Been looking at some charts from the early 1990s and I've noticed that songs actually used to debut very low (with a few exceptions) and then rise to the top spot or their peak gradually - kinda like in the streaming era but then come 1996, most songs would debut at their peak position. Why did the shift in the 90s start? Does anyone know?

Record companies really intensifying their strategies to use the charts as a marketing tool, and in doing so moving towards held back releases. If you can build up interest through pre release airplay and then funnel a large proportion of a single’s sales into a single week you might get a higher peak.

Just now, C.O. said:

Been looking at some charts from the early 1990s and I've noticed that songs actually used to debut very low (with a few exceptions) and then rise to the top spot or their peak gradually - kinda like in the streaming era but then come 1996, most songs would debut at their peak position. Why did the shift in the 90s start? Does anyone know?

I've always seen 1996 as a shift to younger consumers with The Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys. I think more of that type of consumer was watching music TV. MTV had been around for ages but how many households had SKY or Virgin? The record had always been sent to radio weeks before release but more people could see it on TV and since The Box started in the early 90s they could phone to play it which made music TV more interactive. Possibly leading more to frontloaded sales. Then they kept on trying to make 'fanbases' which continues to this day. Its why Ariana went straight to number 1 on spotify first day. They would set up official 'fan clubs' that the listener could join. I'm trying to think if there were any artists with such an intense 'fanbase' culture in the early 90s like Britney. N Sync. Five. Westlife. Maybe Michael Jackson.

It was a gradual thing but I think 1995 was the year the big shift happened.

Take That performing Back For Good six weeks upfront on the Brits led to them having a huge first week sales and I've seen that cited as a key moment that made record companies sit up.

Livin' Joy's Dreamer shortly after that was notable for being the first time there'd been three number 1s in a row that entered there

Two other things that happened around this time was that new releases started being sold for £1.99 or £2.99 in first week of sale

And distributors started delivering new releases the Friday before the Monday release date, so they could be out and racked for opening on Monday. Before, shops often didn't receive them until later on the Monday or even the Tuesday

3 hours ago, AcerBen said:

Two other things that happened around this time was that new releases started being sold for £1.99 or £2.99 in first week of sale

Ah the glory days!

Also HMV used to do the CD1 and CD2 as a bundle offer for £3 in release week.

Yep the marketing strategy of releasing CD singles at a discounted rate (99p/£1.99) first week began around 1993 but it was 1995 that it went into overdrive. The 7 week ramble to No.1 became the the '7 days or bust' route to No.1 . I was working in Our Price at the time and each week was a new race between te record companies. Most singles had received several weeks of airplay too. In Week 2, most CD singles went up to a hefty £3.99. The steady climb to No.1 was no longer acceptable. It was all or nothing in Week 1. As a result the number of new entries each week in the Top 40 pretty much doubled (averaging between 10 and 14 most weeks). At one point in 1997, half the Top 40 were new entries! The problem was most of these new entries would fall down the chart the next week or drop out completely. In terms of sales, it was a winning strategy. There were multiple 'million sellers' between 1995 & 2000 compared to the first half of the decade. The downside though was that it made the singles chart fairly meaningless to the casual observer and difficult to keep up with. There were some tracks that bucked the trend - 'Robbie's Angels, Aerosmith's I Don't Want To Miss A Thing etc, but these were the exception rather than the rule.

It started in 1993/1994 when big songs that weren’t held back for release started to enter in the top 10 then dropping the next week (e.g. Blur - Girls & Boys in 1994). This really accelerated in 1995 when singles regularly debuted at the top, though there was a good mix until around later 1996 onwards when number 1s were mainly instant. 1997 really shifted to instant hits that debuted high then dropped a lot when the cheap first week CD single was prolific.

