Wikipedia talk:Record charts/Archive 18

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Official charts for Indonesia and Thailand

I wanted to ask which charts are the official charts for Indonesia and Thailand? Are Indonesia Songs and Thailand Songs considered official charts? Thank you! Poirot09 (talk) 14:38, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes! Charts published by Billboard are reliable as long as its the official Billboard website. Just be mindful that Billboard is notorious for putting charts behind paywalls or discontinuing them so do make sure you archive any links. ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 15:53, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

On a related note, should we exclude these Hits of the World charts for countries known to have official charts already, even if the methodology for compiling them differs? Billboard has charts for countries like Malaysia and Singapore that incorporate sales and streaming, but their respective music organizations only take streaming into account. ThedancingMOONpolice (talk) 06:17, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

@ThedancingMOONpolice:, good question. I definitely think we should stick with the original charts (the ones published by the official associations of each respective country), as they have been around longer and have set a standard. Sure, the Billboard charts we're talking about here might differ, but it most surely is more similar than it is different from the official charts , so I don't see a reason for its inclusion when there already exists established charts for those certain countries. It kinda hinges on WP:INDISCRIMINATE too. AshMusique (talk) 07:50, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

It seems indiscriminate to include those for Indonesia and Philippines and not Austria or New Zealand for global hits like "ABCDEFU". All of these new charts are part of Billboard's new Hits of the World charts, and there are like over 40 of these. Some of these chart tables are already too long. Who gets decide which charts can be used and which ones get excluded? Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars^{Talk to me} 17:08, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

I think if there isn't an established "Official" chart for the country then using Billboard is fine but otherwise there's no reason to include both Billboard and ARIA Charts for say Australia. Just including ARIA is fine. I agree with Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars, otherwise it begins to get indiscriminate and starts to sound like "I didn't like that chart position so I'll include this one instead". I already dislike Rollingstone charts because no one cares about them - they have received no coverage or significant notoriety but that's a different issue. 17:52, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Sólo éxitos: año a año by Fernando Salaverri

I see this book used to cite chart stats from Spain in many articles, but I've found some entries that don't match spanishcharts.com. For example, "Eye in the Sky" went to number one there according to the book, but the web site[1] shows no chart activity there for the song. Has anybody else found these sorts of discrepancies? Danaphile (talk) 00:38, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

@Danaphile: Charts on spanishcharts.com only go back to 13 March 1999. To my knowledge, the website and book use the same methodology and publish the same charts, using PROMUSICAE as their source. ResPM (T🔈🎵C) 01:04, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

@ResolutionsPerMinute: do you have a copy of the Salaverri book? I've long wondered about the reliability of this book, because I just don't know whether AFE/AFYVE produced official music charts before they became PROMUSICAE in 2004, so I don't know if the book contains official charts or if Salaverri used some other methodology to obtain his chart positions for the 1970s/1980s/1990s. I have similar concerns about the Finnish chart books Sisältää hitin - levyt ja esittäjät Suomen musiikkilistoilla vuodesta 1972 by Timo Pennanen and Suomi soi 4: Suuri suomalainen listakirja by Jake Nyman, used on some articles for Finnish chart positions before 1995... I don't know how official these are. Richard3120 (talk) 22:59, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

@Richard3120: I don't have any of these books, so I had to search around the web for a while until I found sources that duplicated the information, but I used Music & Media to double-check most top-10 chart positions, and they matched up. According to this issue of M&M (page 14), Spain's source is ALEF MB/AFYVE while Finland's is YLE 2 Radiornafia/IFPI, and those charts are the same as the ones published at their respective websites. Three concordant sources each were good enough for me, even if one from each set may or may not have been questionable. ResPM (T🔈🎵C) 23:29, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

@ResolutionsPerMinute: thank you! I really just wanted confirmation that these were actual official charts in these books, because people use them and nobody has ever seemed to question if they were valid. You've also answered another question I had, which was if Music & Media printed the official charts of each country at the time, because their top ten lists give no sources for their information. So thank you for your detective work. 02:05, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Chart titles in references

Is it wrong to put whatever title/heading is stated on the webpage containing a chart issue in the 'title' parameter of a reference when manually referencing? I'm asking because I recently inserted '40' in the title of a NZ singles chart ref, since "Hot 40 Singles" is displayed at the top of the chart on the website, but it was later removed, so I'm trying to understand why for my own clarity. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 23:08, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

@Carlobunnie: If this is in reference to my edits to Jungkook, it really is not that big of a deal. I removed the "40" because I've made it consistent across all articles I come across. I'm aware the actual text on the web page says "Hot 40 Singles", but then you also have the browser title saying "Hot Singles Chart", and the website tab says "Hot Singles". There's really no uniformity on its name, and then there's the New Zealand artists only version of the Hot Singles Chart called the Hot (20) NZ Singles as well. My point is there's enough confusion over it being the main chart of New Zealand (which is the NZ Top 40) already without needing to also bring its 40 places into the title as well so I've tried to give it the one name to minimise the variations. Some editors see "Hot" in a chart name and assume it's like the Billboard Hot 100 of that country but with 40 places instead. So it's hard enough as it is.

To be fair, there were already enough issues on that article without needing to worry about citation titles—either you or other editors had implied by labelling a column "UK" that that peak was for the main chart of the UK whereas before "Stay Alive" charted, the only chart Jungkook had appeared on was the UK Singles Downloads Chart. Same with mistaking the NZ Hot chart for the main chart of New Zealand or implying it was the main chart by just writing "NZ"; not specifying which Japanese chart (Oricon or the Hot 100) and so on. Ss112 03:49, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

On mobile, I don't see the browser titles, just the title written on the page/article itself. I was under the impression ref titles are supposed to be whatever's on the page as opposed to a tab or on the browser, so you can understand my confusion. About the other stuff on the JK discog table, I think the only stuff I added there was for Stay Alive. Everything else, if I edited any of it in the past, would've been to fill in missing parameters in refs, or correct a chart issue link or something. From our interactions on the TXT page, you'd already know I generally don't dabble much w discogs so I can't cmmt on what was being used to represent main charts of other countries since I didn't add them, or the naming of the cols. W regards to the Jpn col, I did put 'Hot' at first, but rmvd it after because I thought differentiation was only necessary if multiple charts from the same country were being used. Since it was just the one I rmvd it. But I understand what you said abt the NZ chart and I'll remember for future. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 04:19, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Uk-charts.top-source.info page has been redesigned and has a new address

I clicked on the link in the year-end chart citation for "Dancing Queen" to see what the website was and came back here to see if it was a legitimate source. It's on the websites to avoid list, and I thought I should notify the editors of this page that the link I clicked on redirected me to the new address for the site: uk-charts.co.uk. I didn't know if you would leave the old address on the avoid list or just replace it, so I thought I would let someone else take care of it. Danaphile (talk) 23:23, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

I was able to click through to it without issue. Firefox. Windows. Windows Defender virus protection and firewall. Shaw Cable as my ISP. What's throwing the warning up? Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:49, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Interesting. It comes up indicating that it has been redesigned and redirects after a few seconds to https://www.uk-charts.co.uk/index.php/charts/1970-s/197-1976 . 23:49, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

@Danaphile: thanks for flagging this up. Uk-charts.co.uk definitely is not a reliable source - the link that Walter has posted above states that these are the "most popular" songs of 1976, without any indication of how this "popularity" is measured. You can see the official list of best-selling singles of 1976 in the UK at 1976 in British music#Best-selling singles - I'm going to change the source on "Dancing Queen"'s article to reflect this. Richard3120 (talk) 02:19, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Note that uk-charts is listed at WP:BADCHARTS, I added the new URL. --Muhandes (talk) 09:50, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Billboard Year End chart

Several song pages source a song's Billboard year-end ranking from MusicOutfitters, such as this list for 1966. I've noticed discrepancies when comparing it against the December 24, 1966 issue of Billboard though (p. 34), where basically every song is listed in a different spot. According to the MusicOutfitters list, the top five songs of 1966 were "The Ballad of the Green Berets", "Cherish", "(You're My) Soul and Inspiration", "Reach Out I'll Be There" and "96 Tears". In the Billboard issue, those songs are ranked 10, 7, 12, 5 and 2, respectively. All of those pages use the MusicOutfitters ranking though.

Some of those pages, including Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1966, state that Billboard revised their chart tabulations in the 1970s, thereby updating the rankings of many songs. It's even brought up on the talk page, though there isn't a source that states this explicitly, only mentions on talk pages and in forum posts. Does anyone have a reliable source that explains what happened? Tkbrett (✉) 16:15, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't appear that reliable sources have been identified to confirm a change. Without any, we should stick to what Billboard has published. WP:BILLBOARDCHARTS includes "As with all record charts, you should first try to source each chart directly from the Billboard.com website", although the actual Billboard issue should be as good. The reliability of republishers or archive site like musicoutfitters.com, musicvf.com, etc. is questionable and should not be used when there are better alternatives. —Ojorojo (talk) 16:17, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

My guess is that Joel Whitburn's US chart books may include the updated Top 100 lists in them, if they exist. Until then, I agree with everything Ojorojo says above. Richard3120 (talk) 01:27, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Tkbrett, Ojorojo, Richard3120: I can't help wondering whether the update that Piriczki refers to (in his response at the talk page linked above) is actually just Joel Whitburn deciding to apply Billboard's revised methodology to this and any other YE lists that preceded the magazine's later approach.

In his Pop Annual, though, it seems he's taken a third approach. Years ago, I remember seeing quite a few YE entries for "Joel Whitburn's Pop Annual" in Charts sections of articles for early 1970s songs. From a Google Books or Amazon preview of Pop Annual (wherever it was, I'm no longer able to access the pages), it was clear that the book was less about best-selling singles and more about a song's "charting-ness" – the year-end lists were structured so that every number 1 song appeared in the top positions, then every song that peaked at number 2, and so on. In other words, in terms of reporting the genuine best-selling singles in order of sales for the year, it was even more misleading than the points system (whether we're talking about the original approach for 1966 or the [strangely?] weighted, revised approach that Piriczki said Billboard subsequently used).

