the charts are stagnating again.

It seems downloading has caused the charts to go slower. For some reason, people seem to wait longer before they download a song than before they buy the single.

Of course, the unnaturally fast UK charts of a few years ago were a result of this stupid policy to let singles cost less in their first week than in the rest of its life, meaning a single's highest chart position would usually be an indication of how well people liked the previous hit from the same act.

Yes, but that was to make the record 'ship' faster.

If all the sales happen in one week, the distribution of the single would happen once only.

Now, it's back to how stuff'd move around the chart, like the sixties, almost!

I think it's a good thing. The fast turnover of the late 90s was pointless, and gave very little space for the better songs, which would usually develop over time rather than race into the charts in their first week.

It seems downloading has caused the charts to go slower. For some reason, people seem to wait longer before they download a song than before they buy the single.

--

that can't be right can it? i'm prepared to believe it but it can't be 'right' right?

i think southall and matt dc are kind of right. umbrella is a good song, very good but it doesn't seem like a 9 week smash. it doesn't seem to have the all ages appeal of the likes of "crazy" or "i don't feel like dancing", the stuff that straddles radios 1 and 2. it's definitely in the blockbuster bracket of "sexyback" and "maneater" but neither of them spent so long at number one. i guess you'd have to see the sales figures but it's hard to know if it's the song itself or just paucity of competition that's giving it such a long run. if it's the song itself i guess that the big selling point is that it sort of combines the attributes of a "banger" and a "ballad" but by that reasoning “my love” would have been number one for nine weeks. possibly.

How am I right?! My entire contribution is along the lines of "not heard it, more into postrock than chartpop"?!

you are right in that it's very easy not to be aware of its existence.

Aha.

well it would be be if you preferred postrock to chartpop but otherwise waht

but by that reasoning “my love” would have been number one for nine weeks. possibly.

second single off released album, not released in Summer iirc, nowhere near as 'epic' sounding as 'Umbrella'.

it just doesn't seem very pervasive, admittedly when i come to think of it i have heard it in shops and a couple of tv idents. this measure the success of a song by how many times i hear it in a week idea may not be very useful tbh thou. also rihanna doesn't seem to be in the press that much. not being british puts her at one remove and she has yet to be a beyonce style megastar. possibly kind of hard to write broadsheet articles on. she was at live earth wasn't she?

Yes, she was in Tokyo.

gnarls barkley were hardly megastars either

but perhaps a lot easier to write about

Definitely. They had the whole 'first download #1' thing as well as being ex-celeb / trendy producer.

not easier to write about either, unless you need a gimmicky angle entirely unrelated to the music in order to profile an artist

and i'm aware that many do need this hook, but that's not my problem, and nor should it be yours

sure, i agree but as you say lots of writing does work this way. it's the paris/jarvis thing, the press often needs a gimmick to get in. i don't how this stuff works, is this to do with how articles are pitched?

it deserves to be number one for this long.

okay maybe not 9 weeks - it doesnt mean much beyond being a great song, but maybe thats enough these days.

"http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/07/why_i_still_love_rihannas_umbr.html";

thats one of the worst pics of rihanna ive seen.

That eh eh eh bit of Umbrella unfortunately reminds me of the eh eh eh bit in Zombie by the cranberries, after which there's no hope for the song.

I miss CD UK and TotP. It is like chart pop is another genre that you have to keep up with, rather than just being the default that's always there.

Now that strikes me as a very salient point. What's chart pop's presence on mainstream TV now? There isn't really any, is there?

Gentrification, "Coffee Table", the 90s, Broadsheets, False Consensus and "The New Punk Rock"

I keep reading this thread title as "the charts are staggering again" and thinking Britney was spotted drunk or something.

