if you guys talking singles, I don't think a pure sales chrt is feasible

especially cos pure sales in singles are so low

wouldn't like for example tracks 71-100 all be tied up with 1 sale or something?

With streaming we also lost such thing as the records for acts with the most concesutive # 1s, top 10s, top 20s e.t.c.

38 minutes ago, Bjork said:

if you guys talking singles, I don't think a pure sales chrt is feasible

especially cos pure sales in singles are so low

wouldn't like for example tracks 71-100 all be tied up with 1 sale or something?

Not quite that low I think. #100 on sales in Australia is usually around 30-40 a week so in the UK it might be 60-100. Definitely a lot of ties though.

38 minutes ago, Bjork said:

if you guys talking singles, I don't think a pure sales chrt is feasible

especially cos pure sales in singles are so low

wouldn't like for example tracks 71-100 all be tied up with 1 sale or something?

It's not quite that dire. Even the physical Top 100 chart needs more than 1 sale for a song to make it in!

42 minutes ago, Last Dreamer said:

With streaming we also lost such thing as the records for acts with the most concesutive # 1s, top 10s, top 20s e.t.c.

That was lost in 2007 when any song could chart regardless of whether it was a single or not, streaming had nothing to do with that

4 minutes ago, gasman449 said:

That was lost in 2007 when any song could chart regardless of whether it was a single or not, streaming had nothing to do with that

Maybe you are right. But for sample Girls Aloud "Theme to St. Trinian's" was # 51 in UK chart in download era, but didn't count as song, which broke their consecutive top 10 singles run.

We used to have that website that told us how many sales songs got from itunes

but towards the end it turned out to be kinda weird figures and guess it doesn't exist anymore

can't recall how it was called... anyone?

even if itunes sales in the low top 100 are 2 digits rather than 1 digit,

don't think that's representative enough

9 minutes ago, Last Dreamer said:

Maybe you are right. But for sample Girls Aloud "Theme to St. Trinian's" was # 51 in UK chart in download era, but didn't count as song, which broke their consecutive top 10 singles run.

The apparent panic of Girls Aloud's label to temporarily make the Theme to St. Trinian's song unavailable after it had already charted, will always mystify me! It seemed like it was on its way to potentially becoming a Top 40 hit, before it got pulled.

1 hour ago, Bjork said:

if you guys talking singles, I don't think a pure sales chrt is feasible

especially cos pure sales in singles are so low

wouldn't like for example tracks 71-100 all be tied up with 1 sale or something?

Not asking for a pure sales chart (which is feasible surely given that they publish one anyway, don’t they?) and just saying don’t mix the two. What do we really need an official chart for anyway?

19 minutes ago, Bjork said:

We used to have that website that told us how many sales songs got from itunes

but towards the end it turned out to be kinda weird figures and guess it doesn't exist anymore

can't recall how it was called... anyone?

even if itunes sales in the low top 100 are 2 digits rather than 1 digit,

don't think that's representative enough

Seems more representative to me rather than someone playing a song 10 times in the correct way that counts then uses multiple VPN ip's to repeat the process. I could purchase the same song in 4 or 5 different ways before I would run out of cards etc to continue (and someone would need to be reimbursing me to buy the same song 4 or 5 times). If I chose too (and I know people who do this) I could generate 100's of valid streams in a day. I said earlier that I do not have any answers to fix this mess, all I know the charts cannot continue in it's current format

Edited March 2Mar 2 by Bleedin Heck
Edited to change "you" to "in" at the end

I don't get the point, sure some cheat on Spotify, sure some cheat on itunes

like suer some cheating back in the day of record stores alone

but that's anomalies not the majority of people

and the effect is less visible on streaming

if Thats so True gets 10 million streams and 100,000 are autopayola, that's 1%, no big big deal imho

13 minutes ago, Bjork said:

I don't get the point, sure some cheat on Spotify, sure some cheat on itunes

like suer some cheating back in the day of record stores alone

but that's anomalies not the majority of people

and the effect is less visible on streaming

if Thats so True gets 10 million streams and 100,000 are autopayola, that's 1%, no big big deal imho

Agree with this, no matter what the format there will always be people trying to cheat the system. It's easier to do so in digital formats though other than Jimin/The K*nts I can't think of any other examples of people abusing streaming to manipulate the charts. Cheating the charts is very uncommon anyways here in the UK.

