Was just wondering if anyone knew the difference, which one is official?

James Arthur is no 1 on Itunes but no 25 on the top 40?

The Top 40 is the official chart and shows the most brought/streamed song of the last seven days. iTunes just shows the most downloaded song right now. So James's official charting is #25. The iTunes chart counts for nothing (increasingly so with the rise of streaming).

The official chart is now something like 85% Spotify and 25% iTunes. I could include Apple Music, Amazon, TIDAL etc...but the truth is these other services have very little impact on the charts.

iTunes just isn't the driving force it once was, and more and more people are registering an account with Spotify as it's better value for money. £9.99 a month to use Spotify is the equivalent of buying 10 individual tracks for 99p within 30 days. For £9.99 you can listen to those 10 songs numerous times a day and your play count contributes a percentage of a sale towards the chart.

Thank you for your replies, both of you

With Itunes though the song is yours, which do you both prefer?

iTunes by far. I just can't be bothered with Spotify. I know that crediting an iTunes account isn't as good value for money compared to paying £9.99 a month to listen to as much music as I choose.

I have a habit of watching music videos on YouTube so in essence I'm listening to the song that way, and don't need to fork out £9.99 a month if I can listen to the songs on YouTube without spending a penny.

That doesn't mean I don't buy music. I bought The Greatest by Sia last week because it's such an awesome song. I also think the video is excellent too.

If there were more excellent songs being released, I'd buy more music on iTunes than I seemed to have this year.

I think iTunes needs to seriously rethink its strategy. Try and win back all those people who used to buy music with mouth watering deals, maybe a special offer where when you buy a song at 99p, you can buy a second single within 24 hours, or even up to 7 days for 59p (if it's priced at 99p on iTunes so it's practically a discount). Then again, I'm waiting for the day Spotify becomes too big for its own boots and increases the price of its monthly subscription fee. Wouldn't put it past Spotify to up the price to £19.99 a month if demand becomes so strong. It'd be fascinating to see how many people with paid Spotify accounts would actually be happy to pay twice as much for essentially the same service.

I'm bidding my time with Spotify. I may join eventually but not for now. At least I know my iTunes credit goes to songs I love, rather than songs I would only listen to out of mild curiosity and never play ever again.

I don't think Spotify will increase its cost that much they don't want to scare everyone away to Itunes Music or Tidal but they may go subscription only and scrap freeium which I really think they should do.

I use Spotify and Youtube for convenience but i buy physical albums for the acts I really like or want to support. A download just isn't real enough to me. I do buy the odd download but only for acts that are way of releasing their 1st album and maybe never will.

I briefly encountered something called 'the vodafone big top 40' countdown this Sunday on a local station while driving. What is this, and how is it different?

The Big Top 40 has been going for years. It's basically commercial radio's equivalent to Radio 1's UK Top 40.

The only difference being the official chart moved to a Friday in July 2015 to co-incide with New Music Friday (oh, the irony considering how slow the UK charts have become ever since with almost no new music making the top 40 most weeks!!! ).

The Big Top 40 has remained as a Sunday afternoon chart show. Their chart is based on airplay for positions 40-11 whilst their top 10 is based on the iTunes top 10 for that afternoon. So those listening would've heard James Arthur at #1 as his new single was quite comfortably #1 on iTunes yesterday afternoon - and still is this morning.

Whilst it's not an official chart (and I've never actually listened to the Big Top 40) I suspect it's far more interesting than listening to Greg James on a Friday counting this weeks top 14 that are all non movers, because a static top 14 is so exciting isn't it? I kinda feel sorry for Greg though because it's clear he's passionate about the charts but even he must find it mind numbingly boring to present the chart show these days.

Apple want people to stop using iTunes though and subscribe to Apple Music instead

I still prefer to buy music. It's nice to actually own it and it also means I don't have to be online to listen to the songs. I tried Spotify once but their software slowed down my Macbook to the extent the machine was unusable and I had to keep restarting. It's clunky and very limited unless you subscribe. I do listen to songs on Youtube though. Haven't tried Apple Music or TIDAL. I'm keeping my iTunes account the way it is and that won't change. I think between that, Youtube videos and even buying the odd CD I've got my music needs covered.