No One Admits To Singing, Writing, Producing Nation's No. 1 Song

landslide win for NRQ and his ping pongs

waht

what are your 11 favourite songs of the moment, fuck

i think 'my love' is less likeable than 'umbrella'. i think it's a sad thing that cynical bullshit like 'don't feel like dancing' is deemed more family-friendly now. 'umbrella' is the only actual song out of the ones acrobat named. do people no longer value that?

grace jones 'pull up to the bumper' (12")
prince 'i feel for you'
ciara 'oh'
rihanna 'umbrella'
television 'see no evil'
nico 'i'll keep it with mine'
bass-o-matic 'fascinating rhythm'
...
oh BOTHERED

Ban That one guy that hit it and quit it.

Ban Don Derun.

good effort brau

typing out most recently played off itunes is not what ilx is for.

if i MUST discuss popular music with you year after year it helps to establish occasionally an understanding of your preferences in the contemporary domain of said medium.

i basically have a preference for things i hear and like. fortunately most bands do something to piss me off before i need to hear them. this saves time.

i basically have a preference for things i hear and like

illuminating

18 weeks - Frankie Laine, I Believe (1953)
16 weeks - Bryan Adams, (Everything I Do) I Do It For You (1991)
15 weeks - Wet Wet Wet, Love Is All Around (1994)
11 weeks - Slim Whitman, Rose Marie (1955)
10 weeks - David Whitfield, Cara Mia (1954)
10 weeks - Whitney Houston, I Will Always Love You (1992)

Source: Official UK Charts Company

ella, ella, ella, ey-ey-ey

7 weeks at number 1 for Mark Ronson in the Uk.

8 long weeks for Drake at number 1. 8 weeks!? longest run for a single in 9 years.

How does it go?

I can't remember the last time I paid attention to the charts... probably about 10 years ago or something. I always took more notice of the album chart, too.

It's been a minute for me, too. Are Wilson Phillips and Boyz II Men still a thing?

they're triple dating.

did "the sign" finally fall off the charts?

There's a special hell somewhere where that fucking Bryan Adams song is still number one, I'm sure.

this is nuts

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-36794105

Drake's single only topped the sales-only chart in the first three weeks of its reign. It's only the inclusion of streaming data (where 100 plays count as one sale) that has given him a lock on the number one spot. And that's something that's starting to worry the music industry, because now that the charts measure consumption rather than purchases, they have practically ground to a halt.

In the first six months of 2016, there were 86 new entries in the UK singles chart. Ten years ago, that figure was 230.

I noticed the other week that the top eight singles in the UK didn't change (not even order) over two weeks, which is... strange.

ten years ago the number of new entries only spending one week on the chart was probably also super high, so no use pretending the chart was problem-free then either. even 'big' hits would frequently enter at their peak and spend a pitifully short time in the top 10 for the majority of the digital music era until recently.

it's pretty common for the industry to have to adjust how it works its product after the charts undergo semi-radical methodological revisions. when soundscan and broadcast data systems numbers were first implemented for the hot 100 in 1991, the main finding was that, on the radio and retail sides, the strongest hits were both breaking much faster and sticking around much longer than would have been reflected by the old survey-based methodology. in order to keep 'playing the charts' as an effective means of marketing singles, some in the industry tried a bizarre series of strategies to try to manipulate the new methodology in their favor. others realized they could market songs to radio, and their parent albums to consumers, without the assistance of singles retail whatsoever. the result was that the hot 100 was both more and less representative of the current state of pop singles consumption for the greater part of the entire 1990s decade. by the time things were 'figured out' (around 1999) and the charts started seeing decent turnaround of singles that were actually popular, not just popular because labels wanted them to appear as such, the singles retail market was in its death throes due to the combination of unsustainable strategies the labels had assumed during those years.

i think this time around the industry won't have to bumble around as long to figure it out. or at least i hope. (they may very well kill the digital downloads market, though. r.i.p. itunes!)

Ed Sheeran. Number 1 AND 2 for 5 weeks straight.

His music's always been piss and shit, tbf.