. I’ve mentioned this a few times but I don’t really think they should ever have been merged together.

The chart we have now is basically a result of people not moving with the times whilst acting like they have moved with the times by combining sales and streaming. We’re used to having an ‘official’ chart and we still do have one. But it’s pretty fabricated and still boring despite this. But chart watchers need an official chart because they need to keep the 70+ year tradition going.

I think having a separate sales chart and streaming chart is where we should be. Yes, these exist already but my argument would be not to combine into an official chart. Given streaming is much stronger nowadays, that chart would be very similar to the official one anyway. You could play it on Radio 1 and even get rid of ACR and the like. Radio 2 could house the sales chart as it would be predominantly their listeners contributing to it. Joe Public doesn’t even know what the official no.1 is at any given time, the sales chart is often quoted by people as being official despite the fact sales are through the floor.

I dunno, I just don’t see the point of combining for an official chart in this day and age when it means so little to the country at large. You could still have sales records and streaming records and still report on and refer to them.

It’s just always been combining and comparing two completely different ways of consuming music, ways that don’t add together well. But people want to cling to the old ways without even realising they’re doing it and we get stuck with the charts as they are.

Some of you love them. That’s fine. This is just the opinion of someone who joined this forum 19 years ago with enthusiasm for the charts that has long faded partly due to age but probably also down to not having the time or patience to keep up with the current mess that is the charts.