I prefer iTunes, because you pay a certain amount per track (99p) and you get to keep a copy of the song forever, for however many devices you require. With Spotify, the moment you stop paying for the premium service, you lose the offline features etc, so you then have to either keep the premium service all the time or download it from another source for offline use anyway!

In regards to the charts, I always use the iTunes chart, because the local commercial stations (such as Capital) use the iTunes chart and it is more up to date, i.e. it shows what people are buying at the present time.
Oh yeah, and I don't like radio 1, which is where the official chart is aired on anyway!

I always listen to the Vodafone Big Top 40 whenever I listen to the chart, since that is what Capital (and Heart) broadcast. You've basically summed everything up there, except that 40-11 is based on both iTunes downloads and radio airplay (whereas 10-1 is the top 10 in the iTunes chart).
It's also the most listened to chart show (certainly when I listened to it last) and is aired across more radio stations.
Not listened to the radio 1 chart show for at least a good number of years, and that's how it will remain.

Well I'm just not a fan of radio in general. I hate radio DJ's who love the sound of their own voice.

The last time I listened to the Radio 1 top 40 was the week Florence & The Machine hit #1 with Spectrum (Calvin Harris Remix) because I was being a chart geek all week and wanted Florence to top the charts. I was genuinely really happy she made it and it was almost like being a teenager again, buying a CD single from Woolworths and then seeing it go to #1 in the UK charts!!!

Those days are long gone. #2 has been the new #1 for most of 2016 imo.

Thank you everybody, this is a very interesting debate.

I much prefer Itunes also, as pointed out by others you get to keep the song.

I am from the era where you bought single records, used to love saving to do that.

I love the era of download, I used to constantly buy albums just for one song, I would have saved a fortune. lol

Again, I only buy physical albums of artists I really love

You like to give 110%!

TIDAL is fantastic. I was a bit hesitant about it at first but I gave the free trial a try around the time it first launched and it's just so much better than Spotify and other streaming services. Same price as Spotify for the premium £9.99 service and it has so much more music than Spotify. The artists actually benefit more from TIDAL as well. Also, the layout on TIDAL is a million times better than Spotify...playlists, everything is just much more simpler. Also, you get exclusives which just adds that little extra to the value for money.

I thought the premium service with enhanced sound on Tidal was £19.99?

Tidal are sneaky. They call there basic/cheapest package 'premier' at £9.99. The £19.99 is called Hi-Fi - that's the one with the best quality.

But is their premium worse than Spotify, which at highest setting is 320k I am guessing Tidal hi-fi is lossless

It could all be a mute point soon. There's rumours that Apple wants to buy Tidal. I bet they'll intergrate it into Apple Music if they do.

Absolutely!!!

(iTunes 15% )


The streaming service battle between Spotify and Apple Music is ridiculous and continues to have negative impacts on songs.

Taylor Swift the business woman who makes herself out to be a popstar won't allow her music on Spotify, but is happy to put it on Apple Music. Thus no Spotify, no #1 hits. I'd say that is a good thing but my point is, if Taylor was happy to put her music on Spotify her chart dominance would be on par with Drake and Justin Bieber.

Then you have those who do Apple exclusives and put their new singles exclusively on iTunes and Apple Music. Then they add it to Spotify a week later and it's treated so low key you would almost think it's not available to stream on Spotify.

As long as all these exclusivity deals continue, none of those songs are going to benefit in the long run. I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure every #1 this year was added to iTunes/Apple Music/Spotify at the same time thus maximising its full potential.

I use TIDAL despite initially being hesitant too. The fact that some of my favourite artists often put exclusives on there tipped the balance ahead of Spotify for me.

You do realise you can still buy CDs for some singles? And that there are other pay-per-track digital download stores other than itunes? So the Top 40 means those as well as streaming.

...but does it have that much of an impact?

Last year whilst Marvin Gaye by Charlie Puth was still only available to pre-order on iTunes, the single spent a week at #1 on Amazon's tracks chart

Whatever the song sold for that week, it didn't make a dent on the UK top 200 on the Sunday. So either it sold less than 1k for the whole entire week, or its sales were disqualified from the chart.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it just didn't sell enough on Amazon alone (despite being #1 for practically the whole week) to make the official charts even at #200.