Is chart placement really the best way to judge a song's popularity?

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Influenced by this thread...

(Non-One Hit Wonder) Artists Whose Biggest Chart Single Was Also Their Greatest Musical Achievement

Many times here, as well as in hundreds of other threads, chart placement is used to determine whether one song is "bigger" than another, even though there are many cases in which songs that chart the highest are not played as often on today's radio. For example, the first time a specific charting is cited...

The Cure - A Forest

Wasn't their biggest chart single. In the UK it was "Lullaby" at #5 -- in the US "Lovesong" hit #2.

I don't know what gets played most often in the UK, but in the US "Friday I'm In Love" and "Just Like Heaven" are played more often than "Lovesong." There's always the possibility that stations weren't flooded with as many accessible top 40 songs during the reign of "Lovesong." But also, it's possible that "Just Like Heaven" failed to chart as high due to the airwaves overflowing with many new accessible songs, all of which were fighting for the top 10 and ended up knocking out songs that would have done much better during dry periods.

― billstevejim (billstevejim), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 04:39 (twenty years ago)

or in this case pork rinds..

and then they cut up your mouth and gums and it just keeps hurting for hours...

yeah. i have that.

― Tumililingan (ex machina), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 04:43 (twenty years ago)

Your point's well taken. Chart positions are indeed often misleading with regards to a song's lasting power -- but as objective criteria go for "comparing" songs' relative success, they're kind of all we've got.

Besides, some of us really get into the *numbers* aspect of chart-watching and don't have access to data like exact # of units sold or cume # of radio spins. :)

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 04:47 (twenty years ago)

Of course there is also the matter of much-loved album-tracks that weren't released as singles (eg. some 'classic rock', perhaps Pink Floyd and the like). And there might be other songs which were available on singles but prompted lots of sales of the corresponding LP (or subsequent 'best-of') instead, perhaps for decades. Bwahaha, I'm spectulating about effects we can never quantify...

― Nag! Nag! Nag! (Nag! Nag! Nag!), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 05:06 (twenty years ago)

Let's quantify what happened when the Crazy Frog ringtone became the 1st #1 'single' a few weeks ago in the UK. It's a new world. Or an old thread ?

― blunt (blunt), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 17:58 (twenty years ago)

there are tons of examples of these. I was even considering staritng a thread on it the other day. Duran Duran is a particularly flagrant one--their only #1s were "The Reflex" and "A View to a Kill," neither of which are nearly as well remembered as "Hungry Like the Wolf," "Rio," "Girls on Film," "Notorious" or "Ordinary World"

Anyway, while chart placement obviously is extremely imperfect (especially when considering the various changes the Billboard system has undergone, in the last fifteen years alone) at judging a song's popularity, I can't think of a better objective one off the top of my head. In a way the imperfections are part of the fun anyway.

― The Good Dr. Bill (The Good Dr. Bill), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 21:53 (twenty years ago)

Chart placement is a "peak value" measurement ... it tells us what is most popular right now. But just because "Lovesong" was more popular in its day doesn't preclude "Just Like Heaven" from being more popular in the long run.

Also, chart placements are contextual -- a #7 hit one week could be more popular than a #2 hit from a completely different week, depending on the strength of the other songs in the charts at that time.

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 22:11 (twenty years ago)

another recent thread -- Taking Sides: Pat Benatar's "We Belong" vs. Tina Turner's "We Don't Need Another Hero" -- illustrates a reason for this: video airplay. "We Belong" may have been Pat Benatar's highest chart peak, but more people probably remember "Love Is A Battlefield" because it had such a memorable video that was played the hell out of in the early days of MTV.

― Al (sitcom), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 22:23 (twenty years ago)

Other good examples are the crop of '96/'97-era hits that were humongous everywhere except the pop charts, due to diqualisfication over the technicality about the song not actually being released on single. OMC's "How Bizarre," The Cardigans' "Lovefool," No Doubt's "Don't Speak" and Sugar Ray's "Fly" among them.

― The Good Dr. Bill (The Good Dr. Bill), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 23:05 (twenty years ago)

A great recent example would be with Outkast in the UK. Although "Ms Jackson" got to #2, "Hey Ya" (peak position: #3) spent five months in the top 20, a considerably longer run than "MJ" managed.

Plus take the number of times you've heard "Ms Jackson", put three zeroes on the end of it, and that's how many times you've heard "Hey Ya".

Like you say, this technique does have flaws (it catalogues "Tender" as a bigger hit than "Boys and Girls", say), but as overall sales figures are rarely available, what are you going to do?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 23:14 (twenty years ago)

OMC's "How Bizarre," The Cardigans' "Lovefool," No Doubt's "Don't Speak" and Sugar Ray's "Fly" among them.

Wait, *none* of these were officially singles? I remember all of the videos were in heavy airplay ... "Lovefool" piggybacked on the "Romeo and Juliet" soundtrack and became a hit about two years after it was recorded. But other than "Lovefool", I thought all of them were standard singles, released to support their albums.

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 23:42 (twenty years ago)

There should be some kind of law that says after a song recieves a certain amount of nationwide radio spins, it has to be released as a single. I'm very much against the concept mentioned here which started in the 90's in which commercial singles were not released for very popular songs, in order for the record companies to try and make more money from people buying the whole album. Every song on Top 40 radio should always be available as a single.

― billstevejim (billstevejim), Wednesday, 27 July 2005 00:08 (twenty years ago)

I think The Rembrandts refused to release the song to "Friends" as a single in spite of label pressure. You know, because they're album artists.

― Gavin, Wednesday, 27 July 2005 00:10 (twenty years ago)

Also I wanted to say, it's because of the lack of single releases in the past 10 years that I think the record companies got what they deserved with the whole MP3 explosion. I suppose I wouldn't feel nearly as bad about it if CD singles were released more frequently.

― billstevejim (billstevejim), Wednesday, 27 July 2005 00:13 (twenty years ago)

well, I'm not positive about that, but none of them broke the top 100, and I can't imagine another reason why that'd be the case.

― The Good Dr. Bill (The Good Dr. Bill), Wednesday, 27 July 2005 02:25 (twenty years ago)

Refresh my memory ... when did airplay surpass sales as the key factor that went into compiling the top 100?

What I'm getting at is this -- if "How Bizarre" was never released as a single, but was getting caned on the radio and MTV, I don't see how it couldn't break into the top 100 based on airplay alone. Unless a song had to be "officially" (whatever that means) released as a single to be eligible for the chart?

I guess things are simpler now, because they can track paid downloads and in that sense consumers get to choose which songs sell and which ones don't. The mid - late '90's post-sales\pre-d/l era was a strange time for singles, I suppose.

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Wednesday, 27 July 2005 02:36 (twenty years ago)

Unless a song had to be "officially" (whatever that means) released as a single to be eligible for the chart?

I think this is it, yeah.

― The Good Dr. Bill (The Good Dr. Bill), Wednesday, 27 July 2005 02:57 (twenty years ago)

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