Perhaps there are still a few of these Pop Annual year-end rankings in our song articles, not sure. Best I've been able to do recently in terms of following up on the idea that Pop Annual provides year-end lists based on peak positions is finding a snippet preview in one of these. Came across a section headed "23" followed by details of 1971 singles by Van Morrison, George Harrison, the Raiders and others, all of which peaked at number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 that year ... I agree with you, 'Rojo: we should stick to what Billboard originally published until reliable sources demonstrate that the magazine produced a revised year-end list. JG66 (talk) 13:04, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

@JG66: yes, I agree, we have to stick to the original Billboard chart unless we find an official update somewhere. It's exasperating when official charts get revised several years, even decades, later... the OCC did this last year with the UK year-end singles charts from the 1980s, and there is a LOT of scepticism out there on the web (myself included) about their revised charts from 1981 and 1983, which seem to be at complete odds with other official information from the OCC. But I guess we have no choice but to accept what the OCC says. Richard3120 (talk) 16:15, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Richard: That's weird about the OCC revising '80s year-end charts. Do you mean they're updating them to reflect sales over subsequent decades? Or are they actually changing the order of the songs, rewriting history relative to what was published previously and saying, "In fact, this is the correct order – the original version was wrong"?

I've got a feeling one or the other has taken place in OCC's list "The biggest song of every year revealed", at least for the '60s, which then rolls on to what Wikipedia presents as each "best-selling single of the year" at List of UK Singles Chart number ones of the 1960s. I'm planning to raise this last point in a separate discussion here anyway, but to me, it's indicative of how confused and confusing these year-end charts can be: they appear to be measuring what I've called "charting-ness" (via points awarded for each weekly placing), rather than genuine sales. Whereas, when reading a WP song article and seeing, say, a Billboard or Record Retailer year-end position in a table beside the weekly chart peaks, I'd expect them to be purely sales-based. JG66 (talk) 23:20, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

@JG66: the latter: for 1981, "Don't You Want Me" has now displaced "Tainted Love" as the year's best-seller, with apparently over one million sales before the end of the year... this means it would have had to have averaged around 330,000-340,000 sales per week at no. 1, which seems very unlikely. And 1983 stays in the same order, but the sales of all the singles have been cut by around one-third. "Karma Chameleon" was announced and certified as a million-seller in October 1983, but now the OCC say it only sold 883,000 copies by the end of December. This means that almost half its 1.53 million sales must have come after 1983, which also seems very unlikely. The OCC now say that only three singles passed 500,000 sales in 1983 (the qualifying level for a gold certification at the time), yet 18 singles were certified gold back in 1983. It's very puzzling. Richard3120 (talk) 00:11, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, those situations are bizarre – extraordinary in the case of 1983. The way I read it, those examples appear to call into question the competence (and, I guess, the honesty) of the BPI and the data compilers (British Market Research Bureau, and then Gallup) ... which I imagine is a safe position for the OCC, politically, because it didn't exist back then! JG66 (talk) 01:31, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Billboard's new Hits of the World charts

Per the discussion that I started here, I was instructed to move it to this talk page. Since no one else had brought it up, I was wondering if Billboard's new Hits of the World charts are considered notable for inclusion or not. Muhandes pointed out that these new charts may cause confusion with already existing charts (eg: Germany Songs) even though they have different codes and different URLs. Richard3120 also pointed out that these charts shouldn't be confused with the page in Billboard that displayed charts from other countries between the 1970s and the 1990s. Sebbirrrr (talk) 15:49, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

A discussion had started a few threads above but thanks for trying to revive it. Articles for Philippines Songs and Croatia Songs have already been created but they should be merged into the Hits of the World article. They'll just end being long lists of trivia anyway. Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars^{Talk to me} 23:38, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

The Croatia Songs article should stay as it's proven to be relevant locally because of the coverage it has received in the past three weeks. It opened a discussion about non-Croatian Balkan artists not being played on the radio and has generally received a lot of coverage from music publications that just cover chart positions and the current chart issue(s). Greeneyed soul (talk) 10:06, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

The charts appear to have legit methodology and any artist with a Billboard page has a chart history tab for these charts similar to any other Billboard chart. I don't think there is much of a chance of confusion with the old Hits of the World as that is simply a heading of a magazine page and does not appear to be notable. As for the conflicts such as Luxembourg and Germany, first of all not that many songs charted on both and secondly, I think for those that did one can simply denote which is the HOTW chart. Either in the notes section (similar to Bad Habits' US rock peak) or perhaps "(Billboard - Hits of the World)". And then add a note next to such charts on the HOTW page that they replaced charts of the same name. CAMERAwMUSTACHE (talk) 01:48, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Unless it’s a massive coincidence, the old Germany Songs chart appears to be the same exact chart as the Official German Charts one, just either with less slots or over a smaller time period. It’s paywalled so I can’t say with 100% certainty but all the songs I’ve looked at (Industry Baby, Bad Habits, Heat Waves, for example) have the same peak on both charts. If this is the case, I don’t think there will be much confusion. Also, the Luxembourg chart is Luxembourg Digital Song Sales so that should distinguish it from the HOTW one which is Luxembourg Songs. CAMERAwMUSTACHE (talk) 03:03, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Bulgarian charts at acharts.co in both Recommended and Deprecated lists

For the Bulgarian charts, Wikipedia:Record charts#Recommended charts states that "The acharts.co source is valid" but in Wikipedia:Record charts#Deprecated charts it says that "Bulgarian National Top 40: This chart's article was deleted by deletion discussion as a non-notable chart with dubious methodology. Note: the chart at αCharts.us is a mirror of the Bulgarian National Top 40". So there seems to be some contradictory info in the Recommended charts and the Deprecated charts. I am aware of the official top 10 at https://www.prophon.org/ which does not match the other chart. QuintusPetillius (talk) 19:22, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

This would appear to be the result of a long-undetected bit of vandalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Record_charts/Sourcing_guide&diff=906391700&oldid=895003225 —Kww(talk) 16:24, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Pre-2016 Slovakia charts gone?

While I was editing First Time (Robin Beck song), I noticed that my bookmark for Slovakia's chart source of http://hitparadask.ifpicr.cz/index.php gave me a 404. I then went to Crystal Ball (Keane song) to double-check if the site's url had been updated, but it appears as if the old Slovakia charts now redirects to the site we use for the Czech Republic. At the top of the page, if you click on "Žebříčky a statistiky", then "SR týdenní", it leads directly to the site the Czech template provides. This is a problem, because as far as I know, the Slovak charts on the Czech site go back to week 43 of 2016. This means, if the original Slovakia source has been taken down, we have lost 10 years of Slovak charts. Does anyone else also experience this problem? ResPM (T🔈🎵C) 22:36, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

I am facing this problem as well. Can't locate the chart entries for the song "No", some FAs like "Blank Space" and "Shake It Off" for example also have this dead link now. What's the solution?--NØ 07:58, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

@MaranoFan: Right now, the only thing I can think of is to find an archive of a song's entry on Slovakia's previous source—something resembling this. I believe the urls are formatted similarly, but finding these pages is a whole nother problem since the IDs are so long. Here's an archive I managed to scrounge up that has Meghan Trainor's "Me Too" on it: [2]. Unfortunately, neither the song's nor Meghan Trainor's artist page were archived, so maybe you could try doing some trial and error on the Wayback Machine to locate peak positions. ResPM (T🔈🎵C) 11:26, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

I doubt will be very helpful, but I found an archive for Avril Lavigne's artist page plus "What the Hell". As I suspected, the urls are similar, but as I implied before, that's anything but ideal. ResPM (T🔈🎵C) 11:31, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Aaron Carter/ Billboard Spotify chart

Hey! User @Pillowdelight: recently deleted from the single article Fool's Gold (Aaron Carter song) an information about its position on the Billboard Spotify chart. Initially, he deleted them from the table, which I thought was righ, but then I put the information in the body of the article and he undid the edit because he said it was a WP:BADCHARTS. There are two types of Spotify charts, one that was audited by Billboard that can be found on its website and one that was made by Spotify itself. Wouldn't it be possible, since it's a Billboard chart, to mention in the body of the article something like: "despite not having appeared on general Billboard charts, the single managed to appear in the positions of #6 on Billboard Spotify Viral 50 and #15 on Billboard Spotify Velocity"? Thank you very much in advance--Markus WikiEditor (talk) 00:54, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Which I told them falls under WP:SINGLEVENDOR Pillowdelight (talk) 00:57, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Billboard Song charts

Hello!

I've been wondering for a while why the article state, "If a song has charted on neither Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs nor R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, you may add any of the following "since the latter is the airplay counterpart of the former. The same is applied to Hot Rock & Alternative Songs. For example, I would understand if "X" track doesn't make it into "Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs" you can add "R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay", but why add both at the same time? The former has a broader range including sales, streaming, and airplay, while the latter is only airplay of its genre. Isn't this situation similar to Hot 100 and Radio Songs? I won't include here the Hot Latin Songs as there are other nuances to them.

