Simon Fucking Cowell
Think the label needs to have a word with OCC for that to happenSlade have released a 12" of Merry Christmas Everybody this year - does that reset their streaming ratio, ASR or whatever it;s called.
Yes, I think it's supposed to happen automatically if the track is less than 3 years old (so Sheeran will have an automatic advantage), but it has to be applied for somehow if it's over that.Think the label needs to have a word with OCC for that to happen
I'd say if anything, there's been a real resurgence in artists recording original Christmas songs in recent years. There pretty much wasn't one of note full stop for a decade between The Darkness and Leona Lewis in 2013. Since 2017 there's been a real deluge.
For my sins, I think the Ed Sheeran/Elton one is a pretty decent contribution to the modern canon.
Streaming has ruined the Christmas charts, hasn't it? They should start hiving off anything over 5-10 years old.
Oh for god’s sakeStormzy, Lizzo, Maisie Peters and Sam Ryder are all from the soundtrack to the Amazon Prime film 'Your Christmas Or Mine?', which is apparently released on Friday.

What would've happened with Running Up This Hill on this proposal? Let's be honest, that has been the biggest chart story of the year. I'm not sure the OCC would go for anything that shoved that onto a catalogue list, but I could potentially see ways of having one where it might not have necessarily been.
It's not just the Christmas chart as well - I think if it was one week only I'd almost quite enjoy it, but here we are still at the end of November and a third of the singles chart is set to be Christmas songs already. For 10% of the year the chart is fucked.Streaming has ruined the Christmas charts, hasn't it? They should start hiving off anything over 5-10 years old.
It's not just the Christmas chart as well - I think if it was one week only I'd almost quite enjoy it, but here we are still at the end of November and a third of the singles chart is set to be Christmas songs already. For 10% of the year the chart is fucked.
Surely the record companies can't be happy with this, as it must affect campaign strategies and particularly impact new acts potentially breaking through.
I think the Kate Bush issue does highlight a potential problem with taking old songs out with a flat rule, but as Devil says, that really was exceptional, and I don't see any problem with the OCC having to step outside the rules in exceptional circumstances.
And as I said before, RUTH was very different in that people were actively seeking it out - effectively it was a 'new' song. It's the passivity of playlisting listening that irritates me in a single being a hit every year by virtue of Spotify or Amazon promoting it and it being played entirely because of that, rather than people thinking 'oh I'd really like to hear 'Jingle Bell Rock' now. If spotify could show how many people were actively seeking music like that (or even listening to their own curated playlists), I'd be a lot more favourable to it charting in the way they do.
As I've said before, ACR clears out blockages at the top of the chart, but then just creates them further down. They do allow other songs to climb and peak, but still block smaller songs from charting at all. I think once you hit ACR, there ought to be a sliding scale where the streams mean less and less - even possibly down to about 10%, or perhaps streaming not even counting at all.ACR I don’t mind in occasionally freshening the chart up, but it has so many downfalls. Olivia Rodrigo’s Driver’s License showed that - thanks to it hitting ACR, then the album pushing it to only her fourth most streamed, but increasing it enough to get it reset and then subsequently reentering the charts was nuts.
1}-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-18-21-27-28-34-38-37-43-40-35-6R(2)->20
That last random entry at #6 being because the album forced it to increase and be reset but it only then became her third most streamed two weeks later, so was only reset for a week and then straight back out. The whole run is a fallacy when it was simply a popular song that slowly dropped in popularity over time.
I've seen someone on ukmix post that Mariah would probably be #1 already if it wasn't for ACR, but I'm not sure if that is confirmed. I assume it will be confirmed if it is true on Friday.
I don't think the competition is massively strong this week - Taylor Swift is #3, and her sales last week were the lowest for a #1 for 13 weeks. But yes, relatively Mariah and Wham must be doing well.Those must be some serious streams if she's number one despite the OCC streaming rules, right?
And sure enough 51of the top 100 is Christmas songs - a couple more if you include Stormzy and the new 3 Lions.That's only the top 20 available so far. Last week we had 5 Christmas tracks in the top 20 in the first midweek, and a third of the top 100. I imagine they will be half the chart when we see the full update tomorrow.