The Charts: Search And Destroy

interesting question. perhaps music is a more shared cultural experience than books. a book needs to be digested to comment on, a song needs 20 seconds. songs permeate everyday life, from cars, from shops, on the radio, ony tv. it comes in your life whether you like it or not. books, you have to go in yrself. yes, you can see what people are reading on the tube, but its not the same. as for films, more shared yes, but you have to be active again, go and see it. music comes to you, you go to the others? passivity vs activity, shared cultural life vs escapism for duration

How much is this a British phenomenon though? I get the impression from my North Am friends, that caring about the singles charts is pure mentalism to them. Then why? Is there something in british cultural history that locked us in at some early "6 5 special" point in time?

Alan - yes. It's called "Top of the Pops".

Less glibly, yeah it is interesting, because "Top 40" has pretty much the same function as a negative description here as there, but the opposing fondness and positivity towards the charts seems lacking in the US.

Might have summat to do with British charts being sales based, and so much more volatile AND more of a reflection of what the average punter likes at a given time. Though the latter is maybe less true now, what with mp3s appearing months before stuff is released and absurdly long pre-release radio play times.

Well natch I was referring to ver pops, but does it go deeper than that? Does that mean it's all just part of the nationally shared TV culture that we bang on about a lot. That it goes hand in hand with THOSE pub conversations about the Herbs and Bod. Such stuff happens to some extent in CA and US, but not so much. Let's all blame Lord Reith.

Hmm you could be on to something there. The nostalgia impulse is definitely there in the States - someone posted that famous Debarge track on FilePile and they all went mad for it saying wow I remember this god how corny-but-great it sounds (except for a few holdouts anyway), and whenever I see that kind of thing I always thing, YES BUT there is this kind of stuff happening RIGHT NOW in pop (I assume also there is great kids TV being made too). Why wait 15 years??

That's a bit of a tangent.

But it does still beg the question, if it is "frozen in" from some earlier time when our culture was more unified, then what was so important about the charts then? Six Five Special was the late 50s I think, and that smacks of the invention of teen(tm) which in turn has an essay's worth of socio-economic blather to it.

Not just national TV culture. Radio as anything other than a local and genre specific thing in the US is barely there. Nothing like Radio 1 (still listened to by 20% of the population, remember.

charts in britain. tighter cultural common ground. narrow means of broadcast (only 4 tv stations, radio 1, everyone watching the same thing)

hands up (brits) if you spent a lot of sunday evenings as a kid listening to the chart run down fingers poised over the rec/play on a crap old tape recorder.

Me. I really wish I'd kept some of the top 40 tapes I made in the 70s.

Oh aye. Used to puzzle me how the tapes never sounded as good as the songs on the radio whereas stuff taped off my mum's records sounded fine almost the same as the originals. Bleddy compression.

do you think it has anything to do with the fact that, relatively speaking, Britain is so small and culturally-united? is there a NATIONAL US radio station? i mean, most of the states are bigger than Britain on their own, a LOT more difference in terms of weather, culture, history... i think it'd be quite hard to collate all that for a start, let alone for EVERYONE to go mental over it.

(of course i am not saying that Britain is less culturally diverse than the US - only SMALLER)

Me. I really wish I'd kept some of the top 40 tapes I made in the 70s

Um, yes, well I have kept some of the top 40 tapes I made in the eighties. there's still twenty or so lying around at my parents' house (and they never chuck anything out). Occasionally, my finger wouldn't reach the pause button fast enough and a snatch of inane DJ chat would make it onto the tape, like Richard Skinner saying, "where the hits are MADE and PLAYED....this is Radio 1".

There have always been accusations that payola is going on and ppl are coming away from record stores with wheelbarrows full of a particular CD to boost sales etc, but I think that in spite of this the pop chart is *fairer* than, say, one for books because there isn't the need to skew it to give it meaning and keep ppl interested. I believe that if a chart for books was published week by week was published based on sales alone then the Bible and Highway Code would be #1 and #2 ALL THE TIME.

