That's what I think anyway.

Care to elaborate as to how the charts are rigged? They aren't, but I'm curious to know your logic.

In what way? Did your favourite song not make #1?

They're not, by the way...

You didn't know that already?

It is heavily influenced by certain groups of people like record producers, radio stations and DJ's, but I think everyone knew that anyway and it has been that way for a long time. Does this count as rigging?, probably.

However, it is possibly less influenced than in countries where air play counts towards chart positions.

so whats new?

back in the 60's and 70's it was commonplace for record companies to pay people to buy certain records from certain shops...the shops used to compile sales figures..

Oh dear.

Because the X Factor are yet again guaranteeing a one horse race for the Xmas number 1 for example.

That doesn't explain, in any way, how the charts are rigged.

I don't think that means the chart's rigged, it just means the sheep who watch that awful show have once again flocked to buy the winner's single.

I think there is SOME skullduggery, and last week proved it with Union J #1 on sales, but #2 overall because Ed Sheeran had more streaming points. That does look a bit suspect, and since streaming has been added, a fair few songs have placed lower or not made the Top 40 at all.

As for X-Factor, well.....the day that gets axed will be the best day ever.

And your evidence is...?

this is a bit like finding out the truth about santa. the closer you reach double digits the closer you come to the truth

And the op will surely soon be 10.

I find it amusing when people get called sheep just because you don't like the show.

Idiots will buy ben whowas. Waste their money on a flop. He bound to flop. other male winners. where are they? Also the same people rant on about how big these winners are going to be then shut up a year later when they flop. Look at that woman that won last year. Arguing with someone who said she is going to be bigger than celine dion was. Yeh right! on yer bike.... Covers album for mothers day. Take all your money, then dropped. Good One!

Agreed, I don't watch XFactor myself but I certainly don't think people are sheep for doing so, or that that's the only reason they buy the music. I once bought one winners single and that was Alexandra Burkes Hallelujah. I know people hate her for covering that song but I personally enjoyed it and when I heard it first and decided I liked it, I didn't even know it was an XFactor single.

There is one thing that many XFactor fans do though and that is, they always buy the charity single and say things like "it might not be brilliant but it's for a good cause." So in that case, when it comes to the XFactor charity single, many people who don't actually like the song, buy it because the money is going to charity.

I don't think people buy the winners single, unless they actually like the song though.

There was a great BBC4 documentary this year all about the music charts and they mentioned all the tricks that used to used by record companies and their reps back then, especially before the system was computerized.

For example they had housewives buying ten copies of punk singles from the same record shop!

The charts aren't rigged. It's just most people are far too easily influenced by the power of TV. If Simon Cowell is on X Factor, looks directly into the camera and says "you will buy this song", chances are 75% of the people watching actually will. It's scary but it's worryingly true.

On another note, radio stations don't help either. Most commercial radio stations have an almost identical playlist meaning people listening to radio (at work for example) are only hearing the same 20 songs throughout the day with a select handful getting repeated plays.

This explains why the charts are so slow once you get past the top 10. Songs hover between 20-40 for endless weeks once they've dropped out of the top 10.

Introducing streaming into the chart has helped slow down the charts hence why Happy by Pharrell spent almost an entire year inside the UK top 40 whilst two follow up singles came and went and nobody cared about those two songs. Same with Rather Be by Clean Bandit - almost 10 months consecutively inside the top 40 whilst two follow up singles entered and disappeared soon after.

Pharrell would have still been in the top 40 for nearly a year under the old system. You are just being bias.

What a ridiculous post.

There's no way to rig it. They track musical purchases by retailer, location, IP address even any suspicious or high amount of sales in even one particular aspect of those and they investigate. There's no way anyone can rig it.

I guess you could it is 'manipulated' or heavily influenced by certain things i.e radio chosing to play a song or subbing it, a retailer stocking a CD or not but thats it. X Factor well of course is going todo well whatever release week go for its a tv show on for many weeks with millions watching. This is not rigging. It's a lot tougher to rig especially than before. I remember when Louis Walsh said he use to have thousans of Boyzone CDs in his car but that was a long time ago ha ha

Why wasn't it rigged the year Rage Against The Machine got the Christmas number 1?

I wish DS would impose an IQ test on people as part of the registration process.

That's right. If anything, he's had streaming against him in most chart weeks. Only on some weeks, he's had streaming on his side. "Fancy", "Rather Be", "All Of Me", "Waves" and "Sing" would have had less weeks in the top 40 under the old system.

The charts are probably less rigged today than they ever have been. There's simply no point. Recordings make very little money for anyone any more, certainly not enough to warrant bribery, false purchases etc, and YouTube hits are far more important than being in the chart...

there's loads of ways to rig the charts. there always have been, and whilst some get discovered and rules changed etc, others are found in their place

as for IP addresses, these are so easy to change