Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) (1 Viewer)

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It's also the most popular music video on YouTube in the UK

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From the poster braindeadpj on ukmix

So if Kate hadn't been reset she would've fallen to 3 with a total of 41,316. Kate is also finally no.1 on the actual sales chart too.
Unfortunately Kate is also the only song in the official Top 20 that is older than 6 weeks and also declining in sales meaning that she (and no other song in the top 20) will be on DCL-1 next week, so the week that the final 2 episodes of hit, Kate could be on ACR again.....

I'm not so interested in the 'if she hadnt been reset' part as much as how soon she'll be back on ACR and then in all likelihood fall sharply in a few weeks.
 
lolly said:
From the poster braindeadpj on ukmix

So if Kate hadn't been reset she would've fallen to 3 with a total of 41,316. Kate is also finally no.1 on the actual sales chart too.
Unfortunately Kate is also the only song in the official Top 20 that is older than 6 weeks and also declining in sales meaning that she (and no other song in the top 20) will be on DCL-1 next week, so the week that the final 2 episodes of hit, Kate could be on ACR again.....

I'm not so interested in the 'if she hadnt been reset' part as much as how soon she'll be back on ACR and then in all likelihood fall sharply in a few weeks.
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Presumably if she increases sales in the week that the final two episodes hit, or indeed in any single week between now and then, she’ll avoid ACR for another three weeks.
 
There really should be some sort of safe-harbour rule for singles that are doing well on downloads. I understand the logic behind an ACR-type rule, but this particular single is currently topping the sales chart - there’s no logic to a high-selling single being in scope. I’d modify the rule so that normal ratios apply to the the first [x] of its streams, with [x] being based on a multiple of the number of sales
 
For me the big problem with the UK charts is that there are currently 23 songs in the top 100 that have been on the charts for more than 25 weeks. Who does that benefit, once the initial run is over? It just means fewer songs get the exposure of a chart hit, and songs that have long since faded into cultural background music just sit there taking up space.
 
But isn’t that the whole reason for ACR?

It’s either that, make everything even and aim for an approximation of accuracy, or boot out old ones like the Hot 100 does/did once they leave the top 50, or just separate them all into format charts and abandon a grand unified chart - and then what, pretend that the sales chart is still the dominant one when streaming dwarfs it?
 
I would be strongly in favour of any song older than 20 weeks being booted out once it falls below the top 20, with some kind of allowance for songs getting a genuine belated second wind a'la Running Up That Hill.

The charts have always been fairly meaningless when you think about it. I'd rather they were interesting than accurate.
 
VoR said:
The charts have always been fairly meaningless when you think about it. I'd rather they were interesting than accurate.
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When it was sales only I think sales WERE interesting. It was interesting that people were still choosing to buy those singles, for whatever reason.

However I don't see the fact that people are passively listening to songs on a record label sponsored playlist interesting or an accurate reflection of anything really.
 
Oh I agree that the charts were much more interesting when they moved faster. What I mean is that when you look at the pre-streaming era there are loads of hit singles with virtually no long-term cultural imprint which did well because of record label shenanighins, good timing or the acts having a very motivated fanbase.

I'd take more of that over a chart where Mr fucking Brightside is still at #57 after 319 weeks. What's the point?
 
It's fascinating that it took 80s icon Kate Bush to start a mainstream conversation about the charts in 2022. BEcause they've been a fucking mess for years. Aside from all the weighting making no sense - because I do understand what the OCC are trying to do - my biggest issue is that the charts in terms of consumer behaviour bear no resemblance to any chart pre about 2016 when downloads died.

The charts were ALWAYS based on sales and so therefore nothing to do with listening habits. A chart position was based on how many people walked/logged into a store and bought a song, not how many times they listened (or even bothered listening to it) when they got home. That's why songs are hovering for months, and why Greatest Hits albums clog up the albums chart. Morever, it's the main reason why established, legacy, and long term artists will rarely touch the chart again - kids rinse the same songs over and over, whereas older listeners (who follow the Madonnas and the Bowies and the Chers and even the Alanis Morissettes and Noel Gallaghers) spread their listening between new songs and old songs. Basing it on PURCHASES limited that leaning on kids' repetitious listening behaviour.

The only way round it really is to limit streaming units to one listen per user per week. That's much more reasonable. It's STILL not in the realms of 'pure sales' becase it's allowing the sale to reset every week, so it still allows songs to hang around for longer. But at least it will broaden the reach of older artists having - at least - minor hits, like older artists always did in the past. As for albums, fuck knows. Split between a new albums and catalogue albums chart maybe.
 
