Eric_Blob

I agree. They seem to have done it in response to Ed Sheeran having 9 songs in the top 10 (or an artist having most of their album high up the charts in general). But really nobody cared when Rihanna had 5 songs in the top 40, or when Michael Jackson had 10 in the top 100. I personally, instead of the 3-song rule, would've done an artist's 2nd top song has it's sales multiplied by 0.9, their 3rd top song's sales multiplied by 0.9*0.9, their 4th top song by 0.9*0.9*0.9, and so on. Maybe the multiplier would have to be lower than 0.9. The Ed Sheeran week was the most extreme example, so whatever multiplier would've given him a non-controversial number of top 10s that week. I think if he got maybe 5 in the top 10 it might've gone relatively unnoticed and not got complained about in the media and by the public.

When you get lower down streaming charts, everything gets bunched up a LOT more. So there's loads of songs that don't have to "sell" that much in 4 months to make the threshold (also a few Christmas songs are almost guaranteed to get in which will make the threshold higher). Anything that's selling consistently that's at two-thirds of 420k (280k I think) will probably make it by the end of the year. The better metric to predict by would I think be whether the top 100 has all made 280,000 by the end of August, which it already has. So on that basis I think this year will beat last year.

They do it in pop songs too, like California Gurls and Empire State of Mind, which were both massive hits.

I think at that time they were still in the mindset of the physical era, where you'd release singles on different dates in different countries depending on multiple factors like how well the previous single did, the country's current pop music scene, when the artist has dates to promote there, etc. You couldn't just change singles on a whim back then especially when you had to manufacture physical copies to sell. They probably could've done a single campaign for Pocketful of Sunshine in the UK and it would've probably done well here from just downloads, but it just wasn't in their mindset at the time.

At the time I was 99% certain that he was trying to copy The Weeknd's situation where Can't Feel My Face took off very quickly and the less mainstream The Hills was more of a slow burner, even though they were released close together. I think Ed was expecting Castle On the Hill to probably climb to #1 after Shape of You. But Shape of You was bigger than expected and Castle on the Hill (at least in the UK), was big right out the gate instead of being a song slowly climbing the charts so that plan didn't really work out.

Listen to a lot: Shape of You Listen to sometimes: Starboy One Dance Listen to rarely: Blinding Lights Sweater Weather Don't dislike, but wouldn't listen to: Sunflower Perfect Find quite annoying but I feel like I should like it: STAY Never want to listen to: As It Was Someone You Loved I was really torn between voting for As It Was or Someone You Loved and wish I voted for As It Was now as nobody else did. I don't know why I don't like As It Was at all as it sounds like Blinding Lights (and Take On Me, etc.), but I just can't listen to it.

Almost guaranteed. It got boosted when it got media coverage for the longest climb to #1, and I would assume this would be a bigger news story. Although maybe most of the types of people who watch the news and who would be intrigued to see what the song that broke the record sounds like will have already listened to it when it broke the longest climb record.

There's a chance that whatever rule changes they're (likely) going to make soon will effect Christmas songs even if just accidentally.

Unwritten is another example from 2004 as well.

Funnily enough Moves Like Jagger would've been year-end #1 in 2011 too had it not been for Adele performing at the BRITS! Bad Habits got year-end #2 a few years back without being #1 that year. So it's definitely possible. I'm not sure how the decade-end charts are looking so far, but I think Mr. Brightside is a contender, and that's far more extreme!

I'm 99% sure yes haha. A very polite and friendly one though!

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.

Whenever Wherever was really high in the year-end chart and the decade-end charts. If it missed #1 it is probably because it got unlucky and blocked by an even higher-selling song I would assume. Even if it technically isn't a #1, the statistics say it's a "#1-sized hit". And Beautiful Liar was kind of a 3-way collab with the Freemasons. I heard the (amazing) Freemasons remix way more than the original at the time.

Isn't the primary audience for music charts usually people within the music industry? Like record labels, talent scouts, radio stations, festival planners, club DJs, music journalists, etc. Like it's useful for someone who's responsible for music at a festival, radio station or nightclub to know that Mr. Brightside and Wonderwall are amongst the most popular songs of the decade, or that Murder of the Dancefloor or Michael Jackson's discography had a resurgence. Or for a record company to realise they could potentially make a lot of money from promoting their back catalogue. UK is really the exception to the rule because the charts (used to) get a lot of press coverage and the OCC seem to have a partnership with the BBC so we had Top of The Pops, a weekly official chart show on a national radio station, etc, but I think primarily they're made for people within the industry, and without the special quirks of this country the official charts would still exist and would be for that purpose. Plus the OCC have already made accomodations to make the charts slightly more palatable for chart hobbyists, like ACR and the 3 song rule, which they don't seem to have in most other countries where there's less interest from the public.

I don't think there's much we can do about that. It's on the individual to do their own research if they care that much about what's really officially #1 like all of us here did. Radio 1 do specify they are the official charts and a lot of the newspapers mention it too when talking about music charts, and of course Wikipedia, AI, etc, will tell people that, so that all helps a bit. But yeah, I've also met people claiming the #1 on the Big Top 40 Show is THE #1. I've also met people saying the iTunes #1 was THE #1 back in the day. There's probably people thinking what's #1 on the Spotify charts is the current #1. Probably a few out there who think the Billboard Hot 100 is the official UK chart. But really whether it's Global, Apple, Spotify, Billboard, they are not obligated to have constant announcements specifying that their charts aren't the official UK chart. Likewise on BuzzJack we are allowed to publish our multi-chart. If there are people out who are silly enough to think it's the official UK chart, it's not our problem, I don't think any of us have claimed anywhere it is the official chart.