Streaming giants such as Spotify and Apple Music are changing the music landscape, which questions how important the charts are in representing current tastes.
Modern culture rightly encourages individuals to express themselves in a way that is true and in a way that makes them comfortable, and one of the most obvious forms of expression is through music.
Music is more accessible than it has ever been thanks to various streaming services making the discovery of a new artist as fast as a few clicks.
The UK Chart has attempted to accommodate this change by putting streaming numbers towards chart positions, using a streaming ratio that is dependent on the subscription type for a particular streaming service.
100 streams on a paid subscription will equal one sale, whereas it will take 600 free streams to total one sale.
Take a look at this week’s Official Singles Chart Top 10 ?
Full Top 100 here: https://t.co/LUKAR8cPKK pic.twitter.com/yL5tp2LD8p— Official Charts (@officialcharts) October 22, 2021
iTunes and MP3 purchases of singular tracks equal one sale but cost between 59p and 99p, which in comparison to the unlimited streaming plans that cost around £9.99, is not as economical nor is it as popular.
In addition, the resurgence of vinyl has pushed iTunes further down the preference list.
The current algorithm for the charts is overly complicated and isn’t representative of the more popular way of consuming music, so it is hard to disagree with a change in the format that would calculate one stream as one sale going forward.
The next perspective to try and understand is the actual stock that musicians put into chart positions.
Official Charts Company shakes up rules to stop the Ed Sheeran effect https://t.co/oktinzo1eE
— The Guardian (@guardian) June 27, 2017
Arguably, if the artists’ fans enjoy their music, continue to support them through merchandise and vinyl purchases, and also buy tickets, that will always be their measure of success.
For example, Dermot Kennedy spent a single week at number one in the UK Chart with his debut album ‘Without Fear’ and is yet to score a number one single.
He has, however, amassed over 1.5 billion streams across global platforms as well as averaging just over 15 million monthly listeners.
He has also recently become the first artist in history to sell out three shows at London’s Alexandra Palace with only a debut album’s worth of tracks at his disposal.
A lot of Kennedy’s core fanbase emerged through Spotify, further highlighting the importance streaming has in allowing listeners to discover new music.
Spotify has its own chart category that shows what’s popular across the world, as well as thousands of playlists that curate the best of certain genres.
These internal charts help artists who would never be given the opportunity to be heard by a mainstream audience.
The Official Chart is a longstanding tradition in British music, and it needs to be maintained.
However, for it to regain some of its lost prestige, the chart needs to recognise the most popular form of consumption – streaming – as an equal factor when determining chart positions.
Feature Image Credit: Elton John Instagram, Dua Lipa Instagram