Options
has streaming "killed" the charts ?
![[Deleted User]](https://w1.vanillicon.com/v2/1b751e24f5c990a0035c39a463ae4354.svg)
[Deleted User]
Posts: 619 Forum Member
✭✭
Ok, maybe not "killed" but stifled them ? Is it me or are they just dull now ? Little variety, with almost no chance for older acts to chart high I have never known such generic dullness.
Or am I wide of the mark ?
Or am I wide of the mark ?
0
Comments
If anything, streaming allows, in theory, for a much greater variety of music, as it's much easier to come across stuff you probably wouldn't have - "If you like this, try this" etc - if you were browsing on-line or, especially, in a shop, where you're more likely to stick within the genre you were looking at.
Shite mainstream music has killed the charts and it has been happening for far longer than streaming has been around.
But if the charts are increasingly based on statistics obtained from sources where listening is free, then won't all those "if you like this, try this" recommendations start overwhelming the data? If you can listen to an unlimited number of songs for free, how does the charts company know which ones you like?
When this topic came up previously I found an article by Bob Stanley (journalist/St Etienne popster) which said that being interested in the record sales charts is a peculiarly British phenomenon. It may just turn out that the increase in streaming is changing British attitudes and we no longer care what songs sell the most because we no longer bother to buy them.
Like I say, I've no idea how it's calculated, but assuming each stream counts toward helping a song into the charts, then the easier it is to hop around, the easier it should be, in theory, for less 'mainstream' tracks to chart at all.
The other question is whether the streaming services' recommendations do inspire people to listen to a wider variety of music. Personally I find new music by reading reviews in magazines, discussions in forums, and by listening to radio stations that have a track record of playing interesting music.
But others probably see that as an outdated approach.
Now with older artists who I have followed for years and who I know generally make music I like, I just go and buy their albums but with newer artists I like to hear their stuff before buying. Sort of like trying clothes on in a store before buying.
Maybe they could do something like so that an artist's music is only available to stream for a limited time for a few weeks around the time of the album's release. So you have a chance to see if it's something you want to buy but after it's available to buy, it's not for streaming so it doesn't cut into traditional sales.
I'm sure many people who use this forum do the same, but you must never be so un-cool as to admit it !
;-):D:D
exactly....
shite mainstream or manufactured music has made them pretty lame.
yep, its yet another 'blame waterman' moment... and ill never stop blaming waterman for making manufactured music 'respectable' . from a business pov, a masterstroke, but giving the young a pre packaged product killed creativity and innovation. hence no variety (in comparison the retro charts).
It's 100 streams = 1 sale (with only 10 streams per song per day per customer counting, to prevent somebody having a song on repeat all day to get a higher placing).
It was available on Spotify back in January and the song made the UK top 75 purely on "stream sales". However, once music channels and radio stations started playing the song more, its streams week-on-week rocketed.
So airplay benefits streaming, and radio stations/music channels have a very limited playlist. For me, this is why the charts have become so stale.
If radio stations/music channels had a much bigger playlist and gave more songs airtime then this would probably be reflected on streaming sites.
Hence there would be more songs benefitting from the increased airplay and so 21-40 in the UK chart wouldn't consist of the same songs that were between 21-40 three months ago.
I also find new music through reading magazines and reviews, i subecribe to both classic Rock and Prog, the radio less so because they often just play the same old songs from a generic list of bands on rotation.
As for Spotify, I have found many, many new bands through it.
I think it has, songs sell really good still and that is what the charts are suppose to be about, songs that sell the most on a weekly basis hardly stand a chance of getting to no1 after you add the songs people have been listening to the most, for me I used to follow the charts all the time but since it's been changed to add the most listened to tracks to it, it's dead to me nowadays and is unfair to artists that find it hard to chart coz of this, it's basically killed off madonnas career.
I remember back in 2007 going up my brothers house and my niece was outside with some friends listening to Rihanna on her mobile phone. The sound quality was typically rubbish, like listening to on hold music when you contact a company.
Would explain why minimalist crap like Anaconda by Nicki Minaj was popular with 18-24 year olds last year. Who needs a brilliantly produced song when you can just have noise put to a basic beat for 3 minutes.
Even streaming @ 128 kBit/s I would dispute whether "half" of the detail is lost.
The reality is the majority of people have never rweally "listened" to music, it is usually on in the background whilst they do something else so any perceived loss of quality is irrelevant in many cases.
Also if the uk top 40 is to be the be all and end all:
People only like:
-watered down dance music
-tracks where someone collaborates with 20 other people
-tracks by singers where their clothes have fallen off :kitty::kitty::kitty:
I was genuinely forced out of Halfords last week when they had Radio 1 playing in their car stereo department. That kind of music could easily be streamed at 64kbps and nobody would be able to tell the difference, because you can't really downgrade something that's churned out electronically by a machine. Perhaps that's why it's being pushed so much, to hide the deficiencies in the current quality of DAB.
For me that means listening online to stations from the USA or Europe. Don't know why, but there's an Italian station that is far closer to my taste in music than any from the UK.