Another Year In Pop: 29

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Dizzee & Calvin have clung on despite McFly's best efforts! Elsewhere, Annie's new single stalls at no.54 and a truly awful video puts CSS in at no.78.

[Poll #1226973]

Comments

Re: OK THEN

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I know, but I included the minimal/dubstep tracks anyway because, well, a) look at the dross which DOES chart, b) I'm kind of sick of that argument anyway, the kneejerk "oh that wouldn't chart" attitude is why the UK industry (and hence the charts) is so conservative and boring. I don't see any reason why Booka Shade or Kelley Polar couldn't chart with the right promo and support tbh, I mean Samim did last year and Hercules And Love Affair this year. Anyway my main argument is that music is really really great now, I'm not suggesting that we should be seeing TRG or Anja Schneider in the top 40 any time soon, though some of the hip-hop and r&b tracks would be more than welcome.

'Honey' got to No 88 on Billboard, nowhere over here. 'Soldier' is the official second single but I haven't even seen a video for it yet. Why, given that she's had multiple top 40 tracks in the UK, do you think she couldn't do it now?

Re: OK THEN

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I wonder if we're seeing a big big contraction of promo budgets in effect? What's really striking, compared even to last year, is how few new things are charting, full stop. The Top 40 is moving INCREDIBLY slowly at the moment, things are taking forever to fall out of it - something masked by the relatively high turnover of #1s.

Re: OK THEN

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

If that's the case we should be seeing less songs on eg the R1 playlist - I have no idea whether this is happening. The inexplicable refusal of US hip-hop and r&b acts to do much promo here has been what it is for years now - I mean, you'd think Erykah Badu could have thrown a digital single out there the week after she toured at least, but no! - but if anything it seems like more people are releasing more singles, just because making something available on itunes is so easy.

Maybe last year was the post-download era anomaly, the transition between a fast-moving chart and what has eventually become a fairly static one in which the really big hits stick around forever - I noticed that follow-up singles from Estelle and Flo Rida have already departed the top 30 whereas both 'Low' and 'American Boy' are holding steady higher up.

Re: OK THEN

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yeah I think last year there was just enough input from physical sales - which tend to be high turnover by their nature - for the download impact to be lessened and the charts to be a bit more frictionless. You only need look at the polls anatol_merklich runs to see that a lot of stuff is getting beached at 41-75.

It wouldn't surprise me - assuming anyone in the biz sees the singles chart as promotionally useful at all - if a new eligibility rule was introduced, with records only counting for 10 weeks outside the top 5, or something similar.

Re: OK THEN

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

A lot of the 41-75 stallers - especially this year - are, I'm pretty sure, tracks which aren't really pushed as 'singles' in the traditional sense; a load of songs from the Step Up 2 The Streets and Sex And The City soundtracks did this, as well as Rihanna's 'Disturbia' which was a bonus track off her reissued album.

I do think the lack of turnover in the chart is more representative of how popular taste works, actually - congregating round a few big hits rather than a new one every week. Which isn't to say that I approve.

Re: OK THEN

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

There are only six songs on the Radio 1 playlist. If there are more, they do not play them. My ex was dead keen on listening to the radio for reasons I never understood.