Col1967

Don't know what the OCC will be able to do about it. I think it's going to be Christmas no.1 every year for the forseable future and whilst that is bad for the Christmas charts I don't really see what you can do about it as that is what people are streaming, that's what's popular, that's what people are listening to. What's the alternative, ban Christmas songs? Even that is fraught with difficulties as you would have to define what is and isn't a Christmas song and there is argument even over that. So I think we are stuck with this.

And Abba never had a Christmas no.1, Christmas themed or otherwise. The closest they came was in 1979 when they reached no.2 with 'I have a dream' but were thwarted by Pink Floyd's 'Another Brick in the Wall'.

That's it exactly. Streaming and sales are such fundamentally different concepts that it is pretty much impossible to compare them though for chart purposes where the two co-exist some kind of relationship between them has to be made by necessity. When I first started buying singles in the mid-80s I would have considered it utterly absurd for me to have told Gallup how many times I had listened to Dead or Alive's 'You Spin me Round like a Record' and this to have counted towards the chart but that is essentially what streaming is. I think you could also argue that streamimg is a better way of assessing 'popularity' than sales as you could listen to it just once or every day for a month, surely the latter makes it more 'popular'?

And none of the March ones should.

Or if there isn't it could be pretty easily done. This is essentially introducing an airplay factor by the back door.

You have hit the nail on the head there. Allowing Spotify playlists to be counted towards the chart is analogous to admitting a radio airplay element. Yes, we choose the radio stations we listen to based upon in general what they play but nobody is ever going to like every track they hear. Much like airplay the playlists are based upon what somebody thinks is popular, rather than what might actually be popular. Not a good idea to include this in the chart, the whole point of which is to measure popularity!

Yes, I thought Rick Parfitt would surely be the last of this wretched year but the way we are going now it seems like there is still time to fit another one in before January 1st. I would happily celebrate New Year tonight if it would end this slaughter!

I think this will be something of a roller-coaster ride, especially for those who have bets on! The same thing happened last year, those who bet on Bieber at good odds thought they were quids in but we all know what happened.

From what I recall it was only in the last couple of days that the NHS choir looked like snatching it. Massive media hype and poor Justin Bieber being compelled to ask people to buy that rather than his own single. I am hoping that as time goes on and streaming becomes ever more prevalent that nonsense charity singles like that become a thing of the past.

There should have been an option for Tuesday!

I am a little bit as well. Despite it being his only no.1 single it always struck me as being relatively forgotten. Still, I would have expected it to have penetrated the top 1500 by now....

Don't forget 1999.

Is it though? When I heard the name of the Grand National winner the first thing that popped into my head was the Take That song. And if that happened to me it would have happened to others and perhaps just a few of them would have been moved to download the track. And we are talking well down the iTunes chart here, it wouldn't have taken much.

The clocks going forward won't make the weather any warmer! What time we happen to call it is a purely man-made construct.

Mike Posner has been gradually gaining for a while now but today he does seem to have had something of an iTunes boost. I suspect Lukas Graham's final lead over him on Friday will be rather slimmer than many people were expecting.