Cheers, MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 14:26, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

One of the charts includes songs of a specific genre whereas the other includes songs that are played on that Genre radio station. So for example "Old Country Road" charted on the Hot Country Songs chart but not Country Airplay songs because one tracks all plays of country music across all formats whereas the other tracks plays of songs across country radio. ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 15:58, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm talking about songs that enter both charts. "X" is a country song that enters both the Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay, why should it have both charts on its page, when one of them is actually a component of the other? Isn't a song performance better represented by a chart that combines all the parameters? Of course if it doesn't enter one of the charts you add it. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 18:42, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

@MarioSoulTruthFan You know, in regards to the "Hot Latin Songs" chart think, I was thinking about what Starcheer said in that discussion two years ago and I think we should be allowed those Latin genre anywhere, with little to no exceptions. To paraphrase what they said, if exceptions had to be made, it would be on articles like Despacito. For example, I was looking at Rie y Llora by Celia Cruz, and it's a salsa song so it topping the Tropical Airplay chart makes sense naturally. But since it also ranked on the Dance Club songs, suddenly I can't use it anymore even though it's a salsa song? I plan to work on that article sometime in the future. I wanted to bring this up for a while now, but I was worried I would come off as "overreaching" so to speak. Here's the link to the discussion for anyone not familiar with it. Erick (talk) 18:36, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

I remember that discussion. I mean no disrespect here, but what does that have to do with I have stated above? Maybe open a new discussion about it so we can have a vote. However, I can see where you are coming from and might support that. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 18:51, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I misinterpreted what your intention and saw your reply with Lil-unique on what you actually meant. Erick (talk) 18:55, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

No problems. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 19:47, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

MarioSoulTruthFan I'm not sure that they are component charts - they are tallied differently, the methodology is different. A song could top the the Hot Country Songs Chart without appearing on Country Airplay. If they were true component charts that couldn't happen. They measure alternative things. A component chart is a subset of the tally. The Country airplay chart will measure all songs played on country radio, whereas the Hot Country songs measures country songs played across all stations. @Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars: have I got this right? You are better at explaining this than me. ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 19:11, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

That makes the difference, because if this works like Radio Songs and Hot 100 its a component chart. Otherwise, its not and I was led to believe otherwise. However, hasn't Billboard published something to clarify this? MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 19:46, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

So according to Billboard here, it varies by chart. Using Country as an example Hot Country Songs is (country radio, country streaming and country sales). Whereas Country Airplay is metric of audience impressions. Rather than the individual number of times a song is played its weighted metric of the average audience at the time a song is played. Therefore if a song is played at 4am it gets less points then when played at a more popular time e.g. 12pm. Does that help? ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 20:05, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

That doesn't but there is something in the article that does, great finding by the way. "While many Billboard charts are either purely streaming-, radio- or sales-based, we mingle that data on a selection of charts: Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, Hot R&B Songs, Hot Rap Songs, Hot Country Songs". So if they mix that date on the specific genre charts, than means they are component charts? Is Country Airplay a component of Hot Country Songs or not? MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 22:22, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

So if I've understood correctly the "Hot Chart" is a mixture of streaming, airplay and sales. Whereas the non-Hot variant is audience impressions. Audience impressions are a weighted measure - more popular listening time earns a song more points. This previous discussion probably explains it better. ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 22:54, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

After reading that discussion I can see where the confusion stems from. Let's say this song, let's call it "Y" is an hip-hop song (no doubt about it). It entered both the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay. Do I add both charts to the article? Isn't R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay a component of Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs? That's what I want to know, because I don't know what was the consensus of that discussion. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 21:15, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

I think the conclusion was you can't use the Hot Radio or Hot Airplay chart, but you can use the regular airplay chart. Pinging @Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars who might be able to help further. But whatever is written at WP:USCHARTS should be right. Failing that, try to contact Billboard who might be able to clarify further. ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 21:20, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation Lil-Unique1 you answered my question(s) and I have a full grasp of it MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 00:04, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Billboard Top Album Sales

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Any objections for listing Billboard Top Album Sales? A request was made to add it to {{Album chart}}. --Muhandes (talk) 18:32, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

I guess not but editors need to remember its pure sales only so is a component of Billboard 200. >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 14:24, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

@Lil-unique1: My bad, I just realized I copy-pasted incorrectly. The request was for using Top Current Albums. I am going to redo the question. --Muhandes (talk) 19:31, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Listener New Zealand charts

Should New Zealand Listener record charts from 1966 to 1975 be considered suitable for inclusion in WP articles? The relevant guideline and Listener info is highlighted in green:

WP:CHARTS#Suitable charts includes:

A chart is normally considered suitable for inclusion if it meets all of the following characteristics:

1. It is published by a recognized reliable source. This includes any IFPI affiliate, Billboard magazine, or any organization with the support of Nielsen SoundScan. Recognized national measurement firms, such as Crowley Broadcast Analysis for Brazil or Monitor Latino for Latin America, are legitimate sources of charts.
2. It covers sales or broadcast outlets from multiple sources.
3. It is static, that is, the data in the chart cannot change. This excludes dynamic "all-time" charts, such as the ones published by Hung Medien.

The Listener info page includes:[3]

Between 1961 and 1975, there were (to my knowledge) no sales-based music charts in New Zealand. In an attempt to depict what pop music was in vogue in NZ in the period 1966 to 1975, I have used the weekly music charts published in the NZ Listener.
These weekly charts were compiled from voting coupons sent in by readers of the NZ Listener. Only Listener readers would vote. The charts underwent a few name changes during this decade, but were always published weekly in the Listener.

Please indicate Include, Don't include, or Comment along with your comments. —Ojorojo (talk) 17:57, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

• Comment, leaning Include: I have a photocopy of the introduction to Dean Scapolo's book New Zealand Music Charts: 1966 to 1996, and I will quote the opening paragraphs, as they give some more information about how the Listener charts were compiled, and this may inform editors in their opinion:

The New Zealand Music Charts have been in existence since 25 March 1966 when the first New Zealand national top twenty came into being as printed in the New Zealand Listener under the name of the "pop-o-meter". It was based on the results of a poll in which readers voted for their top five songs. Unfortunately polls are not a good indicator of what the best sellers of the week are, as generally ballads fare a lot better in sales than they do in polls ... There have been suggestions that the Listener charts were "rigged" and when it is discovered that major regional and national hits such as "Snoopy versus The Red Baron" by The Royal Guardsmen didn't even chart, that isn't hard to believe. The polls were eventually replaced in April 1970 by sales figures, which were reasonably accurate. These pop-o-meter charts finished on 16 May 1975, replaced by the national top forty as published by the Record Publications branch of the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ). These overlapped the former charts by three weeks as the RP charts started on 2 May 1975.

Scapolo doesn't seem too keen on the Listener charts, but on the other hand he quite clearly states in the acknowledgements that he has used these charts for the chart positions between 1966 and 1975 in his book. Given that the book (since updated to include charts up to 2006) is considered the "authority" on the New Zealand charts and has been available to purchase worldwide for 25 years (so I think this counts as a "recognized reliable source"), and that the Listener charts were sales-based for more than half their existence, I'm not sure how we can not use the Listener charts, but maybe reference Scapolo's book instead of the Flavour of NZ website. Richard3120 (talk) 18:28, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

• Include, though like Richard3120 the book is a better source than the website. ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 18:38, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
• Include -- Lever Hit Parade and Listener charts are used across hundreds if not thousands of WP song articles, and have been for at least 15 years. The fact that a different method than sales and/or radio airplay was used to survey listeners is irrelevant. The method should be viewed as effective and accurate, because the chart peaks often closely parallel those of other nations. The key word in the policy is "normally," which is there for this very reason, since NZ would otherwise have no chart data predating mid-1975. That is also why the charts from Toronto radio station CHUM are used for Canada from 1960 to 1963, prior to the RPM chart era. - JGabbard (talk) 20:11, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
• Don't include for earlier years There is no indication that this is representative of the New Zealand record buying or radio listening public for 1966–1970. Rather, it is a poll limited to readers of one magazine, who purchase or otherwise obtain an issue with the required "coupon" (entry form?), to be filled out listing their favorites and returned to the publisher. People who buy the records or request that they be played on the radio (who are the ones who actually establish a song's popularity), are not included unless they are among the participating readership.

Another concern is Scapolo's comments regarding suggestions of rigged polls "when it is discovered that major regional and national hits" didn't appear in the poll results (thanks to Richard for copying this). Of course, it could also reflect readership bias towards particular songs or artists featured in the magazine articles. Regardless, a representative poll should include major hits and if it lacks these, it should not be considered reliable. Perhaps the post April 1970 sales-based charts may acceptable if there is other confirmation that they are indeed "reasonably accurate".

—Ojorojo (talk) 01:42, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

@Ojorojo: I totally get where you're coming from – reader polls certainly aren't a good indication of an official chart. However, we now run into a problem with the Irish Singles Chart, where, according to that page, it appears that exactly the same method of newspaper reader voting was used to determine the chart for 15 months in the mid-1970s. So do we exclude Irish chart placings from that period? Even when the charts are sales-based, I am sceptical of how accurate they are, particularly for small-population countries like Ireland where single sales must have been very low, and the resulting sales-based charts would have been taken from an even smaller representative panel, so I don't know that they would have been much more accurate than a reader poll. As for chart rigging, this would have happened in plenty of countries, I'm sure... even in the UK, the second most established chart in the world, there is at least one documented and confirmed case of chart rigging during the 1970s.

As an aside, I've also asked about the Spanish and Finnish chart books which are sometimes used for chart positions for these countries before the 1990s – the books are published ones similar to Scapolo's, but I've been trying to find out the accuracy and validity of them. The Spanish charts appear to have been sales-based, but I still have no idea how the Finnish charts before 1995 were determined: whether they were done by sales or not. Richard3120 (talk) 01:13, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

You've brought up several good points that hopefully will generate more discussion. Charts, like everything else in the music business, has a shady side. To what extent they are rigged, under-representative, or just incompetent, will probably never be known (or at least reliably reported). I don't know about the other charts, but decisions should not be based on "other stuff exists"-type arguments.

In the case of Listener, Scapolo (an "authority") claims that "it is discovered that major regional and national hits such as [1966 example] didn't even chart", which he has somehow identified. Regardless of the cause, this casts doubt on the Listener's (not Scapolo's) reliability for the time. If Whitburn or any other expert includes questionable stats (by their own admission) in their otherwise reliable reference works, those numbers should not be used in articles. Additionally, the idea that charts should be based on sales and airplay from multiple sources has been key criteria in determining their suitability since at least 2011.[4] With trackable data from multiple sources, there should be less chance of error, bias or manipulation.

As a guideline, the criteria should not be dismissed as "irrelevant". Entries in chart tables, discographies, etc., should have a roughly equivalent basis, otherwise they wouldn't be comparable. Opinion polls, even if they are only used to fill in the gaps, are not record charts and shouldn't be presented as such.

—Ojorojo (talk) 17:20, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

• Include. I've gone both ways on this over the years, but I keep coming back to the idea that, for better or worse, the Listener poll was viewed as New Zealand's national chart for 1966–70. I used to have an old copy of Joseph Murrells' The Book of Golden Discs (1978) – I remember mention of a song being number one in NZ during that period was included in the author's entries for RIAA Gold-certified singles, along with any other country. Much more recently, I also see mentions of late '60s singles topping NZ in Steve Sullivan's four-volume Encyclopedia of Great Song Recordings. Scapolo's New Zealand Music Charts: 1966 to 1996 is a book I've considered buying, and ever since I first heard about it, I found it quite revealing that, as the title suggests, he does go back to 1966 and include the Listener chart. I think there's enough to consider that the chart is taken seriously, because music historians do.

