The Charts: Classic Or Dud

Sometimes you get this from support groups (i mean at rockshows, not 12-step). And from use of music in soundtracks, where you suddenly realise how brilliant a song is you always had no feelings abt: viz 'Heart of the Sunrise' in the trailer to Buffalo 66.

i have also gone off chart-following for long times at a stretch, mind you

given what i'm getting from it the corruption aspect is actually irrelevant, to me

(haha momus has just moved to the ONLY COUNTRY WHERE HIS RECORDS HAVE EVAH CHARTED!!)

Which means there must be something else about the charts I like (aside from liking some of the music in it) - I think Mark gets near it. Chart music is ubiquitous - you don't choose to listen to it, often, other than choosing to turn on your radio. This means that your response to the music is pretty much unfiltered - you're responding to the sound of a record, not at all to your own presience or coolness or good sense in finding it, not to the difficulty of tracking it down. And I like that.

The thing that annoys me about the actual mechanics of the chart is that it only goes halfway - if you're going to have a sales-based chart then you should say how many copies each record has sold, too.

dad is also a big sports fan, he's out watching a footy game tonight so i can't ask him why he likes music charts so much. but i have an idea that there are competition aspects common to sport and charts that keep him hooked. watching countdown (or the footy ladder?), you barrack for your songs, anticipating what will come next, chuffed when it's something you like. there are also reviled enemy songs... indignantly you ask "who buys this shit?". it's fun.

Buying things other people are buying at the same time is CLASSIC because it gives a (potential at least) social dimension to consumption, duh. I mean there is the argument that buying things in general is Dud and I sympathise but I don't see anyone here stopping.

What you're talking about is conformity.

I'm not attacking the charts, btw Tom, but I am definitely suspicious about the way in which they work. I'm very curious about chart music (one of the reason I starting reading FT 2-3 years was because I enjoyed reading more about the songs I was listening to at the time). Most of the time these days though, I'm just unwilling to endure commercials and djs to enjoy listening to 3 minutes of music.

For the record, I am suspicious that anything is ever really unfiltered. After all the charts and pop radio themselves are a in themselves a context and there is a certain populist-"cool" inherent in them.

But Mark S is right - I'm not talking about conformity. I'm talking about the charts as a -basically arbitrary - set of readymade discussion-objects, just like Ethan's 15 great songs are except with the added bonus that the discussion can't become a discussion about Ethan.

I think there are basically 2 kinds of conversation you can have about music -

1. "That new Momus album is great!" "Really, I've not heard it, tell me about it"

2. "That new Streets album is great!" "Yeah it is, what do you like best about it?" (or "No it's risible mockney nonsense FITE!")

The existence of The Charts mean more type-2 conversations can happen. But both conversations are great which is part of why I would be horrified if I ever only listened to the charts and nothing else.

Lizard?

I've never heard of Streets, I can only assume the reason you think people are likely to have an opinion of them is that they're being hammered down everybody's gullet in Britain just now.

When you were in France last week, Tom, did you notice what was in the French charts? Is it any more or less socially significant for you, as an Englishman in Paris, to know that Murat's new album has just gone into the Top 10 there as to know Streets are at 8 in the UK?

I like fruit. Does my enjoyment of grapefruit change because they are currently outsold by bananas? Does the success of bananas make it more likely that I will 'open my mind to the unexpected' by trying a banana just to see what the fuss is about, discuss bananas with people in the check-out queue, or -- alarming possibility -- does the success of bananas mean that there's no shelf-space left (in your local 'Chart Formatted' Our Price of fruit) for those 'minority interest', 'difficult', 'bitter' citrus fruits?

How can I be sure the 'success' of bananas isn't just due to a dumping deal between Dole and grocers? And are there any grocers left, people who know fruit and stock a wide variety of it, or do I have to go to a supermarket chain (recently merged with a big pharmaceuticals concern)?

As the Napoleon of Bolton once put it: 'My mind it ain't so open that anything could crawl right in'.

How the music gets into the charts isn't that important to me - hence my "vaguely arbitrary" above. The shelf-space argument becomes increasingly irrelevant the more music delivery systems move to spaceless forms, though.

