It’s been a weird year in the charts. In 40 years of following the charts they have never felt so stagnant. New songs don’t appear to be breaking through. Radio is adding a wider number of American country hits to freshen up their playlists but the charts seem to be devoid of new songs. Streaming has played a part of course but it’s never been this bad. What’s the solution? Forcing labels and artists to nominate singles from an album for inclusion in the charts? Exclusion of older hits? Something else?No shade to the current number one as it’s a significant feat. (Although non consecutive weeks so in my book Everything I do and love is all around still have the edge in terms of consecutive weeks.) Should/will the OCC intervene and make some changes? Otherwise we may have the same number one until Last Christmas climbs to the peak in December.

I Believe had runs of nine weeks, six weeks and three weeks, making zero weeks the next logical step. Rein Me in has had three weeks, five weeks, five weeks and (so far) five weeks. At this rate, it will stay at the top most weeks until the end of time.

There is no solution. Just accept that the charts won’t ever be the same and will likely never be viewed as important ever again. Rule changes have pushed it to its limits and the charts have still gotten more stagnant than ever.

Everyone’s listening habits contribute to the chart. A large majority of those people aren’t as interested in music as we are and it’s just background sound to them.

It's not an OCC problem, it's an industry problem and it's reflected in the charts worldwide: newer songs aren't breaking through so well. No amount of changing the rules can solve this problem, which will probably not last forever given the music industry experiences cycles and trends. Something will come and buck the trend and/or start a new one, or the industry will find a solution in marketing etc.

Streaming services prioritise older songs and nostalgia over newer songs. That's the main reason why charts are so stagnant these days.

There has definitely has been a change in very recent times. Today's new Radio 1 A list contains just one of the Top 10, and none of the other 9 appear on either the B or C list either. I decided to compare that with a year ago (25/07/2025) when it turns out that seven of the Top 10 were on the new A list that day, 1 on the B list and 1 on the C list (with Alex Warren's Ordinary being the sole current Top 10 single that Radio 1 didn't deem playlist worthy that week). I don't know enough about how the Radio 1 playlists have ebbed and flowed in this respect to know how tied, or not, they tend to be to the same weeks big chart hits, and I also acknowledge that the World Cup is still having an effect on the make up of the current week's Top 10 so it isn't entirely a true comparison, but it still seems a fairly stark contrast.

Edited to add that the irony is that I'm actually tuning into the chart show more or less every week now for the first time in years, in part because I know at least some of the tracks will be listenable because they were years ago when they first came out.

Edited 11 hours ago11 hr by DanChartFan

If they must, I'd hope they strongly consider their approach, what they hope to achieve with it, and what's likely to happen. A short-sighted solution will likely muck things up and eventually find a new way to be unsatisfying. I strongly recommend keeping an eye on the ARIA Chart, not just because I write a short column about it every week, but because it shows you a world where old songs are largely gone and instead you just get molasses because what small few songs break through have nothing to keep them in check.

Not that I think the success of "Rein Me In" warrants changing the rules. Ironically it's sewing the seeds of the OCC's tampering because ACR has actually allowed it to have a longer run at #1 than it would have otherwise (I think). To stamp it out is to not recognise its achievement, and feels like it's more in service of hanging onto old records that want the esteem of never being broken, but only do so because we create a system where they're not allowed to be broken. I think the beauty of the chart is that it always reflects the consumption habits of its time. To distort that is to misrepresent reality and paint a worse picture of what actually went down.

If anything is going to happen it will be after sam and olivia break the record give them reason to

Last time they did something so drastic was when ed had his whole album top 20

The reason why the charts are stagnant is that the general public has become more and more addicted to nostalgia in the last two years and it's suffocating. But also, we're on Year 2 in a row of mainstream releases being underwhelming.

55 minutes ago, Dircadirca said:

Not that I think the success of "Rein Me In" warrants changing the rules. Ironically it's sewing the seeds of the OCC's tampering because ACR has actually allowed it to have a longer run at #1 than it would have otherwise (I think).

Yes it's only in its 14th week without ACR. Also Ordinary has already equalled I Believe's record of 18 weeks and Last Christmas has surpassed it with 20 weeks.

I think they will change the rules, because they did so after One Dance spent 15 weeks at #1 and after Ed Sheeran had 9 songs in the top 10 and when Running Up That Hill had a resurgence but missed #1.

Just based on their previous patterns.

I don't think they should (or will) do anything to penalise old songs. It would be ridiculous if they banned something like Milky from charting when it's a song that most of us haven't heard in like 20 years.

But I think they may do something to make the charts move faster and to stop songs being in the top 100 for years. I have actually calculated something that would work really well and make the charts act more like they did in the physical/digital age, but it's a super complicated formula (although a computer could do it effortlessly and automatically each week) so I don't think they'd ever do something like that.

Although I did test it out on previous years and even the biggest hits of the year weren't usually spending more than about 14 weeks in the top 10 and the longest-running song at #1 (I think it was Ordinary) "only" was there for like 6 weeks iirc, which again seemed like a REALLY long time to be at #1 back in the day lol.

2 minutes ago, Eric_Blob said:

But I think they may do something to make the charts move faster and to stop songs being in the top 100 for years. I have actually calculated something that would work really well and make the charts act more like they did in the physical/digital age, but it's a super complicated formula (although a computer could do it effortlessly and automatically each week) so I don't think they'd ever do something like that.