VoR said:
The charts have always been fairly meaningless when you think about it. I'd rather they were interesting than accurate.
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They have not though have they because it did used to be 'you sell enough single CD's you are at the top'

I would rather they are accurate but its just about how it is measured.
 
It comes down to funky's point though doesn't it? What do you want them to be accurate at measuring?
 
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lolly said:
It comes down to funky's point though doesn't it? What do you want them to be accurate at measuring?
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Agreed but I used to remember how much I loved the Billboard charts and how a song could rise on that, but its gone the other way now hasn't it, I don't know the answer, but the current UK charts are not it :o
 
We talked a bit about this around Jesy Nelson's single and the difference between "engagement" and "support". A lot of people watched that video/listened to that song out of pure curiosity which, over the course of the first day or two, became more like rubbernecking. But in a digital space, they are impossible to separate. It's not a problem that was totally unknown in the physical space; the Christmas charts running up to about the 00s always had the 'obvious Christmas present for a relative' entries whose sale was equal to any other. But we now have a useless chart that tells us only about a level of engagement that could be limited to "this was not sufficiently offensive for me to change the playlist". Having the radio on in the background while you wash the dishes is now in the charts.

What's happened to "Running Up That Hill" is genuinely impressive and, again, not without precedent - many a song became a hit for the second time following use in an advert in the 80s, many of which reached new peaks. What's weird is how nebulous the 'success' or otherwise of the revival is, depending on which metric you employ. If you have to mess about with your system that much and on a case-by-case basis, your system doesn't work.
 
To be honest the Jesy Nelson thing never bothered me (even though she didn’t deserve the success with that piece of shit single) because that IS similar to stuff that went down before - labels pushing the hype train to increase sales out of curiosity rather than quality. Plus you had all the chart manipulation of McFly et al putting out 4 versions of CDs with free shite and live remixes to increase sales - where there a rule there’s always a loophole.

It’s the behaviour model of streaming that always bugs me. If Christina Aguilera released a banger tomorrow, her 30+ aged fans would listen to it in between listening to her older stuff / other 90s and 00s artists (in between raising children and working). If Dua Lipa released the same song, all the teens would have it on loop in the background for 6 days straight while they chatted on Instagram.

It’s not a system that works.
 
The streaming metric feels functionally the same as the US Hot 100's incorporation of airplay/audience impressions so not much has changed to me. The airplay component has long stagnated the charts here, and resulted in less diversity on the charts. Like streaming, airplay skews in favor of younger artists and younger listeners. Like streaming/playlists, it also rewards passive listening.

I'm not sure what the solution is when pure sales are so low. I always preferred a sales only chart, but that would also become pretty irrelevant when the #1 song in sales is selling a few thousand copies in a given week.
 
Was that woman and "most of the people around me" a hen party? :D

Otherwise obviously someone has never been trapped under a sheet of ice with a desperate need for a soundtrack to go with it.
 
I'd love to know what she was expecting - Kate to trot out and do Wuthering Heights, the HoL singles then piss off home?
 
Maybe she wanted a half-hour long show so she could fit in some late night shopping in the Hammersmith Broadway centre :disco:
 
COB said:
I'd love to know what she was expecting - Kate to trot out and do Wuthering Heights, the HoL singles then piss off home?
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That’s exactly what a dozy bint loudly moaned about in the row before me - the lack of Wuthering Heights.

And she was drunk. On Lambrini no doubt.
 
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jyxz said:
That’s exactly what a dozy bint loudly moaned about in the row before me - the lack of Wuthering Heights.

And she was drunk. On Lambrini no doubt.
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Did people at least chuckle at her? Or yell "she's taking pictures - chuck her out now!"?
 
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COB said:
Why Should I Love You is such a bop :disco:
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That's not the word I would use to describe it. It's my least favourite track from 'The Red Shoes' album. Yep, even 'Big Stripey Lie' gets ranked higher. I don't understand it myself as I'm a huge fan of Prince. It sounds like a bit of a mess and is quite jarring in the context of the album as a whole. I can't explain it at all, because even though 'Love Story' on Madonna's 'Like A Prayer' album was essentially a Prince track sonically, it worked for me, whereas 'Why Should I Love You' didn't. I tend to skip it these days and pretend it didn't happen.
 
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