France? We were in a rented farmhouse in the middle of Normandy, not in a city - I did go into a record shop in Rouen when I got the opportunity but was swiftly hustled out by my horrified companions. But we listened to the hip-hop chart on a local station, it was mostly American stuff but not all. In general though yeah, if I was in another country and talking with people there about pop music I'd take the charts as an example.

For instance - when I was in Hamburg last month the guy showing me around started talking about music, and the first question he asked was, what's big in Britain at the moment? And I told him and asked what was big in Germany. It's the quickest way of establishing yr common and uncommon ground with a stranger, and then you can spin off into more interesting places - we ended up talking about Fischer-Z of all bands!

(I'd be interested to see what you think of the Streets actually. I think - well, I hope - you'd be impressed with his obvious verbal gifts and I suspect you'd be apalled at the stuff he chooses to celebrate using them: he's the new poet laureate of Brutishness.)

(Note, however, that I do like some of the music that appears on the charts; there's just no causal relationship. I couldn't tell you what's on the charts right now if you paid me.)

Actually no, thinking about it you;re right - like any other vector of music delivery there's a danger the vector can replace as well as encourage discussion. "It's in the charts it must be good" = "It's in The Wire it must be good" = no substitute for experience.

But it's not, Alex, and ILM is proof! The level of discourse on a thread about Britney is pretty much the same as the level of discourse on a thread about Cornelius, or Pavement! (Actually slightly higher since there tends to be less simple listing-of-songs on chartmusic threads (cos the charts are already a list) than on established bands threads).

the idea that the DICUSSION of eg VU is free of pre-fabricated ideas is manifest nonsense: cf julio's continual anger at the uncritical tolerence (here, or in the wire) of eg the stooges => the unquestioned assumption that stooges are culturally superior to say oasis => that the process by which the "superior culture" actually TAKES is in fact sidestepped, and all you get is black turtleneckers congratulating each other on their superiority, with no evidence that it obtains

HA HA geysers need excitement HA HA HA!!

When young, I listened to dear ol' Casey Kasem religiously and even hand created some charts in 1983 or so. This ceased after a while. I have no idea about what the singles charts have been in the last few years, probably more. Album charts I see more often, just. It's enough to know that Creed keep selling, so never mind.

Tom's OTM about "The Wire" btw; I just think that the charts are more susceptible to false critical consciousness.

Yes, but sports can be also taken seriously and critically as opposed mindlessly. I can get behind mindlessness somewhat, but only if it's conscious mindlessness, y'know?

in canada, nobody cares about the charts. the only chart that ever has any effect on people is the muchmusic (our mtv) music video charts, and that's all horribly rigged and not a real representation of _music_ anyway. in canada and the united states, the singles market is practically dead. it's all album sales here, though that doesn't stop anyone from shelling out the cash for the album when they're only really interested in 'the hit' (one thing i find despicable about north american consumers). although this may be the case, we still have regular top 40 charts here (and they're dreadful, anybody like creed?) but i think rigged just enough to give a slightly broader spectrum of music a chance. i haven't looked at a u.k. chart in months but it's pretty dire fluff. you poor souls.

what i lovelovelove! about the u.k. and its approach to charts and radio play is that the english appear to be very fickle and transitory in their taste. one day a particular song will be big, hit #1 and be played to death. then it will be completely forgotten and the next song(s) will take the stage. in a more singles-based market this makes a lot of sense. this kind of forced turnover happens everywhere as a result of record company machinations, but in the u.k. there is such a complete, utter purge of everything not- quite-current the level of the listener. the british as people (it would seem) are far more interested in having a bit of fun and dancing to a nice little pop song and then forgetting about it and going on to the next thing. in canada people have a more 'go-down- with-the-ship' mentality ... we never quite get rid of this awful chart music -- it hangs over us like a grotesque 4/4 marionette with a narcoleptic puppeteer.