Occasionally, my finger wouldn't reach the pause button fast enough and a snatch of inane DJ chat would make it onto the tape

Sad to say, we had a word for that in my family: "rabitses". Cos of one particularly funny sounding one. I maybe making this up but I think it was after taping "Supernature" and buddy DJ broke in at the end to say something hil....arious like "rabbits as big as cows no doubt".

and what you say about book charts is right, and there is a week by week chart of booksales. it's called whitaker's booktrack. Any chance you'd list those top 40 comps for us? :-)

I think my original intention had been to record some stuff to play at the school Christmas party and it all got out of control and I started recording the charts religiously week by week. I know that Siouxie and the Banshees' "Cities in Dust" was on an early one in about November '85 and I think I soldiered on until '88....about the time the Pogues did "Fiesta", yeah, summer '88. Then my home taping stopped, yes I stopped KILLING MUSIC (I have a tape of the Associates' "Affectionate Punch where the inlay card actually has a skull & crossbones on it and the legend "Home Taping is Killing Music"). Its embarrassing how much of that DJ chat I can remember....like when Bruno Brookes was telling the nation that Nu Shooz's "I Can't Wait" was climbing up the charts and he said "My mum told me never to go climbing in new shoes". Arf.

I always used to follow the end of the year toy chart...I always wanted Transformers to win! I'd be angry for weeks if something like Barbie won.

Tom asks: Why wait 15 years??

Sometimes it takes me that long to 'get' pop music - free jazz is so much more immediate!

New York Times Best Seller List is as cultrally important as any pop chart.

Not it's not.

NO it's not.

#1.any pop chart
#2 vegetables chart
#3 top ways to overthrow ethan the third lizard-lord chart
#4 nyt book list

If Ethan is the third lizard lord, who are the first and second?

The New York Times Bestseller List is probably the most important non- music (with one exception) related chart in the US though and it rivals everything other than the Billboard chart in the American music world.

Obviously the weekend box office results are just as important/visible as the Billboard charts. They post the top grossing money winner on Yahoo! (for example) every Sunday which they only do for the Billboard chart-topper if they broke a sales record or something.

GOR Jel where is this toy chart?

1: Gothmog. 2: Gaby Roslin.

also, book/film charts closer to album chart than singles chart. and who cares about the album chart? exactly

Another wedge between me and pop charts on TV as the frankly malevolent H and Claire Steps take over CD:UK

And they're keeping Tess Daly on. COME BACK ANT AND DEC!

I see now why Tom started this thread on ILE and ILM. Looking on ILM it looks this very topic is the source for a possible HOLY WAR!

Kill ILM scum for the dissing of charts.

The reason charts for films/books etc not capturing the imagination, as I see it, is due to the fact that literature and film aren't popularised. Everyone owns a CD, or if they don't they are forced to listen to music at some part of every single day of their lives. Also there's direct personalities and images to be sold with music, and conflict between these is an attractive part of the charts, girlz against boyz blah blah blah you know the rest. This is certainly not the case with literature, perhaps films have the personality/image thing, but not to the same extent.

There should be a chart to determine whom the public considers to be the biggest idiot in the country at a given time.

In America, the same idiot would top that poll for the next 2 to 6 years.

actually gareth said most of what I said there already.

Quite honestly, I think that in the U.S. the film box-office numbers are way more discussed and watched than the singles chart. Hell, the album chart is, as well. (Even, or especially, with chart acts: BSB v. NSync v. Brit v. Eminem for sales records in the past couple of years and such). And it is probable, although I don't know enough teenagers to say for sure, that at its peak a couple of years ago, the TRL chart was more important.

The film and album numbers are probably more watched because they are not only chart numbers, but raw sales. Each of those charts is a true reflection of public taste and they have the added bonus of instant gratification -- it's a real contest when something opens or is released. Release dates are more widely published than they once were, etc. Enterntainment Weekly and its charts really helped drive all of this, but the escalating costs of marketing did as well. If a film doesn't open well, it's usually going nowhere. The same is true, in a way, with a musician. The big labels aren't very patient.

