Sam Fender and Olivia Dean - Rein Me In

VoR

VoR

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Remarkably - or perhaps typically - there's no thread yet for the song that has been #1 now for 13 weeks.



It's coming on for a year old and shows no sign of fucking off. Why has the streaming ratio thing for older songs not affected it yet? Is it just IMMUNE?

It's nice enough, don't get me wrong. But I keep checking the charts and being mildly aghast that it's still there.
 
Despite being really quite aware of both artists and liking a lot of what I've heard from them, I had no idea this song existed nor that we'd had the same #1 for thirteen weeks!

I am so out of touch, and the charts are so irrelevant. And both things are just getting more true every day!
 
I take pride in not being able to hum anything that's been at the toppermost of the poppermost for about 20 years at this point. Not counting that fucking awful Kylie XMAS song but, sigh, I forgive her.
 
To be at number one for 13 weeks (8 is a v common length for big number ones now because that's when ACR kicks in) it must basically be increasing its streams quite a lot during that 13 week run (which has been non-consecutive!).

Essentially just a wild case of a song finally properly massively taking off about a year in.
 
hyperwoof said:
I take pride in not being able to hum anything that's been at the toppermost of the poppermost for about 20 years at this point. Not counting that fucking awful Kylie XMAS song but, sigh, I forgive her.
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I don't know why, it's not much to take pride in. If you're going to be an old grouch about things, I don't see what "I haven't bothered listening to any of it, it must all be shit" particularly adds to a conversation. At least be able to know what's shit about what's around now (and conversely, what stuff is actually good).

There's nothing revolutionary in the position "the world stopped having the capacity to do good music at the precise point I got middle aged"!
 
Tisch said:
Despite being really quite aware of both artists and liking a lot of what I've heard from them, I had no idea this song existed nor that we'd had the same #1 for thirteen weeks!

I am so out of touch, and the charts are so irrelevant. And both things are just getting more true every day!
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It's just something that becomes all the easier now culture is so siloed. Now we have the Internet and stuff that used to gather people together (but eventually stopped doing so) to listen to a collective culture like Top of the Pops is gone, everyone can basically just labour on only caring about the things they choose to care about very easily. Indeed, it's basically the default now. Nothing people should necessarily have to feel good or bad about either way, it's just how things are.
 
hyperwoof said:
I take pride in not being able to hum anything that's been at the toppermost of the poppermost for about 20 years at this point. Not counting that fucking awful Kylie XMAS song but, sigh, I forgive her.
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I don't take pride in it at all! I don't particularly worry about it or anything, it's just slightly sad. I want to at least remain aware of what's popular out there at the moment but I'm just finding myself more and more uninterested.
 
Penelope said:
I don't know why, it's not much to take pride in. If you're going to be an old grouch about things, I don't see what "I haven't bothered listening to any of it, it must all be shit" particularly adds to a conversation. At least be able to know what's shit about what's around now (and conversely, what stuff is actually good).

There's nothing revolutionary in the position "the world stopped having the capacity to do good music at the precise point I got middle aged"!
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I mean your extracting a lot from what I said but WHATEVER. I'm not doing fighty Moopy day - so I THINK YOU LOOK VERY PRETTY.
 
Penelope said:
It's just something that becomes all the easier now culture is so siloed. Now we have the Internet and stuff that used to gather people together (but eventually stopped doing so) to listen to a collective culture like Top of the Pops is gone, everyone can basically just labour on only caring about the things they choose to care about very easily. Indeed, it's basically the default now. Nothing people should necessarily have to feel good or bad about either way, it's just how things are.
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Yes, it's amazing how the internet is basically THE WHOLE WORLD at your fingertips, but it's too much. Our human nature seeks what we know and are comfortable with, and despite having all the availability, you end end up seeing less of it because there's no omnipotence telling you what to consume. Our free will dictates us to stay comfortable, stay in our echo chambers, and enjoy it. There's probably an arguement in there about why extreme politics on both sides has seen a resurgence recently...

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Anyway, Sam Fender and Olivia Dean...
 
(I honestly swear I'm not doing 'it's hot weather I'm going to be fighty' here, it's just a position that's historically got my goat a lot and that I always SEEK TO STAND AGAINST :D As I hope my other post puts across, I do understand why it's the default now for people - even myself! - to fall out of touch with what's broadly going on now, I just don't think it's something per se worth taking much pride in)
 
Penelope said:
I don't know why, it's not much to take pride in. If you're going to be an old grouch about things, I don't see what "I haven't bothered listening to any of it, it must all be shit" particularly adds to a conversation. At least be able to know what's shit about what's around now (and conversely, what stuff is actually good).

