Blog: Music Charts

Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

Why UK Christmas number ones are the current charity of choice

Ashleigh Millar

23 Dec 2021

Christmas streams

Music Charts

YouTube Music

It is the most wonderful time of year… we get to watch (and influence) the fight for the Official Charts’ UK Christmas number one. And in the lead for, arguably, the most coveted spot in UK music is none other than internet star LadBaby, featuring his wife and pop icons Ed Sheeran and Elton John .

min read

Seven Developments in Recorded Music in the 2010s (and the Songs that Defined them)

Zach Fuller

6 Nov 2019

cardi b

cultural insight

Drake

Decade retrospectives are almost doomed to fail. Assess the 60s in 1969 and you would have likely overweighed the influence of Grand Funk Railroad compared to The Velvet Underground. When it comes to the 70s, proto Hip-Hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Flash or the Post-Punk of Joy Division would have been a mere footnote in favour of David Naughton or Melissa Manchester.

min read

Do Playlists Make the Power Law in Music Even More Extreme?

Zach Fuller

31 May 2018

Apple Music

Music Charts

Music streaming

Music has always been a superstar economy. Data going back to the 50s shows that, like many other areas of life and business, a disproportionate amount of the results come from a small number of factors.

min read

YouTube Just Broke The Chart’s Back

Mark Mulligan

3 Feb 2016

Artists

charts

Music

Or rather the music industry just broke the chart’s back with YouTube, although it doesn’t realise it yet. And here’s why… It is normal when switching between old and new worlds to use equivalents, deutschmarks to euros, inches to centimetres, circulation numbers to unique visitors etc.

min read