Although I did test it out on previous years and even the biggest hits of the year weren't usually spending more than about 14 weeks in the top 10 and the longest-running song at #1 (I think it was Ordinary) "only" was there for like 6 weeks iirc, which again seemed like a REALLY long time to be at #1 back in the day lol.

I'd be intrigued to know what the formula is. I was just pondering much the same thing and hit upon the idea of building upon my 'highest placed non-charttopper', 'highest place non-Top10' and 'highest placed non-Top 40' threads by imagining a thread for every Top 100 position (there aren't actually another 97 threads on the way, don't worry), and working out what would be the current listed track for each of the 100 threads, and then renumbering just those tracks in the same order I found them in the current chart. The result was:
1. Sam Fender & Olivia Dean - Rein Me In - #1
2. Shakira & Burna Boy - Dai Dai - Highest placed non-#1 [aka HPNT1)
3. Anotr54 Ultra - Talk To You - HPNT2
4. Ella Langley - Choosing Texas - HPNT3-4
5. Prospa/Cloonee - Free Your Mind - HPNT5
6. Hugel/Imael Angel/Ultra Nate - Movin' To The Sun - HPNT6-10
7. Sienna Spiro - Material Lover - HPNT11-13
8. Stella Lefty - Boston - HPNT14
9. Malcolm Todd - Earrings - HPNT15
10. Sienna Spiro - Great Expectation - HPNT16-18
11. Alyssa Grace - Bloodstream - HPNT19-22
12. Temper City - Self Aware - HPNT23-27
13. Olivia Rodrigo - Honeybee - HPNT28-29
14. BTS - Normal - HPNT30-35
15. Noah Kahan - Orbiter - HPNT36-39
16. Fat Papi/Prodshusy - Freaked Out - HPNT40-41
17. Audrey Hobart - Sue Me - HPNT42-48
18. Gracie Abrams - Good Reason - HPNT49-54
19. Cameron Whitcomb - Kingdom Of Fear - HPNT55-56
20. Pupsies - Misery - HPNT57-60
21. Hugel/Solto - Jamaican (Bam Bam) - HPNT61-66
22. Jonas Blue & Malive - Edge Of Desire - HPNT67-76
23. Kolter - Trapped - HPNT77-79
24. Ella Langley - Weren't For The Wind - HPNT80-89
25. Victony - Slick - HPt90-98
I guess a rule limiting the number of weeks something can be number one before it is banished could be added, and then all the rest would move up one pkace, although a rule limiting the number of weeks at number one would be a crummy rule tbh. There are in any case clear flaws with this method, not least that the OCC would need to keep making the existing chart for this one to be then extrapolated from, as running on these rules on a completely standalone chart would probably see a lot of stuff disappear from near the top after precious view weeks and probably have the long-term effect of dragging to the higher end of the chart increasingly obscure tracks that not many were ever going to be consuming in the first place. A more glaring flaw is that 4 of the 5 newest songs in the Top 10 get banished, whilst 4 of the 5 eldest ones appear in the rankings. The most notiable banishment is Stupid Song, which, having already peaked at #2, was only eligible to be either the charttopper itself or the highest-place non-charttopper but managed neither and thus is not in the ranking at all.

5 hours ago, Corkfella0 said:

It’s been a weird year in the charts. In 40 years of following the charts they have never felt so stagnant. New songs don’t appear to be breaking through. Radio is adding a wider number of American country hits to freshen up their playlists but the charts seem to be devoid of new songs. Streaming has played a part of course but it’s never been this bad. What’s the solution? Forcing labels and artists to nominate singles from an album for inclusion in the charts? Exclusion of older hits? Something else?No shade to the current number one as it’s a significant feat. (Although non consecutive weeks so in my book Everything I do and love is all around still have the edge in terms of consecutive weeks.) Should/will the OCC intervene and make some changes? Otherwise we may have the same number one until Last Christmas climbs to the peak in December.

my first thought is that it comes down to airplay not being a factor mainly, you’d think its truly the only thing that could balance out streams and sales being stagnant, but I still think charts would still be stale in a way. I don’t know if it’s a problem that can be fixed and occ have to accept that.

8 hours ago, Dircadirca said:

If they must, I'd hope they strongly consider their approach, what they hope to achieve with it, and what's likely to happen. A short-sighted solution will likely muck things up and eventually find a new way to be unsatisfying. I strongly recommend keeping an eye on the ARIA Chart, not just because I write a short column about it every week, but because it shows you a world where old songs are largely gone and instead you just get molasses because what small few songs break through have nothing to keep them in check.

Not that I think the success of "Rein Me In" warrants changing the rules. Ironically it's sewing the seeds of the OCC's tampering because ACR has actually allowed it to have a longer run at #1 than it would have otherwise (I think). To stamp it out is to not recognise its achievement, and feels like it's more in service of hanging onto old records that want the esteem of never being broken, but only do so because we create a system where they're not allowed to be broken. I think the beauty of the chart is that it always reflects the consumption habits of its time. To distort that is to misrepresent reality and paint a worse picture of what actually went down.

Blame what James Masterton calls the Running Up That Hill rule for this.

2 hours ago, Stephen Emmett said:

Blame what James Masterton calls the Running Up That Hill rule for this.

Are you talking about the frequency of older songs to get reset now? Because I don't really see that as an issue. They largely come and go. The main point I was making is that even if you were to take them all out of the chart, you'll likely just find the same slow crawl because there aren't enough also-ran hits to keep up with the super stars and fill in the gaps. Can't be fixed by just removing things.