I wonder if it was partly the gradual shift towards CD (and/or Cassettes) as the early 90s gave way to the late 90s. Not everyone would have adopted CD straight away so in the earlier 90s there would have been some who were vinyl only, as well as some of the newest consumers who were CD only, both of which would have restricted which singles they could buy if they weren't on all formats, or would have restricted which week they could buy it if the different formats were out in different weeks. By 1996 vinyl had all but died anyway, and the 3 format rule had been established by then, so most singles were 2 CDs and a cassette, and most people could buy and play either of those (or at least the cassette if not the CD), so everyone who wanted the release could be assured of getting it in week1 in a format they could play. Related to this is the fact that I seem to recall that Woolworths (at least in my hometown) started having a chart wall in around the mid 90s or so, once it was all CD/Cassette and therefore more possible to do without taking up to much space or having gaps (due to no CD for that release etc), whereas before that they had big wire baskets of vinyls, so maybe Woolworths deciding to merchandise music releases like they were a normal music retailer had an effect too (given Woolies may well have sold more music than anyone else anyway).

Not sure that overly had an effect to be honest.

From a stats perspective:

Sales of 7" in 1990 accounted for 49.11% of all single sales, by 1993 they accounted for just 14.10%

CD sales for singles however rose from 9.31% to 41.66% between the same period and accounted for more than 50% weekly by early 1994 so the flip happened sooner.than 94

It was primarily for two reasons as already stated, Airplay and promotion shifting from post to pre release (up to 6 weeks before tthe song was available) and pricing in the first week which drove people to 1st week purchase. Indeed after the first week on the chart promotion for singles pretty much trailed off except commerical radio play.

The only thing not mentioned so far (which was prevelent in the mid 90s) was an act bringing out a sngle which featured previous hits on the single CD, so for some acts you were getting a greatest hits CD for the price of a single, it was eventually curtailed by new rules by the chart organisers, the most famous example of that was "No Matter What" by Boyzone which was gently descending the charts in 1998 when it suddely disappeared from No 34, if i recall correctly, because their new single "I Love The Way You Love Me" contained the song. i can;t find anything on the internet to back that up though so that's just from memory.

4 hours ago, Gezza said:

Not sure that overly had an effect to be honest.

From a stats perspective:

Sales of 7" in 1990 accounted for 49.11% of all single sales, by 1993 they accounted for just 14.10%

CD sales for singles however rose from 9.31% to 41.66% between the same period and accounted for more than 50% weekly by early 1994 so the flip happened sooner.than 94

It was primarily for two reasons as already stated, Airplay and promotion shifting from post to pre release (up to 6 weeks before tthe song was available) and pricing in the first week which drove people to 1st week purchase. Indeed after the first week on the chart promotion for singles pretty much trailed off except commerical radio play.

The only thing not mentioned so far (which was prevelent in the mid 90s) was an act bringing out a sngle which featured previous hits on the single CD, so for some acts you were getting a greatest hits CD for the price of a single, it was eventually curtailed by new rules by the chart organisers, the most famous example of that was "No Matter What" by Boyzone which was gently descending the charts in 1998 when it suddely disappeared from No 34, if i recall correctly, because their new single "I Love The Way You Love Me" contained the song. i can;t find anything on the internet to back that up though so that's just from memory.

Discogs doesn't show any format of I Love The Way You Love Me that had No Matter What on it. I think the record label just prematurely killed off supplies of No Matter What so they could focus on ILTWYLM, though the latter turned out to not be as big a hit and they surely lost at least a few sales of the former.

25 minutes ago, DanChartFan said:

Discogs doesn't show any format of I Love The Way You Love Me that had No Matter What on it. I think the record label just prematurely killed off supplies of No Matter What so they could focus on ILTWYLM, though the latter turned out to not be as big a hit and they surely lost at least a few sales of the former.

From Music Week 16/1/99- It was for a slightly different reason but it did involve the practice I mentioned- I'm glad I didn't make it up! I'm guessing other acts were wiser and waited until their bigger hit had left the top 40.

17 minutes ago, Gezza said:

From Music Week 16/1/99- It was for a slightly different reason but it did involve the practice I mentioned- I'm glad I didn't make it up! I'm guessing other acts were wiser and waited until their bigger hit had left the top 40.

I'm still confused though, because the CD with that live version on it wasn't one of the three formats available in the UK anyway according to discogs.

For 'I Love The Way You Love Me' Discogs shows a CD with number 562-242-2 that was available in both the UK and Europe, but which did not contain a version of No Matter What. Then there is another CD with number 563-199-2 that was UK only and again did not contain No Matter What. There is also the cassette single with number 563-198-4 which again did not contain No Matter What.