With regard to the guideline at WP:CHARTS, well, it is a guideline, and as it says there, "occasional exceptions may apply". The first two characteristics would have us dismiss what an NZ chart authority like Scapolo and other historians deem worthy of inclusion. I have a problem with that, because I don't think it's up to Wikipedia to make that sort of call and, as I've long found with most things to do with charts here (especially the chart templates), there's no allowance for the historical aspect – it's as if one size (the present-day model) has to fit all. Richard's right to mention the Irish Singles Chart; I think there could well be other charts we use that might fall foul of items 1 and 2 at WP:CHARTS#Suitable charts. JG66 (talk) 17:00, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

• Include. A lot of seemingly reputable nation charts, even the Billboard Hot 100 (actually, especially that chart, just binge watch Spectrum Pulse's "Billboard Breakdown" series to know what I mean), have very flawed methodologies, yet we include them due to their notability of being considered *THE* ranking of what the most popular music is. That's the case with Listener. 👨x🐱 (Nina CortexxCoco Bandicoot) 15:32, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Consensus to remove conditions for the Latin subcharts

Two years ago, I made an inquiry on how the Latin subcharts should be dealt with. I made a compromise to only include the Latin subcharts if they don't rank on other genre charts (link to the the discussion). Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars suggested that to just include all the charts, with little to no exceptions as they are distinct genres. For example, I plan to work on Ríe y Llora in the future, but because of the guideline, I can't use the Tropical Airplay charts despite it being a salsa song just because it also ranked on the Dance chart as well. In hindsight, I think Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars was right, we shouldn't have guidelines that confuse editors. Erick (talk) 20:27, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

According to Latin_Airplay#Component_charts, the Latin Airplay chart has four components: Latin Pop Airplay, Tropical Airplay, Regional Mexican Airplay And Latin Rhythm Airplay. For consistency with how all the other charts are dealt with, if a song has charted on the Latin Airplay chart Tropical, Latin Pop, Regional Mexican and Latin Rhythm can't be listed. I don't know where the rule about if it has charted on another genre chart came from tbh. But the Latin Airplay chart is also a component of the Hot Latin Songs chart. So if a song did chart on the Hot Latin Songs chart you can't list Latin Airplay or any of the component subgenres (Latin Rhythm, Tropical, Regional or Latin Pop). The song "Ríe y Llora" has charted on the Hot Latin Songs chart so US Latin Pop Songs and US Tropical Songs should not be listed as these are genres of the Hot Latin Songs. Sure you could argue that Pop Songs is a component of the Radio Songs which is a component of Hot 100 but Pop Songs is the genre chart, similar to how Latin is the genre chart. ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 21:11, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

@Lil-unique1 as mentioned in the last discussion, the Latin Airplay is not a component chart of the Hot Latin Songs, just like the Country Airplay and Country Songs charts above. As also discussed last time, Billboard defines Latin music as any music song in Spanish regardless of its genre, so all Spanish speaking music genres are grouped under Latin music despite having completely different genres in sound. Songs that ranked on the Regional Mexican Airplay chart don't have anything in common with songs that chart on the Tropical Airplay except for the occasional cumbia song. There's also a reason why Billboard has its own Latin awards ceremony and to exclude the charts but not make sense to the reader if it won an award in a Latin genre category. Basically it should go without saying that not all music in Spanish sounds the same. That would be like comparing heavy metal and jazz. Erick (talk) 21:21, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm not so sure. The Hot Latin Songs charts ranks songs across airplay, streaming and downloads. The only chart which tracks Latin songs on radio is the Latin Airplay chart. The HOT charts follow the same format at the Hot 100. If Billboard classifies Latin as the genre and then Latin Pop, Latin Rhythm, Tropical and Regional Mexican as sub genres of Latin that's not for us to change - that's how the chart is computed. Its not for us to determine how the genre is defined for the purposes of the chart. The chart table should contain the main chart Hot Latin songs. If it hasn't charted on that then any of the airplay charts and the latin airplay chart is fine. Its quite a thorny issue if we make one rule for Latin - we could arguably have the same conversation about R&B and Hip-Hop. ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 21:29, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

The Hot Latin Songs ranks Spanish language songs from all radio stations in the US while the Latin Airplay just ranks the most played songs on Spanish language radio stations regardless of its genre or language. This was something Starcheer mentioned on that discussion 2 years ago. Also, billboard themselves calls it in all-genre chart, not a regular genre chart (Source), because again Billboard only factors the language not the genre. A Spanish language country song is just as eligible to rank on the Hot Latin Songs chart as a reggaeton song. Why should an editor who works on banda music only not be allowed to use the regional Mexican AirPlay chart? Just because it happens to be sung in Spanish? The Hispanic population in the US is not homogeneous. Another issue is that in the 2000s, Latin record labels would have their artist record multiple versions of the same song to service it to genre specific radio stations. (Source) as for making exception for Latin music, billboard already did that when they made their own Latin awards. A song that has charted the tropical airplay charts for weeks is likely going to be nominated for tropical song of the year by Billboard, yet if we follow the previous guideline how is the reader going to understand why it was nominated in that field the chart isn't even mentioned in the article? Billboard themselves have recognized that Latin music has diverse genres so it's not like we're actually making an exception, Billboard is doing that themselves. EDIT: To add on to my point, Billboard calls them genre charts when they were launched, not subgenres. Erick (talk) 21:54, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Still doesn't change the methodology from Billboard. I'm not disagreeing with you about Latin being much broader than just songs in Spanish, however I think it does create an impasse because the the Latin Airplay and its components would then be treated differently from R&B, Rap and the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. There's two things to separate out- how the chart is compiled versus the genres we want to split out. At present there's nothing to stop you mentioning "Rie y Llora"'s positions on US Latin Pop Songs and US Tropical Songs in prose but the chart table should contain just the Latin Songs chart. This is the umbrella chart. Billboard have chosen to group the charts this way. Would you be so passionate about it if the song in question did not reach number one on the Tropical Songs chart? That slightly flippant question aside, perhaps start an RFC? So far this conversation has only attracted the two of us and we're on opposing sides of the argument so we'll not solve this alone. Secondly, you might want to contact Billboard and ask them explicitly about their HOT charts and component charts. If they confirm that the four sub-genres that they place below Latin Songs feed into the Latin Airplay chart then they cannot be included in the table along with it. If the Latin Airplay chart is not a component of the Hot Latin Songs chart then both Latin Airplay and Hot Latin Songs can be included in the table. If the four genres are not a direct component of the Latin Airplay chart then all of them can be included. But at present we need more information. ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 19:32, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Ok, but that's like saying we shouldn't be allow to use Billboard's genre charts if they rank on the Hot 100, unless they don't rank on said chart. As you mentioned, Pop Songs is a subchart of the Radio 100, which itself is a subchart of the Hot 100, but the Pop Songs is a genre chart while the Radio 100 is. Same thing with the Latin Songs and Latin Airplay, Billboard doesn't consider either to be a genre chart, so it doesn't make sense to follow the same guidelines as the other charts in this case. For reference, Billboard also calls the "Hot 100" chart an "all-genre chart" just like they do with both charts. Pinging @Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars: as they were involved in the last discussion. Erick (talk) 19:54, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

But the difference is Hot 100 > Radio Songs > Pop Songs. Whereas with Latin airplay we're saying: Hot 100 > Radio Songs > Latin Airplay > Regional Mexican / Tropical / Latin Pop / Latin Rhythm. It's an extra layer down. We're trying to establish if the four "sub" Latin genres are a direct component of Latin Airplay or not. Like I said, an RfC is probably the way forward as it needs a consensus and contacting Billboard is probably wise to get something more specific context/information from them. By the way, I almost forget to mention nice piece of original research here. ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 20:13, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Ok, I concede that link was bad, that's on me for misremembering what it said. However, this link and this link, explicitly calls them "genre charts", not "subgenre charts". Anyways, yes they are a direct component of the Latin Airplay charts. That was established on the last discussion, but the consensus was that the previous guideline was not helpful for the Latin charts because the genres are too different from each other (with exceptions noted). @MarioSoulTruthFan: @Richard3120: as they were also involved in that discussion two years ago. Erick (talk) 20:44, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

I remember this discussion, thanks for the ping. The only way to get to the bare bottom of this discussion is to reach out to Billboard or they publish something explaining this. Of course not every Spanish song sounds the same or every genre is Latin however, if they merge everything into Latin Airplay then it seems to me those are component charts. It's not up to us to decide that, Billboard made the rules, and if they feel like this was the right and correct choice at a given time, then this is it. Of course, they might change it in the future. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 22:37, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

@MarioSoulTruthFan correct they are a direct component charts of the Latin Airplay, I'm not disputing that. My complaint, as in the last discussion, was how it doesn't make sense that we can't use these genre charts just because they happen to be a component of a chart that doesn't even factor in a music genre to begin with. I argue that by not allowing the subcharts it creates a systematic bias because Latin Pop and Latin rhythm songs would receive the most coverage on Wikipedia since they are the songs that generally do really well on the Hot Latin Songs and Latin Airplay charts today. I don't think it's fair that these genres can't be used because of an "extra layer" that Billboard arbitrarily put for the Hispanophone market in the US. Billboard made a separate award for Latin music after all, so it's not us but them making exception for Latin music since they hand out awards for these genre charts. To put it simply, I argue that removing these subjects would be detrimental, not helpful when working on Latin music articles. All the reader would see is how well they did on a Spanish language chart and that's it. EDIT: pinging @Brankestein: and @FanDePopLatino: as they were also involved in the last discussion. Erick (talk) 23:28, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Your first sentence says it all, its component nothing else needs to be said. Otherwise we would have to change the Rock, Hip-Hop/R&B charts. It factors all of them, calling them Latin (doesn't matter if its salsa, Mexican, it all goes into the same melting pot here). They are different genres, but Billboard aggregates them all in a single category. It's not bias, because if a song doesn't enter the Hot Latin Songs or Latin Airplay charts, they will get on those component charts. Its not about being fair or unfair, Billboard made the rules. Awards are different from charts, let's not get things mixed together. After all, even the Grammys have problems with genres. Because that's how Billboard stipulated it, and if the song did well on that chart might have done well on others. The reader can always search other charts if they are curious. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 00:34, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

