Music Charts in 2024: Industry Dinosaurs or Still Relevant?
Written by Ana Balashova for Kill the DJ
Charts have always been a shorthand for who’s hot, who’s not, and who we should pretend we have on all our playlists.
Charts from different countries tell their own story. The Circle from South Korea, launched in 2010, is the local spin on the Billboard formula. Japan’s Oricon has been churning out rankings based on physical singles sales since the age of the dinosaurs, or more precisely, since well before it embraced digital downloads in 2017. These charts function like cultural barometers, telling us who’s making waves and who’s just paddling.
For the purpose of today’s deep-dive, I am sticking with the Billboard chart, because the U.S. is a global music factory, spitting out hits that dominate playlists from London to Tokyo. Plus, this chart’s got a lot of history, dating back to its first top ten bestsellers list in 1913. It’s the industry standard and acts as the benchmark for whether you’ve really made it.
The rise of streaming has thrown a wrench in the charts’ works. Platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and even quirky places like Bandcamp have changed how we discover and listen to music. No longer do we just rely on radio airplay and physical sales to tell us who’s taking over the world. We’ve got algorithms for that now, thank you very much. This shift raises an important question: do charts still matter in 2024?
The anatomy of a chart-topper
Over the years, the factors that contribute to an artist’s chart success have changed a lot. Back in the 1940s, Billboard charts focused on “Songs With Most Radio Plugs.”
Fast forward to the 1980s, and the charts reflected “National Sales and programming activity by selected dealers, one-stops and radio stations.”
By 2010, Billboard was tracking “the most popular songs according to the all-format audience impressions measured by Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems and sales data compiled by Nielsen Soundscan.”
Today, the Hot 100 ranks songs based on “streaming activity from digital music sources tracked by Luminate, radio airplay audience impressions as measured by Luminate, and sales data as compiled by Luminate.”
And it’s not just about the metrics. According to Nic Gitter, a music producer based in NYC, “Originally, charts would favor songs that could be considered anthemic — something that people can easily remember the words to and sing along with. This still holds true to this day. Of course, catchiness is important, but I think that, especially in rave and festival settings, songs that subvert expectations can also break through if given proper media coverage.”
However, Eric Stensvaag, director of the curation at Feed.fm, points out the limitations of traditional charts. “As music streaming and the services that power it have proliferated, one of the major drawbacks of these charts is that there is a substantial amount of missing listening data. Thus artists and labels are getting an incomplete view of total listening activity if they only rely on charts from Billboard/Spotify. For example, Feed.fm powers nearly a billion music streams per year in consumer apps, largely in the fitness, wellness, and health categories. But those streams are not currently included in Billboard or Spotify charts.”
He cuts deeper into the anatomy of the problem: “Traditional charts have never been a complete ‘source of truth’ for an artist’s popularity and impact. It’s still relatively easy to manipulate a Billboard chart position. Most industry insiders recognize that these charts primarily exist to sell ads in a magazine and satisfy/placate an artist’s team.”
In fact, Billboard has had to continually adjust its methodologies to keep up with the changing landscape of music consumption. From bundling digital downloads of songs with concert tickets, merchandise, and other goodies to counting music played in ”Roblox”, the charts are trying to stay relevant, but is it working?
Even with these adjustments, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the traditional charts simply can’t keep up with the fast-paced, fragmented world of music of the future.
The charts of streaming era: bots and manipulation
Fake streams and bots throw a massive wrench into the sleek machine of music charts. Yes, you can witness the level of manipulation that would make a Wall Street banker blush in the music industry. Streaming might be the lifeblood of chart success, but it’s also notoriously unreliable. For every legitimate listener, there’s an army of fake accounts inflating numbers and polluting the data pool, making the methodology behind charts completely pointless.