There's nothing revolutionary in the position "the world stopped having the capacity to do good music at the precise point I got middle aged"!
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Strong disagree - music IS objectively worse today than it was in 1998 and the charts are far less interesting than when they could make or break a pop act. I haven’t heard this song but I imagine it sounds like Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars - Die With a Smile, which I haven’t heard either. It’s just music made for generic playlists for the most amount of people.

And so streaming numbers mean absolutely nothing when a position in a playlist basically pre-determines the charts. For example, Anna Sahlene - Love Me Low was one of the most listened to songs in the WORLD in 2024 and yet didn’t appear in any charts.
 
The evidence that music is terrible these days is that the kids are looking back. The charts are packed with old songs.
 
I wasn’t really aware of this song until it won’t the Brit award, which seems to have been the catalyst for either a lot of discovery or a lot of renewed interest.

It’s a great song regardless of the reason, so welcome its success even if it does make the charts quite stagnant and less exciting
 
I'm coming back in.

OK, 'pride' is just me pushing buttons a little, it's not actually how I feeeel. If you want some raw meat I like Sabrina Carpenter - she's cut through even to people like me, and I love her for it - was it Neil Tennant who said "What is Taylor Swift's 'Billie Jean'?" - and that guy LOVE pop. He has a point. And the charts do not lie - they are awash with old songs and heritage acts. I would adore for this to not be the case. Oh- also - I like Raye!
 
And I have been sad to see Lil Nas X lose his audience so quickly and now he can't get arrested now ALL he can do is get arrested.
 
Suomi said:
Strong disagree - music IS objectively worse today than it was in 1998 and the charts are far less interesting than when they could make or break a pop act. I haven’t heard this song but I imagine it sounds like Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars - Die With a Smile, which I haven’t heard either. It’s just music made for generic playlists for the most amount of people.

And so streaming numbers mean absolutely nothing when a position in a playlist basically pre-determines the charts. For example, Anna Sahlene - Love Me Low was one of the most listened to songs in the WORLD in 2024 and yet didn’t appear in any charts.
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I didn't say it was objectively better or worse either way! I personally much prefer music from the 00s to music now - then again, so does most of the charts! - but that isn't a particularly surprising position for me to have (who doesn't think music broadly peaked in the period between them being 12-21?).

I just think it's always worth broadly knowing and engaging with what's actually going on musically at any given moment so even if it is to be dismissed, you can at least say why (and also be able to compare it with what at the moment actually is good and a sign of what artists are still capable of and could/should be doing a lot more of). Otherwise, you just end up being like the equivalent of the members wandering into the Melfest/Eurovision forum every year going "oh I don't care it's all shit these days we all know everything peaked in 2006! I just can't stop listening to my mp3s of Elephantz!!"
 
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I'm worried it's going to start a Sam/Olivia backlash if it doesn't fuck off soon. This one doesn't seem to be the fault of the OCC for once either - it's just got massive streaming numbers despite being a year old.

Nice song, but not even in the Top 5 of either's recent album.

I've seen Sam doing a lot of US press recently, I wonder if they're going to try and break him with this now that Olivia is a superstar.
 
In honesty, I do think the charts being worse these days and so full of heritage stuff is just downstream of it being much harder to break new stuff (or make it clear why anyone should be paying attention), as well as now everyone broadly having access to decades of brilliant stuff from the past - which younger people will only just be discovering, in much the same way we all did in our younger years and still do now, but which the charts never measured when we did it.

But then, I've done this rant before that the charts now are basically broken in what they're measuring and making it harder for new acts/songs to break through! There is still great stuff out there that can be made - I think the likes of Chappell Roan are full testament to that. We're just much less likely to ever hear it unless it gets truly massive label backing or somehow manages to take off organically.
 
I'll always be a 90s guy, and pop music for me had a massive revival between 2011 and 2021, but I don't think the quality of the charts in the mid 80s can be debated. It was still organic (unless you were mega famous you had to fight through radio playlists and supermarket buyers for weeks before breaking through) and it was such a vast mix of sounds colliding. There was much less ageism and the charts were really hard to penetrate - anything in the Top 40 was considered a hit.

Ironically it's kind of gone back that way now where songs are more organic and placing anywhere on the chart suggests a breakthrough, but the shift from buying to listening has made the chart redundant of course. That and the fact that there is barely any demographic beyond Gen Z impacting the singles chart - anyone over the age of 30 is just listening to Fleetwood Mac, The Killers and The Goo Goo Dolls, if the charts are anything to go by.
 