why do i like the u.k. chart system if i don't like the music? i'm not a big fan of chart pop at all, but i would rather hear up-to-the- minute pointless fluff then slightly dated pointless fluff. i also love listening to the current trends in mainstream production and hearing how underground influences are seeping into the mainstream (like when two-step beats started appearing in more standard pop). the best thing for me, however, is that once a song has outlived its usefulness in u.k. chart land i'll NEVER HAVE TO HEAR IT AGAIN.

turn on the radio in canada and you're still bombarded with early 90's bryan adams, 80's zz top, wall-era pink floyd (*shudder*), rush, supertramp, foreigner and god knows whatever else. so many people here have not changed their hairstyle since 1985. believe it. it's gross, and for some reason, liking this awful, dated music and hair is a source of pride for many canadians. must be the french influence there.

enjoy your charts. if it's transitory commercial music not made for a lifetime of listening, we must assimilate whatever cultural or technological relevance it may have and MOVE ON. in that respect the u.k. has the most darwinist chart system on earth and for that i love it.

At this point, a Most Downloaded chart would be the most interesting, I think.

I happily download music I like, but I doubt the RIAA would suddenly say, "All those who don't buy the CDs raise your hands".....

Since today's US charts seem to be ruled by Limp Bizkit and such ilk, I wonder whether it's really a matter of personal taste....or is it more that a group of people decided to buy an album, just because the charts call it popular?

Despair for fellow independent thinkers....

the "charts" constitute the average person's main method of exposure to music, by hearing the songs on radio and in clubs. in that respect, people do buy the limp bizkit album because simply because it's on the chart. can we really fault that? if there are no other avenues for music to be presented, can we blame someone for making what they think is an informed choice?

unfortunately, the charts are rigged. who buys the records? young people, and a lot of them aren't actually buying that crap. there's thousands and thousands of sweaty kids getting down right now to some angular indie rock band in the american midwest. i've never heard of this band, but maybe they'll show up on jade tree in a year or two. how do all those sales on college campuses and record shops figure into the charts? they don't. same with the amazing new house music we've not heard of yet that's getting people really high at clubs. people are out there loving new stuff. people love music and they're curious about it. but there's no reflection of this in mainstream charts because it's a three-ringed circus of record companies, radio stations and media conglomerates.

it's sad to me, but i guess not everyone finds music as important as we do. i guess most people don't think about the politics of music enough to really concern themselves with whether or not the charts are accurate. can we really fault people for being ordinary?

Pete talks utter nonsense here. And this the reason I wuv the charts.

So I was thinking about that. Obviously reading the Guardian every day doesn't make Momus a conformist, anymore than listening to the charts every week makes me one. So what exactly is it abt a newspaper that fills me with the same kind of rage that he feels towards the charts?

The only thing I came up with was this: I'm a working writer, and just arbitrarily exposing myself to someone else's agenda — random to ME but yes, perhaps not to them — can be very extremely derailing and distracting; I get annoyed at things that just happen along (the current events that "everyone"s talking about") and then can't focus on what I'm really trying to work on. So I deliberately DON'T read newspapers: and I rationalise this self-cocooning by telling myself that I'm missing nothing, because it's ALL peabrained halfbaked cliche anyway — what the fuck could I possibly learn from it? And I don't have to read it to know it.

Momus is a working musician: possibly quite a lot of anti-chart arguers here are. Maybe working musicians hate the thing I like about the charts — the intrusion of the unexpected, finding you like something you would prefer to hate, because it fucks with your head exactly where you have to be careful about what you let in. Creativity is about being selectively closed-minded: not a bad thing so much as an unavoidable thing. I try to manage and play with my prejudices — when I'm aware of them — so that they push me in unexpected ways. (So yeah, the fickle swiftness of the UK charts IS a bonus there: it's kind of a handy map of "Things a lot of people think they like which they probably won't for long" => I quiz myself: Do I? Could I?)

Right, I'm off to buy some anadin extra, some coffee and the paper. For the Guardian Guide you clowns: Television is where it's really at!

The US charts are the exact opposite of this. They are everything you know already. You don't even have to look at them to know what's there.

listening to this on iplayer now
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/documentaries/riseandfallofthecharts.shtml

https://variety.com/2019/music/news/rolling-stone-launch-own-music-charts-challenge-billboard-1203207480/