As the way we listen to and share music continually evolves, with downloads and streaming now massively overweighing CD sales, the U.S Billboard Chart is being adapted to include songs played through the Spotify online subscription service.
The U.S Billboard 100 is a weekly countdown of the top songs played and purchased in the United States and it’s very similar to our U.K Top 40 Singles Chart which started to count internet plays and downloads from Apple’s iTunes into the running for the prestigious number one spot in 2004. The first number one in the Official UK Download Chart was Westlife “Flying Without Wings” – for those interested.
The North American Billboard chart, also inclusive of iTunes, records all “physical” CD single sales as well as downloads from Monday to Sunday to report an accurate chart once a week. In the future an estimated average of around 490 million songs streamed per month on Spotify, regarded as a “critical mass” will be added to the 27.1 million downloads and the dwindling actual CD sales.
And importantly this could pave the way to introduce Spotify streams into the U.K charts. With plays and downloads being thrown into the mix it could mean less force fed radio-played drivel such as Adele and more quality British tunes from the likes Iron Maiden (we can only hope) being streamed and socially shared through the collaboration with Facebook. Old favourites would also have the chance to resurface in the chart and lesser known artists have an equal chance to swim in the mainstream.
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