How are the top 200 music charts done? It seems to me that they are more fantasy than reality, more rigged than real. (the pro wrestling of media?) After seeing some of my favorite 80s bands get nowhere lately Ive wondered about it. I read the charts and they say sales and something like "other methodology". Shouldnt sales be the SOLE determinant? By "sales" I mean someone goes to a store and actually buys the album in question; NOT shipments.

Take Britney Spears first Album. Its still on the charts after a year. While I have no doubt it sold quite a few copies, surely they ar running out of teeny boppers who dont have it by now. Then there are the unknowns who magically debut at some high position (some at #1). Can anyone shed some light on this?

Scott

PS. who invented heavy rotation? The practice of playing a song on a radio station 3 times in an 8 hour work shift every &^*@#! day should be a criminal offense exempt from the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Well start with caning and work UP from there.

> How are the top 200 music charts done? It seems to me that they are more
> fantasy than reality, more rigged than real. (the pro wrestling of media?)
> After seeing some of my favorite 80s bands get nowhere lately Ive wondered
> about it. I read the charts and they say sales and something like
> "other methodology". Shouldnt sales be the SOLE determinant? By
> "sales" I mean someone goes to a store and actually buys the
> album in question; NOT shipments.

> Take Britney Spears first Album. Its still on the charts after a year.
> While I have no doubt it sold quite a few copies, surely they ar running
> out of teeny boppers who dont have it by now. Then there are the unknowns
> who magically debut at some high position (some at #1). Can anyone shed
> some light on this?

> Scott

I know what you mean. I remember in the early '90s seeing Metallica's "Metallica" album stay up in the top of the charts for (seemingly) years and wondering "Doesn't everybody who's going to buy this have it by now?" It's one thing when it's an album that singles are still being released from because you figure that people were buying the album after deciding they liked enough songs from it to buy the whole thing (which is has how I used to decide album purchases as a financially-strapped teen.) I've sort of figured maybe people wear their copies out by getting them scratched up, the tape unwinds, etc. and then have to buy replacements which leads to high sales. Just a theory.

> PS. who invented heavy rotation? The practice of playing a song on a radio
> station 3 times in an 8 hour work shift every &^*@#! day should be a
> criminal offense exempt from the constitutional prohibition against cruel
> and unusual punishment. Well start with caning and work UP from there.

Radio today sucks. It has gotten so formatted nothing that doesn't sound like Celine Dion or the Backstreet Boys can make it on the air anymore. It's amazing even in the late '80s/early 90s the variety of artists scoring radio hits. No more. Could you imagine Robert Cray, Bryan Ferry, or Michael Penn even getting any airplay today? They all had top 40 hits back then. The only reason I even listen to the radio is to catch new releases by people like Don Henley. I usually only listen to the radio in the car and play my own music collection when at home. Henley's beautiful new song "Taking You Home" is no different (and 10 times better) than any of the love songs on the chart and no different than some of his past hits, yet 'Top 40" won't touch it and it's been relegated to "soft rock."

It's also remarkable how many people I know are so into different types of popular music like me (my tastes range from soft rock and oldies to heavy metal) but radio insists on being divided into "soft hits" or "top songs of 2000 and anything older is already retro" and "classic rock."

> How are the top 200 music charts done? It seems to me that they are more
> fantasy than reality, more rigged than real. (the pro wrestling of media?)
> After seeing some of my favorite 80s bands get nowhere lately Ive wondered
> about it. I read the charts and they say sales and something like
> "other methodology". Shouldnt sales be the SOLE determinant? By
> "sales" I mean someone goes to a store and actually buys the
> album in question; NOT shipments.

> Take Britney Spears first Album. Its still on the charts after a year.
> While I have no doubt it sold quite a few copies, surely they ar running
> out of teeny boppers who dont have it by now. Then there are the unknowns
> who magically debut at some high position (some at #1). Can anyone shed
> some light on this?