8 minutes ago, Bjork said:

I don't get the point, sure some cheat on Spotify, sure some cheat on itunes

like suer some cheating back in the day of record stores alone

but that's anomalies not the majority of people

and the effect is less visible on streaming

if Thats so True gets 10 million streams and 100,000 are autopayola, that's 1%, no big big deal imho

This is only my opinion, but I feel it is much more widespread. We see posters urging it all the time on multiple forums and groups. We know record companies were organizing copies of singles/Albums to be purchased from "Chart listed stores" back in the day but it was weeded out alot. It's almost impossible with streaming. We see it all the time with songs bouncing all over the place without a publicity push. A version of payola is alive and well and know one will be saying anything publically. The last time someone spoke out, he was gunned down in Music lane in 1989. Just my opinion

@T Boy I really like the idea of a Radio 2 hosted sales Top 40 count down! Now I wish it would happen! It would be an interesting alternative to the main chart, and give sales a little more prestige again, rather than them just being a side chart published by OCC. It's not like joe public would have any idea about the low-ish sales either, so I think it would have an engaged audience.

I'm sure it would be a talking point this week that Oasis had re-entered at #1 in that chart, and that there's a new boy band at #3 (with a single that isn't in the Top 100 combined/official chart). I could imagine being able to claim a Top 10 in some respect would be beneficial for a new artist, if they've struggled to make a dent on streaming.

I suppose the OCC don't want to dilute the impact of its main chart airing on Radio 1... but I think them diversifying and catering to different age group audiences would actually be beneficial to increasing interest in charts overall.

1 hour ago, Bjork said:

We used to have that website that told us how many sales songs got from itunes

but towards the end it turned out to be kinda weird figures and guess it doesn't exist anymore

can't recall how it was called... anyone?

even if itunes sales in the low top 100 are 2 digits rather than 1 digit,

don't think that's representative enough

digital sales data?

Quite a few things have been stated here that I really hadn't entertained before. Very decent!

14 minutes ago, C.O. said:

digital sales data?

Maybe Chartex? It seems to of disappeared

Everything changes, and the way we listen to music does. So, streaming is real and very much has a place. But playlists have such an impact that it's not so much what's popular with the public but what's popular with the playlist compilers. So (for example) Jade can go Top 10 with one single as it had playlist support, but flop with the next single because it didn't.

I do think that "any song can chart" is annoying. I think it should be a matter of the artist actually officially releasing a single with promotion for it to qualify for the charts. This was avoid the same act having multiple songs Top 20 on release week.

Album chart... A sale is for the least listened to song. So effectively every song has to have been listened to for it to qualify for a sale. Not all in one go or by same person. But every song should get a play by someone to get a sale.

Just ideas. They probably wouldn't work in reality.

Take out streaming sales and you may as well have taken away multiple formats of singles back in the 80s. I can remember buying a 7", 12", picture disc, poster pack, 12" remix of New Beginning by Bucks Fizz back in the day and all those formats counted.

Edited March 2Mar 2 by ChrisJK

Streaming is just as valid a method of consumption as anything else, though I totally understand why comparing them doesn't make sense. That's more in terms of total sales - I don't have any issues with an overall chart being compiled from various consumption methods (this isn't just a UK thing but a global thing, and I think the OCC have struck a fair balance between the impact streaming and pure sales have on the combined official chart, so I don't see any need to stop the combined one).

The all-time lists are obviously drastically different now from what they were before streaming, but I don't think that's all bad. The impact of charity/talent show winning singles has been diluted, and it's fair to say that some songs which felt well known but had unrepresentative total sales have been able to redeem themselves. Despite this, comparing a song that sold a million copies 20 years ago to a song that's achieved a million combined chart sales nowadays just doesn't work at all, and I don't think there's a real need to compare for the most part.

The idea of a sales chart countdown on Radio 2 is pretty cool though, just as an additional feature to the main chart. Even if it's just a top 20 or top 10 on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, that could be good.

This is a good week to comment on the charts.

Oasis are Number 1 on sales, Rosé & Bruno are Number 1 on streaming. The public need an official chart as they've had one for 70+ years. Let's tell them all on Radio 1 that Kendrick Lamar is Number 1.