h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Wasn't the singles chart always for kids?

I remember when I first felt old - it would have been the early nineties, and I remember hearing a song playing in a pub and thinking "Blimey, this is a bit repetitive and irritating - I wonder what it is?". I asked someone what it was... and it turned out it was that week's number 1 single, "No Limit" by 2Unlimited. Having spent many a happy Sunday evening in my youth obsessing over what was going up and what was going down and who had the highest new entry, the idea that a record could be number 1 without me ever having heard OF it, much less heard it, made me think I was officially an adult.

I don't feel qualified to have an opinion on whether the singles chart matters - I'm far, far too old now. I was too old fifteen years ago...

SoRB

You were right about 'No Limits' though weren't you?

I suppose it depends what the 'point' of the chart is - and now Top of the Pops has gone, I'm not sure what the focus is or whether it's such a powerful marketing tool.

I think you're right about the 'under 20 years old' thing, but very young kids can be extremely dangerous and shockingly whimsical. I'm thinking about how far the chart of old used to tally with Ed Stewart's 'Junior Choice' (not very) which was extremely conservative...and that it was probably kids who put 'Grandad' and 'There's No One Quite Like Grandma' at Number One.

As a (relatively young thinking) over-40, a couple of observations:

i) We people over 25 seriously outnumber people under 25.

ii) The sort of CD's I buy are 99% reissues from years ago and are not current chart stuff. (The last current chart single I bought, and the only one in about five years, was Republica's "Ready To Go" -so you can count how often I do this on one finger of one hand)

iii) Therefore we old flatulents are almost inevitably going to skew the charts, depending on what we buy.

The last five CD's I bought?

Black Sabbath - Paranoid (original release date 1971)

Blue Öyster Cult - Cultosaurus Erectus (OR date 1980)
Agents of Fortune (OR date 1976)

Hawkwind - Doremi Faso Latido (OR date 1978)

Rainbow - Difficult to Cure (OR date 1980)


I suppose if you extract the hit singles out of the above five CD's, I've bought "Paranoid", "Don't Fear the Reaper" "I Surrender" and "Can't Happen Here" and boosted them back towards the charts...

But that's precisely my point - you bought ALBUMS.

By the time I was 20 I'd reached the stage where I'd started thinking "This is a good single I'm hearing on the radio... I'll buy the album". And with albums costing, in real terms, so much less than they used to, and with singles costing not *that* much less, most *adults* just buy an album - don't they? Which is why I say singles are for kids... pocket money purchases, in contrast to the bigger investment of a whole album.

But then... when you buy a CD other than a "greatest hits", how many tracks do you actually listen to more than twice? Or do you rip your favourites to your 'pod and never listen to the filler tracks again?

And yes, of course, I was right about 2Unlimited.

SoRB

I think it is probably fair to say that the buying patterns of older people are a lot more wide-ranging than young people, with the effect that they have less potential to effect the chart leaders.

i definitely agree that singles are for the younger generations and albums for we but given that recently the albums I've bought have only had 4 or 5 tracks that I like, and the rest aren't worth a 2nd listen - downloading individual tracks is becoming more attractive.

Although, I do have albums that I haven't listened tofor years, and after a recent go at them I've liked more tracks than previously.

the Gruesome Twosome are now at the age where they are paying attention to new music as well as what the Aged Parents play. And they would be among those who, having seen that ep of Dr Who, would have put ELO at the top of the singles charts. Strange, eh?

I'm 50+ & do buy newly released albums as well as older ones. Singles? Think I was a teenager the last time I bought one. If I like a single well enough I'll probably chance the album. I do listen to all the tracks every time although there are some in my collection that rarely get aired!
In the early days of Napster I did obtain quite a few singles, again both old & new ones.

Among my aquaintances I'd say I'm unusual in my tastes though. Most I know tend to listen to nostalgia, easy listening or classical, even if they don't mind some of the modern stuff their kids play.

I can see I've never grown up then - I don't think I've ever liked an album unless it's a greatest hits of a band I like or a compilation. I've lost count of the number of times I've liked a band's chart toppers, bought the album and all the other tracks are shite (in my opinion) so I've given the bloody thing away.

So I much prefer the option of downloading single tracks and giving the 'fastforward' button a bit of a rest.

MP3s are the best thing since vinyl as far as I'm concerned! Although I miss having a physical 'thing' to play sometimes.

I think you're right about singles. I remember avidly listening to the new chart every tuesday lunchtime but by the time i was about 20 i'd ceased buying singles. I tend to mix replacing my lost vinyl on cd with buying new stuff and reissues of things i'd never got round to buying previously. our kids are now at the stage wher my music is now borrowed rather than the subject of a request not to play it when friends visit. I continue to discover new music all the time and as yet i haven't bought an album i dislike. The opinion of the house is that I may continue to grow old but growing up is unlikely. The last 10 albums i bought were Muse-Absolution,Killers-Sam's Town, Bob Dylan-John Wesley Harding, Nelly Furtado-Loose, Joanna Newsome-Milk Eyed Mender, Ali Farka Toure-Savane, Seasick Steve-Doghouse Music, Goo Goo Dolls-Let Love In, Feeder-Singles and Johnny Cash-American Recordings 5. Who needs identikit singles acts with the amount of quality albums available anyway?

These days it's also so much easier to get hold of things- I couldn't have dreamed of getting soundtracks imported from Japan or America before the internet.

Then again, I seem to remember there being a huge hoo-ha when people discovered that there were more (legal) downloads of singles than people buying hard copies.

"In three years, download single-track sales have rocketed from 5.8 million to 51.6 million, while physical singles sales sunk from 26.5 million to 13.6 million."

From http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=36592007