@MarioSoulTruthFan Yes Billboard makes the rules on how they do their charts, but we make the guidelines on which charts we can use from them. The Grammys are not a good example because the nominations are purely based on quality not a song's performance. The Billboard Latin music awards are based on how each song did on a specific chart, that's how they're nominated. Here's where the problem lies. Tu amor me hace bien by Marc Anthony, only hit 41 at the hot latin songs chart, but topped the tropical airplay chart, and because of that was nominated for tropical AirPlay of the year. Yet because we decide we can't use some component chart it's disallowed? Again, how are readers supposed to know that song why was even nominated in that field if we can't even mentioned said chart? Billboard Latin music awards (Source). Yes it's a component chart, that doesn't always mean it shouldn't be used. Sometimes exceptions do have to be made because you can't just fit one size off and Wikipedia, that's what WP:IAR is for. It's not like the other genre charts were at least they have music tht represents them based on sound, not language. Besides, if these subcharts are removed, it would hinder not only myself, but other editors who have worked extensively on Latin music articles as well. Erick (talk) 01:27, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Which we usually take after them. Well, we know that's not true for the Grammys. Take the regular BB Awards for example they award "Top Billboard Global 200 (Excl. U.S.) Song", which we only used if a song didn't entered the Top Billboard Global 200 Song. You should always mention the award. You can mention the chart, just don't add it to the table. I know they sound different, the last bit sounds a bit more personal than it should and not impartial at all. Lil-Unique1 is right, maybe you should take this to an RfC. Its the best way to reach some sort of agreement and make big changes. Cheers, MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 17:34, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Hinder in what way? The charts can still be mentioned in wider chart performance, but not in the charts table. Billboard is the industry leader for charts - if this is how they compute Spanish language songs / Latin all under that "Latin" umbrella then its not for us to decide to treat it differently. Perhaps start a WP:RFC as this doesn't appear to be solving anything. ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 18:01, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

@Lil-unique1@MarioSoulTruthFan Eh, if they can be mentioned the prose, then that's fine. Honestly, I'm just going to stick with the consensus of the last discussion, which was don't use those charts if they already rank on other Billboard genre charts. That was the compromise that I came with 2 years ago, was agreed on, and I'll just let it go. I do apologize to the both of you honestly if I came off overreactive. Erick (talk) 18:28, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Component charts have always been fine to mention in prose. We discourage them only where its superfluous e.g. position 49 for 1 week but the song ranked significantly higher on the main chart. No need to apologise- I recognise your position is coming from a place of passion rather than being deliberately disruptive. ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 20:46, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Billboard redirecting artist chart history pages

Just a heads up about another chapter in Billboard screwing up its own archives: Billboard is redirecting artist pages to their generic "Music" landing page. Artist chart histories that worked just seven days ago are being redirected there, and it looks like there may be more to come. Don't know how extensive it is at the moment. Ss112 18:55, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

I've noticed that too. While I was creating the article Hey Dude (song), Kula Shaker's page was still active, but not even 10 hours later, it vanished without a trace. That was extremely inconvenient. ResPM (T🔈🎵C) 19:50, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Jesus christ, WTF is wrong with them?!!!!!!!!! Are they trying to gaslight us?!!! 👨x🐱 (Nina CortexxCoco Bandicoot) 03:26, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I also saw that. The Wayback Machine works fine with the artists I write about since none of them are making new music, but I'm not sure what the workaround should be for acts that are charting now. Tkbrett (✉) 03:31, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

We need to protest at their headquarters for all the bull they are pulling on us. The manipulation of their charts, blocking chart info so that they can every little penny out of us. 👨x🐱 (Nina CortexxCoco Bandicoot) 03:41, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

What Billboard is doing is f---ing Orwellian!!!!! This is the stuff authoritarian governments do!!!!!!!! 👨x🐱 (Nina CortexxCoco Bandicoot) 04:56, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

A wait and see for their new archive/site. Billboard have done this numerous times over the last decade. Their last incarnation was to publicly list discographies on Billboard.biz which has subsequently disappeared. It may lead to changes to the templates again *sighs* ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 09:18, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Confusion over Italian Singles Chart(s)

I am confused over this one. FIMI and Hund Medien are listed but musicaedischi has also started appearing in some articles. If we look at Live It Up (Jennifer Lopez song), the positions for FIMI and musicaedischi are different.

There's no mention of IFPI or FIMI at musicaedischi. Can anyone clarify? My thought would be that we would use the FIMI source first and foremost as this is direct from the certifying body in Italy?

Pining HumanxAnthro as you've been adding the Musica e dischi chart. ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 22:07, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Happy to explain. Musica e Dischi and FIMI are both all-genre charts that measure all mediums and are all-genre, but have different methodolgies doing so and are different charts, just as reputable and notable as each other. This and this should give you some context about the differences between the charts, but fair warning. Google Translate on standby.

Although most nations only have one chart that represents their country, it's because it's the only chart that exists, not that it's *the* official chart, and this doesn't mean all countries have only one national chart. Obviously we don't want to get so excessive with chart information that random user-generated and daily charts from retailers like iTunes get included, but the claim that there is such a thing as a "first and foremost" chart indicates a bit of naivety towards national countries. The Netherlands has the Single Top 100 and Dutch Top 40 and 3FM chart, the US has Cash Box, the Billboard Hot 100 and Rolling Stone charts at the same time, the UK has multiple OCC, Music Week, Record Mirror and Record Business magazine charts, Sweden has Sverigetopplistan and a DigiListan chart separate from that institution, and Romania has so many charts there's an entire Wikipedia page covering all of them. To give you some background, Musica e Dischi is pretty much the Billboard Hot 100 of Italy, whereas FIMI would either be its Cash Box Top 100 or Rolling Stone Top 100. The chart has been around since the decade of the Hot 100, and has been operating with a methodology different from FIMI even with the existence of FIMI's album and singles charts that started in the mid-1990s. 👨x🐱 (Nina CortexxCoco Bandicoot) 22:42, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Also, to address the claim about it being published by reliable sources, it has in Billboard's Hits of the World section; even its single chart was published by Billboard in the late 1990s with FIMI ran its singles chart. 👨x🐱 (Nina CortexxCoco Bandicoot) 22:44, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

• I don't have any problem with Musica e dischi being added to articles. I understand it was for decades basically the main chart source Italy had. I'm fine with it being added up until when the archives end in 2018. However, I do disagree with the assertion it's "pretty much the Billboard Hot 100 of Italy". A chart that's no longer being published cannot really be the Billboard Hot 100 of Italy. Perhaps it was considered that(?) was back in its heyday, but it cannot be considered that any longer. I was aware of the existence and use of Musica e dischi on Wikipedia previously, but FIMI is now, for all intents and purposes, considered the sole official chart of Italy (in the sense that it's the only official chart still being published), and modern media would appear to support this considering when they talk about achievements on Italy's charts they're talking about FIMI's charts.

The other day, HumanxAnthro provided me with a link to hitparadeitalia.it on their talk page, saying Musica e dischi's "chart is still going if HitparadeItalia is any indication (although we shouldn't necessarily be citing that site for chart positions)". Hitparadeitalia even explains here that the publisher of Musica e dischi, Mario De Luigi (son of the founder), died, and they have "continued on his work". As I understand it, that means they're continuing on a chart under the publication's name but it's not Musica e dischi. So their weekly chart continued on under the M&D name appears to be some bogus alternative to FIMI. I don't think anybody has attempted to add these Hitparadeitalia-sourced peaks carried on under the Musica e dischi name but I want to make clear I would be against any attempts to add anything under the Musica e dischi name from any site that's not actually Musica e dischi's official site and when its official site's archives end (i.e. anything newer than 2018 can be ruled out). Thankfully though, we already consider Hitparadeitalia unreliable. My point in clarifying this is to say that if we add Musica e dischi as a reliable source on the record charts page, we should add a note clarifying anything newer than 2018 that is not on the Musica e dischi website is not to be used. Ss112 00:21, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

On a side note, I'm guessing the potential individual that replaced Mario de Luigi was Bowser de Koopa. 👨x🐱 (Nina CortexxCoco Bandicoot) 01:39, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

It also could be M&D's website is still running the chart, but you have to login to access it, and I can't figure out how the heck to make an account, because some of the pages are 404s. 👨x🐱 (Nina CortexxCoco Bandicoot) 04:05, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Actually, this page of the official site presents a lot of useful info, but remember what I said about Google Translate. 👨x🐱 (Nina CortexxCoco Bandicoot) 04:08, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't see any indication Musica e dischi is still officially compiling a chart. There's nothing on the site about a new owner, there's nowhere to sign up for an account, and its contact page still lists de Luigi. (Who's going to answer if someone emails? His ghost?) 404s are probably a good indication nothing is happening. The Wayback Machine shows this Classifiche page of theirs hasn't shown a log-in form since 2014 (even though they were evidently still compiling until de Luigi died in 2018). There have been only four news articles published on the site since 2018 (none of which are about their charts), when de Luigi died, so it's probably safe to say it isn't really still running in any real capacity and Hitparadeitalia is just doing its pretend-official thing (which they're well known for...). Ss112 11:10, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

I think that's my concern - there's nothing to say that it is recognised in Italy as a singles chart or indication of popularity of singles in Italy, certainly post 2018. WP:RECORDCHARTS does say that there needs to be a consensus that the chart is widely recognised within the country / has notoriety for providing an overview of music success. That's why Rollingstone Hot 100 is allowed but article's aren't penalised for not including it, there's no mad rush to add it and you can achieve FA or GA status without it's inclusion. It's a nice to have but is certainly not considered the main metric. ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 13:16, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

