Gambo

^ Completely convincing and many would've bought into it I'm sure! Frankly had the OCC announced some of their present rules around 1st April as opposed to early July I might've assumed they were Fools' Day send-ups!!

I'm pleased to hear that, if only because it means more people are following the official numbers, for all the skew that's baked into them these days courtesy of OCC rules. Though might this figure include listens via catch-up on demand rather than just those for the original live broadcast?

Insofar as certain acts will care about their chart record, I would imagine they'll always take some note if they're doing well on the alternative 'Big Top 40' (especially if they get called to chat about - and thereby help promote - their current single release on the Sunday show), but ultimately most would be aware that the chart that history will record as being relevant (and the one used to source information about an act's chart history that will appear in chart reference, Wikipedia entries and so on) will be the OCC's official Top 40 in radio terms, 75 in Music Week terms and 100 in online archive terms. Whatever its rules and flaws, it clearly represents a far deeper measure of the national singles/tracks market than any competitors, and so provides a broader picture of the impact a song is having across a range of relevant measures, however awkwardly they are combined into a single tabulation and despite the artificialisation of the ranking as a by-product of its rules. Most artists will be cognisant of the basics and certainly their labels and promoters will be - for whom the actual chart profile and peak position possibly counts more than it does to the artist themselves, as to an extent it is a reflection of how successful their paid efforts are in boosting the commercial fortunes of the artists they represent. The Big Top 40 is a sideshow based mostly on Apple iTunes downloads, Music streams and presumably just Global radio airplay - hardly a complete set of sources to measure wider popularity of a track. Most artists will doubtless be gracious if doing well on it (particularly where they're not able to enjoy such a high rank on the official listings as it at least gives them a bit more of a platform - we repeatedly see that with tracks doing well on sales but whose streams are lacking) and I'm sure are good enough to never make any comment on the official chart or a direct comparison between the validity of that over its alternative. For all the lack of credibility in the compilation process of the BT40 though, and aside from what acts appearing within it really think about it, I do wonder whether it now garners more interest, and is more relevant, to a lot of listeners who still bother tuning in to a chart-based broadcast with any regularity? For a kick-off there is the reality that a lot of them, especially kids, don't really care if the positions are fully-supportable and based on the broadest data available; it's more about the fun of the reveal and hoping to find their favourite songs higher-up (I should say that certainly was the case among young listeners in the '80s when the rival Network Chart sprang up on ILR stations to compete with Radio 1 - only the real chart enthusiasts such as myself cared to argue for the case that only the official chart really counted for anything!). Moreover, isn't it now probable that more people end up hearing the BT40 rundown than the official, simply because it still sits in that traditional Sunday afternoon slot, which for many is still a more conducive time to follow a live unveiling of a new chart than a Friday afternoon? Although I've personally always defaulted to the official one and when a regular listener I slavishly stuck with R1 to the complete exclusion of its ILR alternative, ironically, nowadays, if ever I happen to hear a chart show (usually by chance rather than a deliberate effort to tune in especially for it), it's almost always the Big rather than the official Top 40, for that reason. I can and sometimes do switch to R1's 'First Look' for an official 'midweek' live update, but that is so often just a boring reshuffle of the previous week's positions and I can't deny that the Global version feels more lively, playing more diverse stuff as it's more sales-driven than streaming. I pay no mind to the actual positions and movements, but however irrelevant these are, it does at least make for a more interesting and changeable listen. Due to the stagnation brought about by streaming and the skews of ACR etc I often wish the official combined Top 40 more closely resembled the makeup of the official sales one, and when I look at it objectively, the BT40 more-or-less does do that, albeit in a half-arsed, corny ILR style and being entirely unofficial, despite its obvious attempts through its titling to try and present itself as somehow having some sort of official status.