Penelope said:
I didn't say it was objectively better or worse either way! I personally much prefer music from the 00s to music now g then again, so does most of the charts! - but that isn't a particularly surprising position for me to have (who doesn't think music broadly peaked in the period between them being 12-21?).

I just think it's always worth broadly knowing and engaging with what's actually going on musically at any given moment so even if it is to be dismissed, you can at least say why (and also be able to compare it with what at the moment actually is good and a sign of what artists are still capable of and could/should be doing a lot more of). Otherwise, you just end up being like the equivalent of the members wandering into the Melfest/Eurovision forum every year going "oh I don't care it's all shit these days we all know everything peaked in 2006! I just can't stop listening to my mp3s of Elephantz!!"
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No I do agree with you, I just haven’t said anything in a while
 
People who listen to music passively should be killed, put in a suitcase and thrown in the sea.
 
I have the same issue as @funky, in that I like it (and again in a 7/10 kind of way), but that both have done so much better individually.

I also take a certain amount of issue with @Penelope's point regarding increasing streams during its chart run. Obviously it's had to avoid 3 consecutive weeks of decline, but it only needs to do that one week in three now to reset that. Fair play in that it's doing it, but it is something of an inherent flaw in the chart.
 
It's probably done that at least a few times to still be number one 15 weeks after it was first number one though!
 
I imagine it's probably done it twice now? It just seems a real flaw that could easily be played.
 
Now 13 weeks might be a bit much

But poor Sam Fender is absolutely not the one amongst our current popstars who should have triggered the MUSIC WAS BETTER 30 YEARS AGO talk

I'm going to take a different angle - it's actually been very nice having a "real music bore" at #1, when so little of that genre has made the top 10 in the last decade.
 
I'd love to sit down and have a conversation with whoever's running the charts these days. I wonder if there's so little money in it that it's essentially on autopilot at this point?

I've had this rant before, but WHY are they so comfortable with a system that allows Mr Brightside to still be on the charts after 507 weeks? Who does that serve? Surely even The Killers record label don't particularly benefit from this scenario and would prefer a system wherein their new songs have half a chance of getting some attention?
 
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I do wonder if it's possibly a thing of the charts getting so little attention even at a time we'd have probably said they were still interesting (e.g. the 00s, post Spiller/Groovejet - I imagine things getting very obvious in how easily the charts could be gamed from 99 onwards probably decreased interest a lot) that it means that at this point - when there's presumably even less interest, bar a small core of dedicated anoraks at places like Buzzjack - they probably aren't seen as having a great deal of promotional value even by labels, unless you can realistically get a #1? Radio 1 seems to be almost close to embarrassed to still have it on their schedules at this stage, having winnowed it down to about an hour and a half long show and even skipping it some weeks whenever they've got something the station would rather be going on about (like Glasto or charity runs or whatever).

If you don't necessarily need to even chart to end up having a massive hit (see the endless series of billion+ stream songs that never once made the top 40/Billboard Hot 100), does it matter that much in their eyes sitting down with the OCC to try and thrash out a system acceptable to everyone that doesn't seem like it's so overly engineered as to be close to pointless in what it's claiming to represent?

(I should add this is me mostly attempting devil's advocate on what the other side might be here, because I really do think the charts feel close to pointless in their current state as a promotional tool and could really do with an urgent change to at least weed out the recurrent stuff)
 
Thanks to TikTok I’d heard this diva’s version a hundred times before I even heard the real version today in this topic.

 
lolly said:
Obviously it's had to avoid 3 consecutive weeks of decline, but it only needs to do that one week in three now to reset that. Fair play in that it's doing it, but it is something of an inherent flaw in the chart.
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It's the same flaw that's keeping Lush Life in the top 20 forever, which is even more tiresome than Rein Me In having already had its moment. I think we'll see it happening more and more often.

At this point, we can talk about do the sharts needs another rule change. But at what point do you tinker with so many rules that the sharts stop representing anything meaningful?



I actually would suggest that rather than any more tinkering, we instead accept the charts don't serve a purpose any more and RETIRE them. If it's no longer a useful promotional tool, then it's just a financial overhead. And maybe without the charts, Taylor Swift will ease off the cynically timed remixes and special editions, and the world will be a better place.
 
On the note of the state and utter irrelevance of the charts, I’m sure I spotted Fleetwood Mac’s Everywhere climbing 50+ places this week.

It says something when one of the best pop songs ever recorded is about as useful to the chart as a charity single by an influencer.

I don’t want to have to roll my eyes at a Fleetwood Mac song making its 78th chart comeback!
 
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