I'll definitely say all of my entries have been pre-2018, including that Emile Sande track. I will also say we shouldn't measure the usefulness and reliability based solely on how its notoriety compares to a more notable chart, but by its own merits (although notoriety strongly helps and can be a factor). Also, I would like M&D be in the album and single chart templates specifically because it was THE only Italian chart pre-1995. 👨x🐱 (Nina CortexxCoco Bandicoot) 15:17, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Well that would require an additional consensus if you're saying just because X-publication is notable, the chart they publish is. Notability is not inherited. Pre 1995 it makes sense but post-1995 when other charts became more notable and noteworthy I'm reluctant to include both charts. It's confusing and serves what purpose? A chart no one has heard of from a publication with limited information on its website? Are we even confident of its methodology? The charts we choose to use are all aligned to IFPI or organisations like Neilsen, Crawley or other broadcast monitors that IFPI recognise so we can be sure of their methodology and some level of verification. Given that FIMI is the industry/sector body within Italy and publish a single and album chart, this one takes primacy. ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 15:38, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

You know there's a lot of pre-1995 albums and single articles that depend on the chart templates, right? Why not have M&D for all of those cases? 👨x🐱 (Nina CortexxCoco Bandicoot) 03:39, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Do articles depend on chart templates? I thought they just made life easier and weren’t a necessity as many articles don't have them. If M&D had a template, it might give the impression that it was (at the time) the only chart in Italy/the only official one, which is incorrect. Plus the M&D page that provides the chart positions has its own issues – prior to the 1990s/2000s, it only gives the top 25 positions (when I believe it was a top-50 chart) and it is seemingly missing some songs that charted within the top 25 (unfortunately I don't have any hard evidence for this). Anyway, if M&D did get a template, I think there would be a need to assess templates for other countries.DPUH (talk) 08:11, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

To address the top-25, below-25 position comment, that's not true. I've encountered plenty of pre=1990s below-25 positions presented on the website before, for albums and singles. Actually, that "Wild World" position I added was from 2007, and locking at the archive again... Yeah, that is a thing. However, I would still argue it's a useful source for at least citing the top-25-peaking tracks and albums of that era. It's like how Hung Medien's ARIA portal is reliable and useful even though it only archives the top 50 of a top 100 chart. I really would love to see M&D scans somewhere so we can source pre-1990s below-25 positions. And to address the comment of seemingly missing positions above 25, you have to keep in mind that the M&D page is very precise towards what results will appear based on how you enter the artist or song name, down to the capitalization and symbols, so that may be the reason for not seeing some positions you've encountered. For example, if "Lady Gaga" is typed in "Artista", only her Born This Way-era entries will pop up. To find her other entries, you have to search "Lady GaGa" because that's how the website presents the artists in all her other songs and albums. One Bruno Mars also can't be seen if you just typed "Bruno Mars", you have to type "B. Mars" for it to appear. None of this debunks the site as being unreliable. And I have no freaking idea how having M&D as part of the single and album chart templates would "give the impression" that it was the only official chart at the time. Most individuals don't think like that. They just see what reputable charts are there to include, without any thought of whether they are the only ones. 👨x🐱 (Nina CortexxCoco Bandicoot) 14:32, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

For me, it's ok to use Musica e dischi when was the main chart provider in Italy before FIMI, usually dated during/before 1990s. And its ok to use when a title didn't reach any peak in FIMI post-era. --Apoxyomenus (talk) 15:51, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

It should be noted that Musica e dischi was not 'THE only Italian chart pre-1995'. There were of course many, but three authoritative ones are Musica e dischi, TV Sorrisi e Canzoni and RAI. Given that there was no official chart in Italy prior to the 1990s (if, with it being part of the IFPI, you see FIMI as official), I don't see why a template is warranted. I agree with the above statements about the inclusion of both charts, I don't think Musica e dischi should be included post-1995 as it becomes largely redundant after the creation of the FIMI charts. Also, Musica e dischi is/was a well-known chart/publication – it's unfair to say that it is isn't just because you don't know it; the same could be said for the NME or Melody Maker in the UK. DPUH (talk) 16:22, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

No one said the publication wasn't well known or respected - it was the chart specifically being referred to. Sorry if that's what's been implied. The intention was to say that per WP:RECORDCHARTS we have to establish that said chart is widely regarded in the territory/across sources. Much like Rollingstone is clearly a respected and well know publication, the Billboard Hot 100 takes primacy over the Rollingstone Hot 100 due to its industry-leading position and the fact that its widely regarded as the most accurate/cited most often It doesn't mean we don't use Rollingstone Hot 100 but clearly being number one on Billboard's chart means something different to being number one on the Rollingstone Hot 100. In essence I agree -- post 1995, there's no need unless a song didn't chart on FIMI. There are loads of charts in the UK other than the UK Singles charts by Official Charts Company. Radio Monitor produce a UK airplay chart for example and music week produce various genre and regional charts. None of these are widely known or regarded so although they can be used their application is limited and so is their encyclopedic value as they are not regarded as a measure of chart success in the UK, and they're mostly behind paywalls. ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 17:13, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Just a side note: Another UK chart that tries to pass itself off as official is The Sky VIP Official Big Top 40. I've seen editors try to add it to articles over the years but I end up removing it as it's not the official chart, but the show does get quite a few charting artists to come on, which gives it some legitimacy. The hosts of the BBC Radio 1 Official Charts Company chart show refer to it as "that other show" when they talk to artists who've been on there, and they still to this day do a little spiel about how "other charts say they're official but they're not". Also, just wanted to mention in case it wasn't clear as it's been brought up a few times: Rolling Stone discontinued their music charts in October 2021. Even before that, we'd ruled out using the Rolling Stone 200-place album chart on Wikipedia anyway (due to their weird practice of counting pre-released singles towards the parent album before the album had even been released—IIRC they allowed Sam Smith's To Die For to "chart" months before its official release, which was delayed and had its title changed to Love Goes). Ss112 17:43, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Didn't actually know RSH100 had been discontinued! Thanks for the heads up. The SKY VIP Official Big Top 40 is a snapshot chart anyway - it captures real time sales from iTunes so its WP:SINGLEVENDOR. Or it certainly was when it was the Vodafone Big Top 40. ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 18:41, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Just giving my two cents on this discussion. It seems that the Musica e dischi chart pre-FIMI is fine to use and after that only FIMI. Did Musica e dischi change their formula or something like that? Because if they didn't, they can still be used and why not have two charts for the same country? The Netherlands has two, and Romania has a bunch of them. Of course, that FIMI is recognized by IFPI, unlike the other one. However, it doesn't seem a very consistent method...we are only using this chart pre-1990 because there was nothing else or better? We either used it until their last official publication in 2018 or we don't use it all. Regardless of the outcome of this discussion something needs to be added to the Record charts page about this chart. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 22:09, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

I can say this. The fact that several post-1995 albums and songs have different peaks between M&D and FIMI charts (especially when below the top 20) indicates they are using different-enough methodologies to make the charts their own perspectives of what music was popular, and thus, in my view, including both at the same time is a valid option. Plus, one of the earlier Rockol.it articles I cited was about criticism toward FIMI's manipulating of digital sales in their methodology, so it's not as if FIMI is completely out of the legitimacy test. 👨x🐱 (Nina CortexxCoco Bandicoot) 22:59, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

People question the legitimacy of Billboard's methodologies basically every week. It happens to every chart publisher. Ss112 23:46, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Give a watch of Spectrum Pulse's "Billboard Breakdown". He goes hard about Billboard's methodology and the music industry's abuses of its loopholes, plus it's very dark history in relation to race issues (the intros of June 5, 2021, July 13, 2021, June 6, 2020, May 23, 2020, and June 27, 2020 are good but strong starter in that regard). 👨x🐱 (Nina CortexxCoco Bandicoot) 23:59, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

In the case of The Sky VIP Official Big Top 40, it's not that it's less known to the music industry than the OCC charts. It's that the chart has a lame methodology of its own, only depending on iTunes. 👨x🐱 (Nina CortexxCoco Bandicoot) 23:01, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

I would argue it is actually significantly less known to the music industry than the OCC charts (having nowhere near the presence or acknowledgement from mainstream news sources that the OCC's chart does), but this is getting way too tangential. Ss112 23:42, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

And to address the Rolling Stone album chart methodology, at least the inclusion of pre-album single sales is an interesting perspective of how an album is popular. I mean, even when an album isn't released yet, the fact that it's garnering hype with lots of listeners (to the point where they are consuming their pre-release singles) indicates something, right?. Plus, it's not as only accounting for sales comes without quirks just as large. In the pre-digital era, for instance, most listeners would buy an album only to listen to one of its hit singles, in plenty of cases where they didn't have the single itself to purchase, yet that would be counted as popularity on any album chart. 👨x🐱 (Nina CortexxCoco Bandicoot) 23:06, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Well, "interesting" or not, editors here decided it was not fit for inclusion. More to the point—the chart is defunct, so it really doesn't matter anymore. Ss112 23:43, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Billboard Top Current Albums

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

No objections were raised so option added. Muhandes (talk) 08:49, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

---

Any objections for listing Billboard Top Current Albums ? A request was made to add it to {{Album chart}}. --Muhandes (talk) 19:31, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Same thing applies - Top Current Albums is a subset of the Billboard 200 (a bit like Global 200, and Global 200 exc. US). The rule we applied there was if something charted on the overall Global 200, there's no reason to include the Global 200 exc. US. The Billboard 200 is naturally computed to measure the popularity of all albums released, the Top Current Albums chart excludes catalogue albums etc (e.g. enterprise releases) so is always going to be a slightly bias/slanted view. >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 08:15, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

@Lil-unique1: That's an important point, I was not aware of that and it is not mentioned in Billboard charts. In fact, Top Current Albums redirects there, but the chart is not even mentioned. Mind adding the chart and its relation to Billboard 200 to Billboard charts and to WP:CHARTMATH? --Muhandes (talk) 10:36, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

@Lil-unique1: I made a similar comment at Template talk:Album chart... Top Current Albums is a component of Top Album Sales, so I don't think the former should be included if an album charted on the latter. And by extension, neither should be included if an album charts on the Billboard 200, if I understand it correctly. Richard3120 (talk) 12:41, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