Thanks KOS for posting these and an ample demonstration of just how embedded the held-back, front-loaded tactic in marketing singles had become by the late '90s and how dominant it remained until the mid '00s. I presume it would've dug-in even longer had it not been for the complete shift in consumer preference from CD to download during the late '00s, and later from download to streaming, which most would agree has unfortunately taken chart turnover and movement too far back the other way. Thank God this entry-at-peak behaviour was broken in the end though; surely we were heading for nigh-on brand new Top 10s or even 20s almost every week! So much damage was done to the conceptual reputation and perceived relevance of the UK chart during that time, as it was seen - correctly - that marketing might had taken over completely and bent consumer habits to suit its will, thereby skewing the more natural chart patterns of behaviour seen prior to the '90s. Saying that, whatever one's preference, that period saw some very lofty sales figures logged on the back of this approach, at least up the early '00s when physical took its final dive and digital was yet to be legalised. A fair number of the one or two-place rises seen during the affected period were likely just due to a quiet market that week (even during such a frenetically busy era of weekly turnover we did get the odd uneventful week for new releases). If one scrutinises the Music Week charts of the time which used to denote which singles in the Top 75 had posted a sales increase week-on-week, one would likely find many of those so-called 'climbers' actually gained a higher chart foothold on falling sales. Needless to say, there were singles that did the opposite in very hectic big-selling weeks - they'd fall from their entry position but did so on rising sales. A factor that's not been highlighted above as far as I could see was the occasional premature entry of a single ahead of its official release date, owing apparently to small numbers of sales accruing in the days leading up to it through in-store 'leaks'. Steps' single in Jan '01 was a classic example - and the inorganic climb it registered on its second week charted after it'd been issued officially gave it what was then (still might be though would need to check) the highest within the 75 ever seen, of 70 places. Another post-new year example of this was a year later when Puretone's 'Addicted To Bass' logged a 66-place rise to No 2. Outside the 75 threshold, Westlife's cover of 'Mandy' is often cited in this context too, as it appeared on leaked sales at No 200 before climbing all the way to No 1 with its full release a week later, though arguably this doesn't compare, given the 76-200 positions were subject to exclusions and so in reality 'Mandy' would've been some way off the actual 200th bestselling single on its leaked buys alone. There were also the odd deliberate little marketing spins operated by labels too. Probably the most obvious was Parlophone's decision to deliberately circumvent the OCC's newly-inaugurated rule on allowing downloads but only where there was an equivalent physical product on release in respect of their Gorillaz single 'Feel Good Inc'. They issued a limited edition vinyl 7" on 11 Apr '05 allowing it to chart at No 22 W/E 23 Apr based on the vinyl and download releases alone. The former quickly fell away but the latter were chart-eligible due to the presence of a physical issue, and sufficient to keep the song hovering around the No 20 position for 3 weeks until it leapt up to No 2 W/E 21 May, following full CD release on 9 May. I still can't get my head around 'Amazed' by Lonestar though! Why was that song more-or-less the only single to buck the prevailing pattern and stick around for such an extended period, never getting into the Top 20? Such an oddity and more akin to what we see in current charts.

Sadly nowadays I think you'd have to extend the show to the Top 200 to get any significant exposure from it for less well-represented acts and genres!

Very interesting indeed and thanks for posting. If only we could now say, 37 years on, that all these issues surrounding official chart compilation had been thoroughly and transparently ironed-out! While it's not the same bag of problems that challenged Gallup in '84 that trouble Kantar in '21, it still feels like there are numerous complications in bringing a chart to a satisfactory conclusion and presenting in a way that manages (some might say 'massages') the vagaries of the current market, which are so much more complex than in the '80s thanks to the digital revolution and diverse means of consuming our music. I'd like to see a similar article by Godfrey's current successor aimed at demystification of some of the present chart concerns, but I shan't hold my breath! PS: I wonder whether they published that in a bid to defend their reputation pre-emptively at a time when ILR stations were just about to launch a serious competitor to the official countdown? The Network Chart began I think on Sun 30 Sep '84!

Seemingly all back to normal now by the way folks - all the singles and albums charts I tried to view loaded up all right. Only a matter of time though before it starts to go glitchy again. It is a very unreliable site in terms of everyday operation. And then there's the fair criticisms about the layout and accessing of certain information. For example they still don't post a link on the singles to the video or overall streaming charts. I also find the archive very annoying in that the search you perform must be word-perfect; it's not dynamic enough to pick up likely typos or misspellings.

Interesting thread. I'm sure it's been posted previously and I haven't read every contribution, but generally all guitar-rock-based acts (many of whom actually even struggled to make the transition convincingly from physical to digital paid-for sales in the late 2000s), and also boy/girl solo or group-style pop (the few big-hitters of the 2005-'11 'X Factor' era managed a decent run in the first half of the 2010s when actual sales were still king, but since streaming dominance exerted itself have generally struggled to achieve any notable main singles chart placings). While there's a fair few acts whose music may not be missed by many in the current charts, they've arguably been replaced by a lot of dross that as many of us or more dislike even more! Some may celebrate the nigh-on clean sweep that grime/drill/trap/rap acts now enjoy in the Top 100 (and let's face it these sub-genres and their predecessors already performed pretty consistently well on sales even before streaming took over), some will bemoan the lack of distinction between most of the actual songs in terms of production, style and delivery, and it would make for a very monotonous long listen if one were to stream each one of the week's Top 40 in succession. There's actually plenty of more innovative and interesting material still being recorded and released, but chances of such content breaking through to achieve any sort of notable mainstream singles chart profile is now lower than ever thanks to streaming. And I don't just mean 'stuff I happen to like'! Whatever one's personal view of the genres, artists or individual songs that have tended to prosper in the UK singles charts over the years, at least when sales still ruled there was a good deal of diversity, which would allow a broader appreciation from a wider audience of music fans. Even the '00s, which at the time felt a bit samey and as if all novel creative avenues in pop were closed and being recycled, a look at any average chart will reveal a surprising amount of musical diversity in terms of both category and quality, which wasn't unduly dampened by the takeover of downloads from CDs. Talent show vocalists rubbed shoulders with manufactured pop groups, metal/rock bands, dance/EDM producers, hip-hop/rap acts, indie rockers and internet-launched one-offs. The only real style that lost out post-2000 was the slow ballad or love song of the kind we were used to seeing in the 1990s and 1980s. It is sad that the story of the '10s was the steady decline in that once-proud diversity, partly through some consumers tiring with the pace of technological change and refusing to jump on board with digital developments, but mostly due to what in effect is the social engineering of streaming by major platforms via preconfigured playlists occupied for months on end by the same big hits, derived mainly from what was once known as 'urban' genres. Okay, if consumers didn't passively listen to such playlists, or the OCC found an effective way to remove such listens from their count, the impact would be lessened. But it'd be far better for Apple and Spotify et al to not offer such things in the first place - or if they do, ensure that enough breadth of musical styles are represented and turned-over more quickly. In a world where we seem to be on a quest for maximum diversity in all walks of life almost before any other factors are considered, it seems surprising that this doesn't get applied to online streaming playlist policy. Until it does, the charts will continue to be over-dominated by a small number of styles/acts, with lots of talent in other areas getting overlooked for lack of a chart foothold, and its turnover will stay stagnant, as the OCC struggle to control undesirable impacts of passive streaming by introducing more rules that only serve to manipulate and artificialise its rankings.