Growing up, I always always listened to America's top 40, from, say, 1982-85 (I was 9-12 in those years) and probably watched the top 10 TV show as well, rooting for my faves. I taped much of the top 100 in 1982 (unfortunately I do not still have these, damn) and could probably come close to naming the top 10 from that year. But there isn't really a national vehicle for sharing the charts anymore (and never was the way there are in the UK) and, of course, in the early and mid 1980s, radio wasn't compartmentalized. It's a shame, in a way.

Sarah, the toy chart used to come out every year! Just before Christmas they would announce the top ten on the 6 O'Clock news!! This proves how very important such a chart is! (and Mintel and companies like that compile lists of everything...fish finger brands, chocolates etc.)

Are the film ticket sales raw data though. What I never understood is why they financial terms (ie Panic Room making 31 million dollars on its opening weekend). I assume this is gross ticket sales, but surely cinema tickets cost more in certain cinemas than others, New York is more expensive than Houston - so this is actually skews these figures to what is bigger in the bigger cities.

Also it depends on how many screens show the films (analogy here with record sales - if Woolies stock your single).

Book charts equal nothink though. The odd thing about singles is the fact that people are buying things they have (generally) already experienced.

Pete: Yes, it is gross, not the actual number of people who attend the films, which arguably makes it more compelling, (and esp. because film budgets are well known). The number of screens and the avg. take per screen is usually listed on the box-office charts, as well. (As is the percentage change in a film’s gross from the weak before.)

But not the number of ticket sales. Interesting.... Since this is the one statistic we really want to know.

It would be interesting if the charts were done this way, since the copmplaints about the half price singles at Woolies etc would then be taken into the argument.

*the week before*, obviously.

And I mean more compelling cuz people, y'know, like and respond to money. It ties in to the movie mogul mytstique, too. Because of the sheer amount of money involved and the oligarchal way that Hollywood films are greenlighted and then crafted, they're viewed more as an investment, in a way, than pop music. EW, the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times and, of course, the film trade papers and others will print articles analyzing which studios' investments paid off from film 'season' to season, too.

*mystique*

to the coffee machine!

The U.S. does have a national radio station -- Clearchannel.

This is depressingly true.

But that means it speaks to the PEOPLE! And we are all one. Now go forth and get your McDonald's meal extrasupersized, please.

As big as the US is, it would be too logistically difficult to create _one_ radio station for the public to listen to. (Besides, the politicians here would scream about the "monopoly" issue....Damn constitution;>)

Creating a chart for books is way easier, anyway. There's no rule that says everyone has to buy a book, just because the New York Times says it's good.

When it comes to music, it is more subjective: I can't guarantee that I'll like the same music as someone else. That's why Billboard mag is so big: all those charts detail what certain parts of the country will buy.

if there's one thing i have learned from the decimation of books sections all over the country during the past year, it's that people don't read. so maybe that's why the nyt bestseller list doesn't really capture the imagination of people who aren't the left behind milleniallists.

i agree that the film chart's much more discussed/obsessed over than any pop music chart in the US today. this could be because, at least here in the states, there really isn't one chart for singles—sure you have the billboard hot 100, but various radio formats (and vh1 and mtv, too) play tailor-made versions of that for their audiences, so as not to offend any delicate sensibilities (or, say, include any of that nasty hip-hop). this could also be in part why the nielsen ratings aren't as at the forefront of tv talk; cable's siphoned off so many viewers that few programs can even near the 40 or 50 audience shares that the cosby show was getting in the 1980s.

I'm finding these chart discussions interesting because I never knew what a big deal this was in the UK. It's pretty hard for me to relate to. It sounds like a love-fest, everyone liking those pop hits all at the same time and such. Just kidding

I think the book/movie charts are influential. Bestseller books are automatically bought by libraries, made rental books, and displayed prominently in a special section of the library; same with bestseller movies, in video stores. Book and movie charts should be abolished. Perhaps record charts, too. Or perhaps they should only be allowed to be publically released ten years after the fact. They should be historical data, not used to make predictions or as a reason to buy something. Unless they were really contextualised. For example, if there was speculation after each entry about why it was popular, as part of the chart package. Like 'N'Sync, they're at number one because the record company bought 1000 copies of this last week' and 'Outkast, it's surprising this is at number 12 because the record company stopped promoting it 3 months ago' - but by someone more informed about chart machinations than me.