I swear iām the only person on earth who is not a big fan of that song.
Wrong. Itās only an okay song, but Iāve got thousands of other songs on my phone Iād rather listen to.
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Well if that doesnāt prove that the charts are all completely stuffed up these days then I donāt know what does. The charts should be purely about sales. Streaming should be measured separately.
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You have to wonder what percentage of that streaming is retail, offices, etc on top of that which makes the numbers even more dubious compared with the charts pre-streaming.
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Indeed. A lot of Christmas songs from the past and some which have never charted. Ridiculous.
1 All I Want For Christmas Is You - Mariah Carey
5 Last Christmas - Wham
8 Do They Know Itās Christmas? - Band
14 Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - John Lennon
18 Santa Tell Me - Ariana Grande
25 Mistletoe - Justin Bieber
30 Santa Claus Is Coming To Town - The Jackson 5
35 Rockinā Around the Christmas Tree - Brenda Lee
37 How To Make Gravy - Paul Kelly
40 Winter Wonderland - Tony Bennett
42 A Holly Jolly Christmas - Burl Ives
44 Step Into Christmas - Elton John
45 What Christmas Means to Me - Stevie Wonder
47 Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - Sam Smith
49 Run Rudolph Run - Chuck Berry
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Someone missed December 21stā¦
What? A number of those songs were in the chart the previous weeks too. Thatās not the point.
Your point is repeatedly that itās ridiculous. But that is what people are consuming. You simply canāt make the chart on sales anymore - that isnāt how people consume music. Digital downloads are down heavily. Physical sales are virtually non-existent. (Mid-Year 2018: Streaming's Continued Growth Defies Mathematical Trends | Billboard) If you did charts solely on sales, the charts would be full of dad rock and old lady easy listening.
It might just be that a Top 40 chart is as much an anachronism as a CD or cassette.
And Chuck Berry, Brenda Lee, Tony Bennett, Burl Ives, The Jackson 5, John Lennon, Stevie Wonder are not?
Canāt see this being an accurate reflection of what everyday Aussies are streaming either. As @Squee said:
Really? You canāt see how well-known Christmas songs being played at Christmas isnāt an accurate reflection?
I donāt disagree with @Squee at all but what I am saying is itās hard to police and adjust the chart to discount this.
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Not in these large numbers which would make them chart. Seems to be artificially skewed.
Prove me wrong. Why are obscure Burl Ives, Stevie Wonder and Elton John Christmas songs which never charted when originally released in the 1960s and 1970s charting for the first time in 2018?
Because people are choosing Spotify/Apple music playlists that feature those songs and are listening to them? Christmas songs have a much longer shelf life than āordinary musicā.
The whole landscape has changed, thereās more music than ever and youāre less at the behest of record labels so seasonal staples are always going to rise to the top at this time of year.
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So these songs are only being played because they are being put on playlists not because people are specifically choosing to hear them.
So the chart is not a reflection of what people are choosing to hear or play but what someone else is choosing for them. Thatās why measuring streams is an unfair measure of the popularity of these songs.
And you think record labels are not manipulating these playlists on streaming services? That would be naive.
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I have a playlist of around 2000 songs Iāve compiled on Spotify. I hit shuffle and do I actively choose each one as it comes on? No. But by choosing to listen to that playlist I have made an active decision to listen to what comes up, unless I skip a song. I very rarely decide on a song by song basis what I want to listen. When I choose to listen to an album on Spotify then Iāve chosen to obviously listen to that, but thereās no difference between the streams and are recorded the same.
I think @JBar youāre trying to apply old school logic to a new age of music listening and I donāt mean that in a mean way, but you canāt simply decide or want to exclude streams if that is where the majority of people are listening, legally, to music. I can see where youāre coming from about it being āunfairā to an extent but streams can be turned off or songs skipped etc.
Oh I agree that playlists are being massaged by record labels and the whole idea of an algorithm choosing music for you to listen to is worrying, but thatās another matter.
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But when people compare charts from today to the past then itās an unfair measure. And they do it all the time from the chart compilers themselves to the media and record companies.
People say things like:
āMariah Careyās Christmas classic All I Want for Christmas is You has finally reached No.1 on the ARIA singles chart, 24 years after its chart debut. Remarkable.ā
Itās not remarkable. Itās bogus.
Itās unfair to compare a lot of things that appear to be the same. TV ratings when there was just 4-5 options, sports teams/players, etc. Times change.
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It took me a while to come to terms with streaming being compiled in the charts, and still personally feel that a song should be āreleasedā as a single to be counted for the chart but that is not likely to change anytime soon. The argument about playlists determining chart positions is semi valid as passive listening adds to streams, but if that was the whole thing then why are the other Christmas songs down the list and not as high up, people are making the effort to play at least All I Want For Christmas Is You, Last Christmas and Do They Know Itās Christmas.
The charts in the past were heavily rigged as well. There were many songs that were deleted so that people were forced to buy the next single or the album to get the song they wanted. When I started buying CDs, singles were $8-9 dollars, then they sold some, usually Aussie acts for $4.95 and that ended up being as low as 99c in an effort to encourage sales. Numerous record company employees have admitted to making deals and tradeoffs to get their acts played on radio, because you needed radio play to make sales and sales to earn radio play.
The chart shouldnāt be called the Singles chart, but it is a reflection of the way music is consumed now. Just as long as they donāt follow the US method of calculation and include radio plays.
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