The problem is the OCC are so insular and locked-down about their precious chart products that they probably wouldn't accept any assistance offered from independent outside people, however well-intentioned, IT-literate, professional and alive to the restrictions of copyright etc they may be. That said I suppose they did condescend to bring Graham Betts on board to do the legwork on their official chart books, but he was a seasoned author with strong credentials and already had access to a lot of their content, so perhaps that's why they made an exception for him in order to get their printed project to proper fruition. I honestly think from what I know of their operation that if somebody with suitable proven capability volunteered to fix all these issues with their website and database for free they would still ignore the offer. They seem so paranoid about misuse of their data that they'd rather prevent any external party from getting at it, even if it were with a legitimate view to improving its consistency, scope and presentation online.

Ah I was wondering where this 'No label' default nonsense for 76-100 in '83 to '91 came from! I never would've guessed it was you KOS.... :rolleyes: The OCC site is SO much better than it was in terms of what it carries. But there remain significant gaps and inconsistencies. I can to a degree excuse or tolerate these, but the glitchiness of the site per se I do struggle with, as a generally impatient chap. I'm surprised to hear that users of it on Android phones report it works well; I find it's pretty cranky on mine for reasons already rehearsed in previous posts. Nothing more irritating than clicking on a link only to find a second or so later it's moved and it's registered your click on something else (quite possibly an ad). Knowing it's little foibles does help to avoid getting frustrated by them though. To know it may not be to love it, but certainly to accept and get the best from it.

This Top 20 appears to be a Top 26! I assume it's been extrapolated based on what we know to have been at least million-selling singles in its literal sense up to a year ago when the OCC last published a consolidated list? But even by then Adele's 'Make You Feel My Love' had registered 1.021m and counting - is that not a clear-cut love song? If we agree it is, then shouldn't this list be extended further beyond 'Whole Again', if it's meant to rank seven-figure paid-for sales in this genre?

All really valid and well-made points folks. And yes, arguably a music chart can never be entirely free from compromises of some sorts, including for a kick-off what is chosen by artists/labels to release and how promotion of that product is managed. Alas no chart has ever been there as a measure of relative musical quality or compositional excellence; it's more about what happens to capture the wider public's imagination for whatever random reasons at any given moment, which can and does produce some uneven and sometimes bizarre results in terms of chart placings. And of course its core purpose is for the industry that sponsors its compilation, not music fans who happen to have an interest in the commercial fortunes of their preferred artists or songs. I think Suedehead makes a particularly good point here though - I always regard the Jan '07 to Jun '14 period as a 'golden age' for UK singles chart completeness and accuracy (though not necessarily for the music that was troubling the charts during that time) and is probably as close to a 'clean' Top 100 (or 200) singles chart we had. It was clearly and simply still based on paid-for sales, which were still by far the dominant means of consumption (albeit increasingly on digital rather than physical formats for single tracks but at least the principle of the two remained constant - someone paid money for a particular track); no exclusions or restrictions were applied to any position 1 to 200 (other than the fundamental stuff like dealer price, playing time, unfair promo tools etc which can't be avoided); the 'DUS' methodology of surveying sales was by then well-embedded and reported transactions for nearly the entire market (over 99% I think by this point); the chart frame was more-or-less in sync with the calendrical week (so any calendar week had a single set of charts that clearly corresponded with what was current in those seven days). It seemed like we had after so long finally got the best charts in the world and certainly in British history, and they simply reflected whatever was going on in the marketplace, be that good or bad, natural or manipulated. Sadly the exponential onslaught of streaming as an alternative and now all-conquering means of consuming music perhaps inevitably meant that our charts would never be the same again, once the decision was taken - again I think inevitably - to blend it alongside traditional sales in the compilation of first singles and a little later albums charts. Initially at least it was a clear enough conversion, albeit entirely arbitrary, but as soon as they had to start tinkering with the ratios, and ultimately reimpose artificial restrictions across all positions, we lost that clean, clear and unmolested ranking that we enjoyed for those seven-and-a-half years. AcerBen is of course quite right though to point out most people outside of the geeky brigade of chartographers that contribute to this and other similar sites will not be thinking about this anywhere near as deeply and will probably care even less! I still say though that even those who only occasionally and casually brush with the UK charts need to just be wary about assuming everything they read about them is straightforward and 'true' - including data that emanates from the ostensibly unquestionable Official Charts Company source.