You have 100% >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 12:58, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

@Lil-unique1 and Richard3120: Excuse my ignorance, but from Richard3120's answer I realized that "Top Current Album Sales" is the same as "Top Current Albums" (maybe the latter is a former name?), so it is already listed at Billboard charts as part of Top Album Sales. Since I am going to add it to {{Album chart}}, I think it would be prudent to mention this at WP:CHARTMATH too. --Muhandes (talk) 13:28, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, "Top Current Album Sales" was its old name. I think Billboard changed it a few years ago to "Top Current Albums". The name was just never changed on Billboard charts. But I agree with Richard3120's reply on the other page, that "Top Current Albums" should only be used if the album doesn't appear on "Top Album Sales". I think it's actually a likely scenario due to historical albums being excluded on "Top Current Albums". My personal opinion is that if an album's only appearance overall is on "Top Current Albums" then they're *just barely* scratching their way onto the charts...which is fine by me, since although the numbers might seem biased at a first glance, I'd rather see that then no representation at all. Xanarki (talk) 04:16, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

World Digital Song Sales

WP:BILLBOARDCHARTS currently states that "Genre-specific digital song sales and streaming songs charts should not be included unless a song did not chart on the respective all-genre Digital Song Sales or Streaming Songs charts and the genre's "hot" chart." Is the World Digital Song Sales chart considered a digital genre chart which should not be listed if a song charted on the all-genre Digital Songs chart, or is it a "hot" chart itself as there is no "Hot World Songs" equivalent? For example, when it was introduced in 2010, Billboard considered it a "digital genre song chart".

Additionally, I would like to change the wording of "If a song has not charted on the Billboard Hot 100, you may add any of the following" to "If a song has charted on neither the Billboard Hot 100 or the Bubbling Under Hot 100, you may add any of the following" (with Bubbling Under Hot 100 removed from the possibilities column), as the other charts are components of the Bubbling Under. I don't think Digital Songs should be listed if it charted on the Bubbling Under; Digital Songs is a component of the Bubbling Under. Heartfox (talk) 03:16, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

• Personally I've never thought that this note applied to the World Digital Song Sales chart. I know Billboard categorised it as a genre chart when it began, but I find the concept of "world music" to be so broad that it's lost a lot of meaning over the years—it was a catch-all term to appeal to Western consumers in the '80s and '90s—and now the chart includes English-language songs ("Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Iz is the biggest song in its history) and basically every K-pop act who sells enough downloads in the US (most of whom perform very Western-styled pop/EDM/hip hop melds sung in Korean, and if world music per its definition is supposed to be considered styles of music Western consumers might be unfamiliar with, then I don't think the definition fits them). I'd like to know the thoughts of the users who decided to add it and if they intended for the World Digital Song Sales chart to be part of this definition. Billboard seems to consider it such, but do/should we? Ss112 03:33, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Gotta be honest, I don't get why a digital genre chart position (especially cases where the digital chart is the only chart existing for a genre) can't be include just because its on an all-genre digital chart. It makes senses if the song is on an all-format chart for that genre chart and the digital chart is the component, but that's not the case with this. User:HumanxAnthro (Nina CortexxCoco Bandicoot) 03:41, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

With radio, we do include airplay genre charts like R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, for example, as it uses a different panel of radio stations than the all-panel Radio Songs or Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts (post-2012) (as such, it is not a component chart). That isn't the case with genre-specific digital charts, as they all factor in the same sources as the all-genre Digital Songs chart. World Digital Song Sales is technically is a component chart, but the question is whether we consider it unique enough to include regardless. Traditionally we do not include component charts so I am hoping to get a clearer consensus here. Heartfox (talk) 04:01, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

I suppose it boils down to whether World Music is considered enough of a Genre. Here in the UK its always been used to describe music that basically wasn't Western Pop a.k.a KPop, JPop, Bollywood, Latin, Nollywood etc. is all classified as World Music, much Like Latin Music chart is a catch all for Latin Rhythm, Latin Pop and Tropical. The note specifically about Airplay/Streaming/Sales charts is that they can be used alongside the Bubbling under chart. ≫ Lil-Unique1 -{ Talk }- 20:33, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Rock Albums versus Alternative Albums

Does anyone know if Billboard's Top Rock and Top Alternative albums charts should be treated as separate charts? Is the Alternative Albums chart a component of the Rock chart? >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 10:36, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Radio Monitor

Hello I would like propose we do not allow Radio Monitor charts anymore. I've just tried to verify chart positions, some of the charts don't load. Its also aa dynamic list and there's no information as to how often they're compiled or updated. Its also impossible to archive them - I tried but because of the website the way it is, you cannot access the actual charts due to programming. >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 21:34, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

• Support. I've tried to navigate this website before and the lack of proper URLs for the charts and the charts they do publish seemingly being temperamental about their function depending on the week/day is a huge problem. Without a way of archiving to prove future validity, it doesn't do much for their viability. Just like the editors who add the IFPI Greece charts not bothering to archive that website's data from each week in the absence of an archive (outside of the use of the Wayback Machine and other archive services), the editors who do add these Radiomonitor charts only care about the present. Ss112 22:13, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

  I tried archiving them and it doesn't work. Heck, the original chart for the week doesn't even show up. I'm also concerned that the wiki page says only 93 stations are monitored. There's no way of telling if these "charts" are daily, weekly or monthly. >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 22:16, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

• If the charts cannot be verified at a later date then I would support not citing the Radiomonitor website directly, but if they are available elsewhere then that should be okay. Heartfox (talk) 00:02, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Dutch Single Top 100

The current iteration of the Dutch Single Top 100 page says the chart began on 23 May 1969, but I see on its website that it has chart info going back as far as 3 October 1956. Are these real positions assembled by a magazine or radio station, or were they compiled decades later? If it's the former, what name(s) did the chart go by from 1956 through 1969? When including the chart on a song article (e.g. "Summer in the City"), we ought to be using the name at that time rather than an anachronism. I don't speak Dutch, so the website isn't much help to me in researching its history. (I previously opened a discussion about this at the article's talk page, but didn't receive a response). Tkbrett (✉) 16:35, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Interesting, I hadn't noticed that before, and yes, we should find out where these earliest charts came from. I like the idea in theory of using the chart name at the time, but I wonder how easy that would be to use in practice. A look at the Wikipedia page for the Dutch Single Top 100 shows that it's had numerous name changes over its history, and I'm not sure if a casual reader would be confused by clicking a link for the Hilversum Top 30 and then being taken to the Single Top 100. Likewise, the various Billboard charts have changed names many times over their history... even the UK charts were not "the Official Singles chart" before February 1969. Richard3120 (talk) 17:16, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

MOS:PLACE already has a standard of avoiding anachronisms in place names. I think anachronistically naming charts introduces confusion, like saying that the Ronettes' 1963 single "Be My Baby" reached number 4 on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. At that time, it was actually called the Hot R&B Singles chart. The fix in cases like that is to manually fill out the entry. Tkbrett (✉) 18:06, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I also would like to have the chart name/provider shown and was thinking of having a discussion on it, but the implementation, with templates etc, just wouldn't be feasible. The main problem for me with the Dutch Single Top 100 is that it used to be a top 20 and top 30 which isn't represented properly in the template. Anyway, an archived site with these pre-1969 charts is https://web.archive.org/web/20130306024225/http://hitsallertijden.nl/hitdossier50/index.htm. These early charts are monthly (which I didn't realise). Until mid-1957, the chart used on dutchcharts.nl is Elsevier before it changes to use Muziek Parade. Need to do some some research into the rest of it DPUH (talk) 19:07, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Hung Medien/Steffen Hung and multiple country charts -- looking for proof of reliability/licensing

I'm doing a FAC source review for Late Registration, here, and I am trying to find evidence of the reliability of the various charts provided by Hung Medien. Late Registration cites the following:

• Irish-charts.com
• Norwegiancharts.com OK per discussion below. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:51, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
• Swisscharts.com OK
• Australiancharts.com OK
• Austriancharts.at OK
• Ultratop.be OK
• Danishcharts.dk OK
• Dutchcharts.nl OK
• Swedishcharts.com OK

I've looked at the listing in WP:CHARTS and it's clear it's generally regarded as completely reliable, but I'm obliged to see the evidence for that, as a source reviewer, and I'm having trouble finding it. I found a 2008 discussion of Swisscharts.com that said it was licensed at that time from the Swiss IFPI, but I can't find any evidence of that. Any of the following would help:

• a link that shows they have some form of licensing to do what they do
• evidence that they have a corporate structure and exercise editorial control over the charts
• evidence that external reliable sources (e.g. newspapers, or reliable music sources) treat them as reliable

I also feel the evidence needs to show when they became reliable. For example, looking at this archived copy of the Swiss charts page from 2006 doesn't say anything about the source of the data, or licensing. I've tried looking for information about the company Hung Medien, but as far as I can tell the only employee is Steffen Hung, so it appears to be a one-man operation. That's not fatal to reliability if we can show other information such as licensing, but it doesn't help. Another example: this is the Norwegian site, but it says they are allowed to publish VG-Lista, which they describe as the official Norwegian hit chart, as of 15 June 2006. Does that mean that prior to that time they were not publishing the official charts? Late Registration cites an archive.org page for the chart information, but the archive date is prior to 15 June 2006. So what does it represent?

I have looked in various archives, and can't find anything to settle this. Any help would be appreciated. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:44, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Honestly I am not sure if this counts as being recognized because they don't link directly to the Hung Medien charts, but various sources have cited the same positions listed by this publisher for numerous countries. --K. Peake 15:11, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Regarding the Norwegian charts, what that statement means is that 15 June 2006 was the date that Hung Medien were given the license to publish the charts, including all of VG-Lista's archive back to 1958 – it doesn't mean that only the charts from that date onward are the reliable ones.