> Scott

The true culprit in this whole fiasco is the Soundscan system. It was implemented a few years ago and it is a direct, point-of-sale tabulation of exactly how many units of a a new pressing are sold. That beep you hear when they scan at the register not only rings up your price but also counts as a unit sold. Almost ALL the large chains are wired into this system. Best Buy, Virgin, Tower, Camelot, Musicland, etc. There's no fudging of the figures because obviously these units are being sold but they rack up an astroNOMICAL amount of units sold in a very short time. Where does little Johnny or Susie go to have mommy or daddy buy the new Britney or BSB album? Certainly not the indie shops or the mom and pop stores the music aficianado patronizes....yep, they are shopping at the mall and this is where the majority of Soundscan systems are in use. Relax gang, Britney has about 7 minutes of fame left, she'll do a nudie spread to save a dying career, enjoy a slight return and then fade away never to soil the airwaves again...all the while "Dark Side Of The Moon" moving at least a few thousand copies a week...so how does this explain the "longevity" of an album in the top spot? Marketing. Stick the flavor of the week in a slightly lower cut bustier than on the last video...BAM! 200K more units sold. Peace brothers and sisters!

> PS. who invented heavy rotation? The practice of playing a song on a radio
> station 3 times in an 8 hour work shift every &^*@#! day should be a
> criminal offense exempt from the constitutional prohibition against cruel
> and unusual punishment. Well start with caning and work UP from there.

Same as above...more on the marketing side of the house though...listenership and rating points mean more expensive advertising spots on a radio station. How to draw the listeners in? Simple. Play Britney, BSB, NSYNC or the 13-21 female demographics current flavor...REPEATEDLY. Numbers don't care about the demographic..just the amount of listeners and the advertising rates.

> How are the top 200 music charts done? It seems to me that they are more
> fantasy than reality, more rigged than real. (the pro wrestling of media?)
> After seeing some of my favorite 80s bands get nowhere lately Ive wondered
> about it. I read the charts and they say sales and something like
> "other methodology". Shouldnt sales be the SOLE determinant? By
> "sales" I mean someone goes to a store and actually buys the
> album in question; NOT shipments.

> Take Britney Spears first Album. Its still on the charts after a year.
> While I have no doubt it sold quite a few copies, surely they ar running
> out of teeny boppers who dont have it by now. Then there are the unknowns
> who magically debut at some high position (some at #1). Can anyone shed
> some light on this?

it's complicated, but actually based on real record sales, they track the sales of CDs at various record stores throughout the country (and I'm sure Amazon and CDnow factor in to that as well) I believe they also track pre-orders, ie. if Record Town pre-orders 1 million CDs for it's nationwide chain for the first week, it's tracked as 1 million sales.. hence a lot of hype can shoot a record into the charts pretty easy..

what's really screwed up, is that once an album is off the charts for a year, it can not return, there's a second chart for albums like that.. hence the reason Dark Side of the Moon no longer appears (on the top 200 charts for 11 years) except for it's 20th anniversary CD re-issue... you also have to remember, that the vast record buying public is primarily pre-pubscent (ie. Mommy buy me that Backstreet Boys album, Nick is soooo cute) my opinion means shit, I'm past 25 now, heck 28 next month, >cringe PS. who invented heavy rotation? The practice of playing a song on a radio
> station 3 times in an 8 hour work shift every &^*@#! day should be a
> criminal offense exempt from the constitutional prohibition against cruel
> and unusual punishment. Well start with caning and work UP from there.

I can tell you that not all the Billboard charts are based on sales. For example, the country music chart isn't. If the country music charts were based on sales, the number 1 country song of 1992 would have been, far and away, "Achy Breaky Heart" by Billy Ray Cyrus. But it wasn't. It was "I Saw the Light" (not the Hank Williams song) by Wynonna Judd. I could not believe this because "Achy Breaky Heart" was a top 10 on the pop charts that year (which are based on sales) and may have been #1. And why was "I Saw the Light" #1 and not "Achy Breaky Heart"? Simple. The country chart is not based on sales.