As KingofSkiffle says over on UKMix, it's likely to do with as much with limiting page-count for a printed book as it is with preserving exclusivity of their website content. So driving up internet traffic for those who want to view the current or previous full Top 100 and reducing outgoings on publishing a book that probably will only attract a small audience and may struggle to recoup its costs, are both in the OCC's interest. Though beyond these two perfectly legitimate purposes I do think there is an element of adhering to the Top 75 only by habit in the OCC. I suspect this is down to two factors. First, the continuing policy of Music Week to only print the Top 75 as it has done for 38 years. That decision was again probably motivated mainly by practical printing concerns, as publishing a chart each week with 25 more rungs would've created space issues and possible cost impacts if they had to move to publishing it on two rather than one page. The fact that a Top 100 has been available online since I think April 2005 via Yahoo! when the OCC began phasing digital sales into the singles count, and later via their own site, seems to have had no bearing on MW's approach, nor that of its chart consultants, both of whom always adhered stringently to reporting on Top 75 events with little mention of those outside it, in line with what readers would find in the printed edition. One might imagine that would soon change given the printed incarnation of MW is to move to a monthly publication, but as long as a weekly chart report is written and posted on their digital site, I suspect they'll still limit this to the 75, as old habits die hard, and of course it's more work for the chart consultant to report on a whole 100 placings! Secondly, it is possibly because it chimes with the long-term history of published chart books (spearheaded by Guinness) that only covered entries that registered with the first three quartiles of the 100 in any week. There is a comforting continuity in a statistical sense in offering as consistent a window on the charts as possible, and so sticking to a 75, at least since May 1978 when one was first published, may have an ostensible appeal on that basis. Moreover, from January 1983 to April 2005, it made more sense to retain a No 75 threshold for the official singles charts, as while positions 1 to 75 were essentially an authentic ranking of the biggest-selling titles in the past 7 days, those from 76 to 100 (or 200 in the extended industry-only table) were subject to sales-based exclusions and so didn't compare like-for-like with the first three quarters of the list. Indeed, Gambaccini and Co gave this as a justification for not using the full 100 in early editions of their British Hit Singles books, and other authors since followed suit. So until the dawn of the download era, one could say that sticking to just the 75 gave the 'cleanest' picture of chart hits available for the preceding 25+ years and one which enabled a fair comparison of weekly rankings from one year to another. However, the more one learns about the inconsistencies and changes in chart methodology and rules over the decades, the less clear-cut that picture gets, and the argument for retaining any sort of threshold for presentation of chart data starts to weaken, beyond just limits of space and cost. So for example sales-based restrictions were quietly applied to positions 41-75 in the early '00s to try and counter 'bargain bin' buys. From April 2005 to December 2006 the entire chart was partial thanks to exclusions of certain titles that were only available on download with no concurrent physical release. After a period of pretty genuine Top 100s that reflected bestsellers 1 to 100, came the inclusion of audio streaming from July 2014 which added an entirely different mode of consumption to the official charts based on an arbitrary 100:1 conversion ratio and so rendered comparisons with earlier sales-only counterparts arguably worthless. And of course since July 2017 the whole official Top 100 has been subject to artificial manipulation thanks to ACR and the 3-song cap aimed at damping-down the undesirable side-effects of streaming, making it even less valid to try and present it in any chart book as standing shoulder-to-shoulder with its pre-restriction forebears of any size. So, it now seems to me that sticking to just the Top 75, or even to the whole Top 100 say from from January 2007 when restrictions were removed and all sales counted, is a fool's errand because these portions of the singles chart (less so with albums) can only be considered consistent and meaningful when compared with each other until the rules changed again to compromise that continuity (and accuracy) across all its positions. If only the bottom quarter of our chart had ever been affected by these measures that render them effectively artificial and inconsistent, then we could defend the position of sticking to the 75 with some conviction. But in eras where they were applied to some or all positions below, there is no threshold one could safely use that would leave us with truly untainted 'pure' charts of a fixed size across all decades. Therefore I'd say they should publish as much as they can in retrospective chart publications such as this - i.e. as much as is published each week which is now the Top 100 - while acknowledging openly the rules that were/are in play which have distorted some or all the positions attributed to tracks each week in any given era. It's a shame the OCC's site is inconsistent on the size of the weekly singles chart offered in its archive, only offering a Top 100 from Jan '83 to Apr '91 when Record Mirror published the full 100, and again from Feb '94 when Millward Brown took over compilation duties. But that's mostly to do with them having neither the staff nor inclination to go through scores of old pre-Feb '94 paper Gallup chart reports in the old BPI Library and digitise the 76 to 100 segments of each one! Though understandable, there's many a chart enthusiast who'd probably have preferred they'd spent time and money on doing that than publishing a printed book of chart info for the last year, most if not all of which is already freely-available from their own and other open sources online!