The only CD version of that single which did contain the aforementioned live version of No Matter What was numbered 563-201-2 but according to discogs that was only issued in Europe, and not the UK. Was it a very small number of European imports finding their way over to British retailers that led to Polydor and Boyzone being punished? Or was it the label and band deliberately ensuring the older record was out of the Top 40 in order to not be punished by the OCC if they noticed those imports?

Edited June 5Jun 5 by DanChartFan

Don't recall I'm afraid. But it's a side issue really. In answer to OP it probably helped with those high new entries towards the mid 90s.

When I started purchasing music downloads were becoming the dominant method, so the idea of having to go into town to buy a copy of a cd containing two or three songs seems alien but simpler times.

3 hours ago, DanChartFan said:

I'm still confused though, because the CD with that live version on it wasn't one of the three formats available in the UK anyway according to discogs.

For 'I Love The Way You Love Me' Discogs shows a CD with number 562-242-2 that was available in both the UK and Europe, but which did not contain a version of No Matter What. Then there is another CD with number 563-199-2 that was UK only and again did not contain No Matter What. There is also the cassette single with number 563-198-4 which again did not contain No Matter What.

The only CD version of that single which did contain the aforementioned live version of No Matter What was numbered 563-201-2 but according to discogs that was only issued in Europe, and not the UK. Was it a very small number of European imports finding their way over to British retailers that led to Polydor and Boyzone being punished? Or was it the label and band deliberately ensuring the older record was out of the Top 40 in order to not be punished by the OCC if they noticed those imports?

It's probably the Europe one. Someone's changed the country from "UK & Europe" to "Europe" because of Discogs guidelines saying not to use that. It was probably released in UK and Ireland and the release date is just wrong. Most of the second hand copies are from UK sellers which is also usually a clue. Can't always take Discogs as gospel on these things I find.

Edited June 5Jun 5 by AcerBen

47 minutes ago, musicfan97 said:

When I started purchasing music downloads were becoming the dominant method, so the idea of having to go into town to buy a copy of a cd containing two or three songs seems alien but simpler times.

Joyful times. I still miss the excitement of popping down to my local to check out the new releases.

Yep definitely a combination of built-up airplay, £1.99 first-week prices and fandoms for many pop groups. The test of a ‘real’ hit in the mid-late nineties was if a song could enter and then hover for a few weeks rather than just fall quickly. Examples were hits such as ‘you might need somebody’ by Shola Ama, ‘don’t let go’ by En Vogue, ‘that don’t impress me much’ by Shania, ‘Belissima’ by DJ Quicksilver and ‘Dance the night away’ by The Mavericks. I’m sure there’s some others I’ve forgotten.

Used to love going into town after school or uni and buying new Manics singles on 2CDs on release day, was so much fun, especially as there were often enough b-sides across every album campaign to fill a whole extra album.

You're lucky if you even get unique artwork for a single now, it's often just the album cover for everything!

I really miss that experience of a single release being a proper event.

Edited June 6Jun 6 by HiyaLuv!

7 hours ago, robbied said:

Yep definitely a combination of built-up airplay, £1.99 first-week prices and fandoms for many pop groups. The test of a ‘real’ hit in the mid-late nineties was if a song could enter and then hover for a few weeks rather than just fall quickly. Examples were hits such as ‘you might need somebody’ by Shola Ama, ‘don’t let go’ by En Vogue, ‘that don’t impress me much’ by Shania, ‘Belissima’ by DJ Quicksilver and ‘Dance the night away’ by The Mavericks. I’m sure there’s some others I’ve forgotten.

Didn't Steps 5,6,7,8 break the record for most weeks in the Top 40 without making the Top 10? I guess that would count as a hoverer. Looking at Melody Charts it got 14 weeks in the 11-40 positions without any in the Top 10, but presumably the record is way more weeks than that now in the streaming era.

52 minutes ago, DanChartFan said:

Didn't Steps 5,6,7,8 break the record for most weeks in the Top 40 without making the Top 10? I guess that would count as a hoverer. Looking at Melody Charts it got 14 weeks in the 11-40 positions without any in the Top 10, but presumably the record is way more weeks than that now in the streaming era.

Yes, another good example. I think at one point it was the highest selling song to never go top 10.