Did/Do you follow the charts?

While I wouldn't qualify so much as "chart geek",I have paid some attention to whatever the public deemed as attention giving for decades.Movie grosses,New York Times Bestselling Books,Nielsen TV ratings,Arbitron radio ratings and,for music,only Billboard.With tech dvances,these lists pinointed more accurately what was really happening and,at the same time,ways to manipulate numbers in a very legal and accurate way.Which is better?Calling up an indi shop and a chain store buyer and asking what's hot or lowballing a single,give it exposure at checkouts and watch the real yet fraudulent numbers add up(Tommy Mottola & Mariah Carey,I'm looking at you).What came to pass is the importance of faster results and the importance of first days and overnight numbers.And then we move on to he next shiny object in front of us. The days of slow,steady growth,word of mouth,with music albums,the second and third single and maybe,just maybe,the cream is allowed to reach the top.But not that often.So nowadays it seems to be almost the opposite-if it charts big out of the box,it probably sucks.I'll stick to the slow cooker in my interests in media.Right now I'm interested in a series of books taking sections of Little Golden Books and applying the images to modern,grown-up life.I'm listening to Christmas music almost as ldl as I am(no,not on Edison cylinders).Just revisited The Thin Man on TCM.And not caring if anyone else is doing the same.

 

I do some DJ'ing as a hobby, so I keep up with the charts just to see what's popular among the younger crowd. Just to try to stay "hip."

 

I always let the music do the talking. There were songs that went number one on the charts that I completely detested. That's why the number never meant anything to me.

 

Why, those can be gamed, they're a joke.

 

Used to follow all the solo Beatles releases. Now I could care less.

 

Chart geek? Not really. I'll read them from time-to-time but never really tracked numbers. Then or now.

 

No. I don't care about them.

 

I never have.

 

You're right, they can be. They're just more interesting to me than the charts in general.

 

Why would I bother when there's so much better music out there?

 

Me too. I was glued to Casey's countdown all through the 70s. Great memories. Miss Casey.

 

Admittedly, yes I have. I post on UK Mix and I'm always interested in chart stats, especially if it's an artist I like...

 

yes from the 60-80's. I have all of Joel Whitman's books.

 

yea me too...no interest whatsoever.

 

Like most others, I used to until I was in high school in the mid 80's. Haven't had the time to care for the last 30 years..

 

I've been following the Billboard charts since 2005.

So since I was 14.

 

I don't now and never really did. I am not a hater but I just never really got into the popular stuff, then or now.

Scott

 

No

 

Never.

 

I used to religiously follow the charts, probably until the late 1970's/early 1980's.
Now I'd venture to say that I wouldn't even know 197 of the artists on the top 200 chart.

 

I started to follow the CJCB Top 30 in 1981. The following year it became the CJCB Top 40. I continued to follow the chart religiously until mid 1985 when my tastes changed and I started to get into metal.

 

I did during the rock era. After around 1980 I didn't pay them much mind, they didn't seem to mean a lot after that, after all the stations started choosing up sides and becoming compartmentalized.

Back in the 60s and 70s a local radio station kept something called "hit line surveys" which were printed up every couple of weeks and were free , they were in any store that sold 45s , normally in a rack right beside the 45s free for the taking.
I kept a lot of them and have a couple of the boxes that ties come in full of them.

 

No!

 

Not for the last 20+ years.

 

Guess it depends how old you are. There was a time when the Top 100 actually represented the best of pop music. Sure, there were turkeys like "Ballad Of The Green Berets," but for the most part, it was the cream of the crop. So it served as a buyer's guide for a number of years. Concept albums and freeform FM stations changed all that, and the album charts became more important. Lost interest in the mid-70s as the number of new artists I liked diminished.