I wouldn't be without Shazam now, as it's the only reliable means of identifying music hitherto unknown. It's especially handy when it's background music in a shop, on an ad or soundbed for a TV programme, but also when listening to radio as it's always possible the crappy DJ won't give information either before or afterwards as to artist and title. As said above, it's still a very powerful and impressive app when one considers what must be involved on the technical side and the millions of recorded pieces it must have access to. It is annoying when it gives a nil return, but then that's often because there's too much other background noise, or possibly with TV or film incidental music because it's a piece specially-written for that broadcast and hasn't been issued on any streaming or sales platforms. Occasionally it's thrown up an obviously incorrect result, but in my experience over eight years of regular use, maybe only five occasions, so pretty consistent really. It's helped direct me to many tracks I've gone on to buy, so in my case perhaps it is a pre-indicator of what could result in future purchases or online listens and I expect it's the same for many. Though I am bound to say that I don't think its daily rolling chart is as relevant as those provided by actual sales or streaming sites, as notwithstanding its ongoing relevance and high usage numbers, it's a one-off transaction that is entirely free, and it doesn't always safely denote a listener enjoyed it or would wish to stream/buy in future. While it may be a minority, I'm certain some people Shazam stuff they don't like and would never consume directly, yet still are curious as to who performed the track and what it's called. I know I have. Nevertheless it's another interesting metric for how people engage with digital technology to access and educate themselves about music, and it is interesting for those who follow the markets and resultant charts to see how closely it does reflect what is currently being played most on radio, TV and online outlets. It's not meant to be a better or more accurate barometer than official or other site-compiled consumption charts; just a different slant. So definitely worth posting Tefo and thanks for bothering.

More disappointingly, streaming ruined paid-for sales of music; the incorporation of it into charts around the globe merely reflected that sad truth, and the sheer speed at which the cannibalisation process was unfolding. I hate the impacts streaming has had on the UK singles (less-so albums) chart, but there was no way it could ignore it forever. While personally I'd liked to have kept the two tabulations separate, denoting that they are clearly two very discrete means of measuring a song's commercial success, I fully understand why the industry and the charts company it sponsors felt that wasn't an option, and that a 'single source of truth' was what was required, however awkward the juxtaposition of two different forms of consumption proved to be. I really still don't fully understand though why streaming has taken off to such an exponential degree; or more accurately why it's effectively stripped the traditional sales market down to minimal levels. Is buying music really such a bad deal? Perhaps this is because I believe in paying a reasonable sum for recorded music, and still see one-off purchasing (when there is a reasonable market for it) as a better overall barometer of popularity that multiple rented listens, if only because of all the issues we have with passive streaming of predictable and unchanging preconfigured playlists by large streaming sites, which in turn have led to ludicrous exclusion and consumption-based arbitrary chart rules that skew the true picture of what the biggest songs are each week. Streaming also only brings notable revenues for very established artists, mostly in the 'urban' genres, which tilts chart performance in favour of a very musically-limited set of acts and slows its turnover to a hibernating animal's heartbeat. Or, it could just be that I am something of an old-fashioned bloke who treats technology with more of a reproach than approach in general and I still resent that music is now so dominated by virtual media rather than tangible, physical product - for all the cost, labour and space saving the digital revolution brought us. In any case though, the hard truth is that the figures speak for themselves, and there would in 2020 be little point in persisting with an argument that a sales-only chart should be the format for the singles rankings, because in the average typical seven-day frame, the best-selling track struggles to turn-in 7,000 or so downloaded copies, often less, and a just-into-five-figures tally is now something to be celebrated. Physical singles are virtually irrelevant despite the mini-boom in vinyl sales and artist-own websites selling limited edition CDs. When one considers that the 100th bestseller probably shifts 1,000 or below, it is clear that the sales-only listing, while still useful to us chartologist types as a like-for-like direct comparison with the pre-July 2014 official singles charts, is simply not relevant to enough people any more to command any great impact or support. Streaming now seems set to be the way that 95%+ of our music gets consumed in the foreseeable future, right or wrong, love or hate. I still half-hope something seismic will happen to wake people up and draw them back to buying instead of renting, but, short of a global internet meltdown, which is hardly desirable given the reliance we now have on it in wider society, the chances of this look to be somewhere between 'fat' and 'no'.

For me - and this is despite liking the songs in question - based on how it felt at the time - 'Ghostbusters' by Ray Parker Jr, and 'Relax' by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. While now I celebrate them as enduring pop moments whose 'pure' sales as we must now call them kept them alive in the Top 75 for so many months, it did feel at the time as if they'd long-since run their course. Modern chart listeners will relate to this far more readily as there have been so many long-runners owing to the nature of the market and the way the charts are compiled, but these were early examples of 'too much of a good thing'. These two felt particularly frustrating because they both had second winds in the chart, recovering a Top 10 position after what had apparently been their natural peak. 'Blue Monday' of course did the same, at least once, but it is still a perfect record to my ears and so I won't have a word said against it! Shows how enduring it was for its repeated chart profile not to have annoyed me, in an era where your average typical Top 10-peaking track would spend between 10 and 20 weeks on the Top 75 and usually follow a conventional climb-peak-fall pattern.

It's great that the OCC publish updates to this all-time list every now and then, but would it really hurt for them to publish the recorded total sales to-date against each entry? It's such an obvious omission. They can't claim that the full data is sensitive, as for their update of September 2017 people like me couldn't believe their luck, as they provided to-the-latest-unit figures for all tracks on the list, as well as breaking-down the figures for biggest on pure sales and on streaming equivalents. Really interesting for those who care about the transition of the market from paid-for purchasing to audio/video rented streaming. Also, it would help if they chose to provide such updates at a more statistically-significant cut-off point, so for example 1 January 2020 following the end of the 2010s on 31 Dec '19, or possibly 1 Jan '21 as the actual calendrical decade runs from Jan '11 to Dec '20? It seems they just do what they fancy when they fancy it and the inconsistency is irritating. But I suppose better some sort of update at some random point than none at all, which for so many years was the case even after the launch of their online site.

Somehow try to get fans of those indie, rock and other under-represented genres to embrace streaming en-masse! Sadly, while these musical styles fared the transition in singles terms from CD to download reasonably well in the 2000s, it seems that they have not followed suit in the 2010s shift from download purchasing to online streaming, whereas fans of certain other genres such as rap and dance apparently have. It's hard to explain why this has become the case, because it seems that the sales once guaranteed for some artists in the indie/rock sector have fallen away too, and not been replaced by streaming. It begs the question whether fans of these acts now tend to assume there isn't anything much being released now of interest, and so don't actually consume a lot of new music at all. They also won't be buying much catalogue content either, as presumably they'll already own it, either on download or CD, of at the collectors' end of the market, possibly vinyl. It's wrong to say there isn't anything decent of that ilk being made any more, but its profile is so low now compared to other genres, both at radio and TV, that it likely doesn't get heard by potential consumers, unless they're seeking it out proactively online, but if they are successfully doing that, there's little impact of it in respect of buying or streaming. And what there is is so hugely overpowered by that accrued by grime etc that it just can't get a foothold anymore in the obvious places - the combined singles chart, radio/TV airplay schedules etc. It's almost impossible to successfully push a sector of the market away from one format and into another if they're not ready to make the transition organically. But something could and should be done about the 'passive streaming' problem, whereby large sites programme pre-conceived playlists which favour black music styles massively, and don't change much over many months, which then get passively-streamed by lazy listeners and so get to stranglehold the singles charts. The OCC's move to distinguish between 'paid-for (subscription)' and 'free (ad-funded)' streams helped a little, but the default listening of pre-made playlists is definitely one of the policies that needs to be changed, and as an industry it would be possible, if there was seen to be enough in it for them, and the damage to the chart brand itself caused by this trend were fully-realised. But as it stands there seems to be little evidence of any appetite to quell the problem, with Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon all allowed to do things exactly the way they choose, having effectively created a three-way dominance of the streaming sector between them. Sadly, I fear more elaborate alterations to the chart will be made rather than any attempt to change the way in which streaming is presented and measured.

I regard myself as fortunate in having been exposed to pop music on radio at a very early age, initially through my parents, and so chances are the first chart (or part of one) I would've heard would've been 1979 or '80, but although I'm blessed with a very good memory, I was too young to really engage with all the detail at that point. However, after my parents finally modernised and bought a new hi-fi in July 1981 (one of those silver things in a cabinet with record deck, radio, single cassette deck, recording level needles, a storage space for your vinyl underneath and a glass door!), my Mum suggested that I should listen to the charts on Sunday afternoons, given my obvious interest, and the improved capacity to record from the radio in better quality. So I strapped on some ludicrously large headphones and knelt in front of the stereo, poised to record the songs I liked from the Radio 1 Top 40 show onto a nice new TDK C-90, making as sure as possible to push 'pause' before Tony Blackburn blundered in! Not sure of the exact week, but likely Sunday 19th July. There were some corkers charting at that point, and I still feel very fondly about 1980s chart music for all its faults. I'm grateful I got with it a fair sight sooner than many of my peers did. To a greater or lesser degree I've followed the singles chart since, although my religious/regular Top 40 listening only lasted until the late 1990s, when I started falling-out of love with a lot of what passed for pop, and the sheer turnover of the chart with only new entries and downward movements made me lose interest in trying to keep pace with it. I dipped-in frequently to the show in the 2000s, but with so few singles I buy (yes, BUY!) ever making the Top 100 let-alone 40 nowadays, and it now being broadcast on a Friday, the recent 2010s has seen far less direct engagement, and I think I'm more-or-less done with it as a broadcast. I tend to follow the official charts now more from a wider interest in the music market and how it develops, for better or worse, not so much the tracks that populate it, though sadly, the ongoing skew that streaming has introduced and the messy rules now applied by the OCC are only serving to reduce that interest!

I couldn't agree more with those who have commented that the charts are there to reflect what is going on in real markets - or at least should be. In which case, they should not be restricted to accommodate or iron-out perceived inconveniences or inconsistencies that the current sales or streaming sectors inherently entail, due to behaviour of consumers that is either organic or massaged by the record industry. The OCC - or its predecessor CIN - did not seek to somehow amend the singles chart formula during the 1990s just because of the increased usage of 'front-loading' marketing norms that led to songs entering at their peak only to fall back thereafter, virtually eliminating sustained upward movement from the countdown and shortening the lifespan of many singles for ten years 1995 to 2005. Many commentators, both consumers and industry figures, disliked this as it was a seemingly skewed and unconventional behaviour for singles after three decades of consistent entry-climb-peak-decline, across 10-20 weeks for a bigger hit, and felt wrong. Indeed there was much talk in the early '90s, even before the entry-at-peak trend really became fully-embedded but during a period of declining sales, of altering the formula to align more with Billboard's, i.e. add an airplay factor to create what would have been a false impression of tracks building for longer towards a peak which would only be triggered once actually made available to buy. Happily, the idea was never fleshed-out or inaugurated. So the chart did become predictable in that everyone following music knew what would likely be the big new entries each week, with no real excitement beyond the debut week's position of a song due to the sheer turnover of around half the Top 40 every 7 days. Yes, I think that did do a lot of damage to the reputation and perceived relevance of the chart, with many older fans drifting away from it, even if they retained an ongoing interest in consuming current releases. Yet would that have been reason-enough to have justified CIN fiddling with the formula to complicate and arguably artificialise the rankings? I would say not, though others may disagree. For all its faults, the chart represented what the industry - and eventually the buying public - wanted of the pattern that singles were promoted, released and bought, which eventually gave way gradually from the mid-'00s as digital downloads shook-up the way we consumed tracks in general, and later the move from purchasing to renting music via online streaming sites. Chart behaviour moved along with those developments, with the reinstatement of more sustained ascendance and slower descendance to and from peaks, and a much lower turnover than anyone could've foreseen only a decade before. So should the OCC, after awkwardly combining streams with sales in both singles and albums charts despite the inherent differences in the type of consumption, have subsequently started introducing restrictions in response to the some-say inevitable occasional mass-dominance of one very popular artist in one or two week's charts caused by en-masse immediate streaming? Or just let the chart reflect the new realities, however skewed they seem to some, and whatever the risk of some thinking that reality somehow reduces the relevance or worth of the tabulation as a whole? I have to say the latter, as despite some people finding it ridiculous that all of an Ed Sheeran's album tracks can block-out 20 out of 25 positions in the full Top 200 tracks listing, that is how the streaming sector operates, and surely it discredits and devalues the notion of having an official chart far-more to airbrush oddities out and artificially-manipulate published positions on it than to just let it evolve and reflect what is actually happening? If we look back at the 1990s/2000s era when many chart followers are thought to have deserted the concept often owing to the pace of turnover, it has become clear in the years since that there remains much nostalgia for the charts of those years among those who were young and caught-up in the culture of that period, and that they miss that frantic turnover and race for a different song to be at No 1 every week. And lest we forget, the late '90s in particular saw very strong physical sales, which showed that the interest in the format per se had not all-but-evaporated as many doomsayers predicted earlier in the decade. When it did die, for another decade, downloads filled the gap and again, with a little stuttering along the way, the chart was only adjusted so that it could properly-include that format alongside its physical counterparts. Very few restrictions were applied from January 2007 onwards. As with all other prior trends, we've seen them all develop and eventually lose currency through time, however set and unassailable they appeared - from front-loaded CD singles, to all tracks being available immediately for download, via on-air/on-sale, through to playlisting and streaming replacing purchasing as the chief means of consumption in a matter of five years. It's fairly certain then that whatever happens in music in the coming years, the fearsome pace of technological change and willingness of consumers to move with that lead will ensure that the extremities of the present chart will likely not exist in another five or ten years' time. So its shape and behaviour may well settle into a different - or previously-familiar - pattern yet again. The chart administrators simply need to let that happen naturally and not interfere unduly with it in the neurotic way the OCC have been since 2015.

In fairness Ben I hadn't seen those figures. In a way I'm pleased if I'm being proven wrong on the assumption that the official chart gets few regular listeners. For all its faults now, it remains the anchor of chart broadcasts and does carry the 'official' status in a way that ILR competitors never can. Are those numbers live as it is originally broadcast or inclusive of any catch-up listens? I don't know how they compile radio ratings now. I only ask because I still struggle to see how many people who'd likely be interested in the countdown would make themselves available to hear it as it is announced. That said, I guess school kids are a fair share of the audience and they're well-home before it starts, and have in the main yet to discover the joys of the early evening Friday-nighter on the town! For my own part as a youngster I remember I used to be pissed-off that I'd nearly-always miss the initial announcement of the new chart when it was on a Tuesday lunchtime pre-Oct '87; I was almost always at school and so had to wait for the fuller (but by the time it was aired almost redundant) Sunday show, blank cassette and forefinger at the ready!

Surely this move has been less about giving earlier exposure to tracks destined to chart or climb on the Friday full-week frame or 'building anticipation', and more about trying to fill the historic Radio 1 Sunday afternoon 'chart slot' with something more meaningful that people might actually want to listen to? Albeit that it was driven by the (I still think errant) decision to move the chart week from Friday to Thursday in accordance with the general shift to Friday as new releases day, and it seemed to make logical sense to be the first to air the official rankings, I think Radio 1 scored a huge own goal by moving the main chart broadcast to Fridays from Sundays, at least in terms of listenership, as there are so many more people who can set aside the time on a Sunday than a Friday. As someone who long-since fell out of love with the type of music that tends to make the Top 40, and in response to the very slow turnover of hits, I haven't been too concerned about missing the official chart on Friday afternoons, but had I been so, it would've been a real blow as it's just not a convenient time to listen. I do sometimes have the Big Top 40 on as background on a Sunday afternoon as despite it being of little relevance in terms of the positions, and not being 'official', I'm simply more likely to be pottering around the house and want to have something on the radio, and that presents as a convenient option. Granted, we now have podcasts and catch-ups but the whole point of a chart show surely is that is a live fresh-off-the-press broadcast; it doesn't quite have the same interest if heard a day or so later. So in effect, all that the move served to do was shift attention away from the official chart and transfer what small listenership there was left for it over to ILR. I think in this day and age while there retains some interest in hearing a chart countdown, there's probably less concern about the specific positioning of tracks, accuracy, how official it is etc. People just want a chart rundown experience to have on, regardless of details. It's almost a tradition for some. Hence why the Big Top 40 for all its faults holds all the aces and R1 are left struggling to retrospectively-fill the Sunday void they created. An airplay chart based solely on what that station plays was never going to cut it. I suppose a 'chart update' is probably their best option for competing with the BT40, although of course it will only be an hour, not three. It will be interesting if they present a rules-free update though, without the starrings-out etc, as per the updates that feature on MW.com during the week. I suspect they might apply the rules to the Sunday update for broadcast purposes though, as surely it would seem illogical - and undermine the reputation of the full-week official chart on Fridays - were they to air any anticipated hits on Sunday that miraculously get airbrushed from the Friday edition owing to the three-track rule? I think the less attention drawn to the artificial removal of certain songs from the official listing the better. The chief concern though has already been aired by several on this thread - given that they still seem to be without key streaming data from some of the biggest players even come Wednesdays, how complete can a Sunday update really be? To say that it will derive data from all streaming sites for the Sunday show just doesn't ring true to me, and if it is mostly made up of actual sales data without much in the way of streaming, the rankings of a Sunday will be far-removed from what they will likely be come Friday. I guess for those who would like a return to a sales-only tabulation that would provide some greater interest, but the disparity between the two Top 20s will soon become apparent.

Missed this initially as I was on holiday abroad happily ignoring the news generally, as it would doubtless be dominated in the UK at least by the Tory leadership race and the Trump visit! Although not an iTunes user, I am nevertheless heartened to hear that they're not closing the actual paid-for purchases store - just yet at least. We've all tended to assume that as it presumably still commands a lion's share of the overall digital sales market (?), once iTunes does finally shut for downloads, the other sites will steadily follow, unless they're interested in retaining a slightly-bigger portion of a shrunken market and provide downloads as a 'niche' offering. I don't know about Amazon - I imagine they're probably runners-up in what remains of the sales sector and I've heard nothing to indicate they're lessening their support for digital music product (again though - ?). But - for reasons I shan't try to relate here - I've always used 7Digital since I began having to download singles at the beginning of the decade, having stuck with CDs for as long as I could. I've noticed that for many months now - probably around nine - they've ceased bothering to refresh their new tracks/albums weekly, with only one update in that period, a few weeks ahead of the Christmas market. I'm also noticing that some current releases are not featuring on this site, or, where the artist is apparently listed, when one clicks on it to access their releases, there's nothing there, just a blank page. I can't see anything about it on any forums, possibly because what's happening with a small player like 7Digital in paid-for downloads is so irrelevant to people now, but I'm guessing none of these lackadaisical indicators bode well? It is starting to make me wonder whether sites like this will actually shut-up their shops sooner than Apple, if their sales and relative market shares are now even-smaller than before and sufficiently minuscule to render it not worth bothering? Okay I can move to Amazon or whatever and all my files are downloaded to a device. But it just feels like a repeat of ten years ago when physical purchasers were being forced onto digital - at least in respect of singles if not albums - and now digital purchasers are being forced towards streaming whether they want it or not. As a curmudgeonly old git I shall probably be one of the last to give up on downloads, and envisaged it would be after 2020, but it seems I may now have less time to go before either succumbing unwillingly to streaming new material, or falling off that particular cliff completely.

A genuine best-of-British talent, and despite having a fair number of hits, underrated indeed, especially her more recent less-dance-orientated material. I seldom find a female vocal truly sexy but she manages it; so refreshing to hear someone who doesn't just try to ape the usual urban histrionics of your Mariahs and Beyonces, and actively eschews any falsely-American sound at all, in both vocals and production values. 'Read My Lips' remains an enduring album which carried many songs that could've passed for potential lesser singles and I'm pleased it is still her best-seller album-wise. In a way it was a shame the focus was on presenting her as a disco queen for singles - obviously far-more commercially-relevant and marketable at that time - but this meant her initial more thought-provoking and sophisticated electronic tracks were inevitably put in the shade. Touches of genuine class in pop were rare even in 2001; sadly now they're almost impossible to find, so it's nice to remember the contribution Ms Ellis-Bextor made on that front (and still does, just less-commercially).

As a point of fact, 'No Good (Start The Dance)' was in fact released in May 1994. Real shame about Keef, but his tufty haircut occasionally lives-on when I step out of a shower and half-dry my own hair and look in the mirror...