I'm not sure what you mean by "evidence needs to show when they became reliable". None of these charts "belong" to Hung Medien, they are all officially licensed archives of the official charts of each country. So they're reliable in the sense that they are the official charts of each country, and in many cases can be corroborated against the official chart websites of each country. But I don't know how we find evidence of licensing, which I guess is the key point you are making. Richard3120 (talk) 15:28, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I have to correct my earlier post; the FAC is citing the current norwegiancharts.com, not an archive.org copy. Looking at the archive.org copies, it seems there's no significant archive prior to June 2006, so I agree that that makes the Norwegian charts OK -- it's evident that Hung is importing the old VG-Lista charts back to 1958, and the 2006 post seems clear evidence of that. Archive.org pre that date only has copies of forum postings by members of charts, with no sourcing given, but since the old charts are available on norwegiancharts.com via a search function that's not an issue. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:49, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Another issue is that I believe that Steffen Hung actually owns the website of the official Swiss charts, his homeland. On the website's information page he details that it is partnered with IFPI (the official international organization of record labels) and GFK Entertainment (the German company that collects the chart data for several European countries). There's an interview with Hung here from 2004 where he talks about how he was given the contract from the IFPI to publish the Swiss charts, and ending with his hopes to expand with the contract for the Austrian charts. Richard3120 (talk) 15:51, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

That makes swisscharts.com OK, I think, so I've struck it above. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:58, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Another example: irish-charts.com has a statement from 2005 at the top saying they need sponsorship to display the Irish charts including archives. Then there's this post in the forum saying that the charts come from popnable.com, based on youtube views. I doubt that's where Hung is getting the data, but there's nothing else about sourcing that I can find on the site. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:55, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure if irish-charts.com is used much, if at all now, on Wikipedia – as you stated, they never got the fundraising effort required to publish the charts long-term. The charts for 2000 to 2016 used to come directly from GFK Entertainment's website, but they pulled the plug on it – the singles are still available from irishcharts.ie, but it left a big hole for the albums. Since 2017, the Irish charts have been compiled by the UK's Official Charts Company and are sourced directly from their website. If you can let us know how many instances of the use of irish-charts.com there are, I think we would work to convert these ASAP to another source and then this could be struck as well.

I believe the Dutch charts and Belgian (Ultratop) charts are also owned or part owned by Hung Medien as well – the bottom of the Ultratop home page gives copyright to Ultratop & Hung Medien/Hitparade.ch [5]. The Australian and Danish charts are likely to be the big issue here, because they include archives that are not available on the official websites – the ARIA website only shows the current and previous week's chart positions [6], while Hitlisten's archive starts in 2007 [7], and danishcharts.dk includes the years 2001 to 2006 as well. Richard3120 (talk) 16:29, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I've struck Ultratop.be; they are the official charts site and it's clear the data is jointly owned, so I think that's enough. For irish-charts.com, the only thing cited to it in Late Registration is that the album reached #2 on the Irish charts; is there another source for that? For dutchcharts.nl I don't see whatever you're seeing -- are you saying the relationship is the same as for Ultratop.be? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:31, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

WP:GOODCHARTS has alternative sources for charts. >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 18:57, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

@Mike Christie: I've located an archived link to the original GfK Chart-Track listing for the Irish album chart in the week that Late Registration charted, and I've replaced the dead irish-charts.com link on that article. However, this is not the only use of irish-charts.com on Wikipedia, as I can see that Kanye's previous album The College Dropout also uses this link... a tracking category to locate all uses of this website would be useful, and then we would see how many of them can be replaced by archived links... as stated, the GfK Chart-Track website no longer exists.

Re: dutchcharts.nl, I based my assumption on the fact that this is the ONLY place where the Dutch Top 100 charts are available anywhere, as far as I know, and it does say "© Dutch Charts". But I agree that this is WP:OR on my part. Richard3120 (talk) 19:48, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the Irish charts fix; for the FAC, at least, your edit solves the problem. Re the Dutch charts it's quite likely that you are correct, but I think we need more than that to demonstrate that the site meets the FAC sourcing standards. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:55, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I totally understand. For info, the confirmation of the chart position from Sweden's official Sverigetopplistan is here on their website: [8]. But as I said, Australia and Denmark have no archives anywhere for their charts other than the Hung Medien websites, so evidence of licensing will be a priority for these two. Richard3120 (talk) 20:07, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks -- Kyle, can you switch out the Swedish cite in Late Registration for this? That would leave four that are still issues for the FAC: Australian, Austrian, Danish and Dutch. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:21, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps the ARIA Report could work for Australia. Most issues from 2001 to 2019 are archived by Trove, which has a partnership with the State Library of New South Wales. Late Registration's peak can be found on Issue 839. ResPM (T🔈🎵C) 21:27, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

@Mike Christie Denmark is officially archived at Hitlisten.nu >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 21:51, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

@Mike Christie does this article from Billboard help establish Dutch Charts legitemacy? MegaCharts the company behind Dutch Charts was signed over to GfK Benelux Marketing Services. >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 22:03, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I know its not especially helpful for immediate verification but Musikmarkt magazine was the official in-print magazine for the German speaking markets. An inprint archive is availble in person at University of Fribourg >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 22:14, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

The Austrian charts are published every week at the individual webpages listed at https://oe3.orf.at/charts/, and then they are archived at austriancharts.at, and then wiped from the oe3.orf.at pages each week for the next week's ones. It appears oe3.orf.at only has Wayback pages going back to 2017, so before this I don't know where they were posted (unless the website was reformatted then). I don't know of any other archive for them aside from austriancharts.at. As for Ireland, their album charts are still published at http://irma.ie/index.cfm?page=irish-charts&chart=Albums (and were before the top 50 of the singles and albums were co-published by OCC), but that only has records going back to 2014. That being said, I don't understand the need for "proof" of the original charts, like we now have doubts about the validity of Hung Medien's archives. They're not without occasional errors, sure, but Hung Medien do not just invent chart data. As for permission of licensing: The australian-charts.com home page used to say "thanks to ARIA for allowing us to license the charts" or something to that effect—it was there for years. A Wayback link from 2006: "Thanks to ARIA for the agreement to publish the charts from Australia." Denmark's Hung Medien archive used to be danishcharts.com, a Wayback link from 2008 shows its homepage as saying: 29/11/2007: Danish charts online. We are now allowed to publish the "IFPI Danmarks Officielle Hitliste". Thanks Nielsen Music Control and IFPI Danmark for the agreement! Ss112 22:13, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Those two Wayback links establish that Hung Medien had an official relationship with the Australian and Danish charts, so I think that's good enough. I agree that the charts Hung Medien hosts are probably correct, but the problem with one-person enthusiast sites is that there's no external validation that they're correct, and unless the hoster is a professional in the field they don't qualify as reliable sources. In this case the official relationship tells me the official chart sites trust Hung Medien, and that's just about good enough to get them over the line. Lil-unique1, I read the Billboard article you linked, and I'm not sure I follow you -- Hung Medien is not one of the entities listed there, nor is dutchcharts.nl, which Hung Medien owns, so how does it relate? What am I missing? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:28, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

@Mike Christie: The Dutch MegaCharts are not published anywhere else on the Internet. Their sole website is dutchcharts.nl; as far as I'm aware, GfK still compiles that data, so I don't know why "verification" is needed for that. The Irish chart peaks available on discography pages on irish-charts.com are exact copies of what IRMA and the OCC publish (and goes back to 2000, unlike those two sites' archives). The only other Irish chart archive I know of http://www.irishcharts.ie/, but that's only for singles (and IRMA clearly gave that website its blessing, hence the logo and thanking the sitemaster for making the website). The Swedish charts on swedishcharts.com are also licensed. Per the Wayback Machine, "2005-03-10: Official Charts online: From now on, we are allowed to publish the official swedish charts by GLF on swedishcharts.com. Thanks for your support and a special thank to Grammotex for the agreement." As for austriancharts.at, I can't pinpoint an exact date where they became licensed. The Wayback Machine shows an archived version of the webpage allowing users to leave comments on the main page saying they wanted Austria's official chart provider to license the charts for use on the site, and then in early 2005 that "guestbook" function was removed and the chart began publishing the data, but without an acknowledgement the licensing had occurred. Perhaps somebody could contact Hung after registering on the website (he is often online) and ask. FWIW, Steffen Hung is listed as a "CEO" of hitparade.ch (so not just a "chart enthusiast") and he also graduated Magna cum laude from the University of Zurich with a Master of Science in Business/Informatics per that page as well. Ss112 00:39, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

The link showing the Swedish chart agreement is good enough for me; I've struck that from the list above. Re the Dutch charts, I agree if dutchcharts.nl is the official charts site there's no verification needed, but unless I missed it in one of the links above I don't think we've demonstrated that dutchcharts.nl is the website GfK publishes the charts to. The Billboard article connects GfK to Mega Charts; do we have anything that connects either of those entities to Hung Medien or dutchcharts.nl? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:25, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

As I understand it from the interview with Hung that I linked to earlier in the thread, he did start hitparade.ch as an enthusiast's site as a teenager, but then got permission from the Swiss charts to publish them officially, and then gradually expanded to other countries as a proper licensing business – as Ss112 notes, he is the CEO of the full-time company. Richard3120 (talk) 02:31, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Mike Christie: I don't know what to say to you to convince you this is the official website of the MegaCharts. There is no other place GfK publishes these charts—a simple Google search will tell you this. It's why Dutch Charts has its own logo. This used to be the homepage, with GfK's logo on it and copyright information at the bottom. This chart "code of conduct" page says it's an agreement between GfK and NVPI and was updated in January 2022. No other Hung Medien websites have chart codes of conduct published on their websites—aside from Switzerland—because they're not the original places the charts are published, and it's not up to Hung Medien to determine the chart codes of conduct for charts they don't originally publish. Ss112 02:36, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

That's enough to convince me -- if you linked those above or if it was obvious I apologize, but I now see the connection. I've struck dutchcharts.nl above. Can you find similar information establishing the relationship for the Irish and Austrian charts, which are the only two left from the list above? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:51, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

@Mike Christie: The official webpage for the Austrian charts, http://www.austriatop40.at/index.php (as https://oe3.orf.at/ is just the radio station they're announced on) links to and says the charts are available on austriancharts.at, so that seems like as good an endorsement/acknowledgement that they're allowed to publish the chart as any. austriatop40.at also contains copyright information on its singles and longplay pages saying nobody is allowed to reproduce the charts without their permission (so hence we can conclude austriancharts.at obtained this permission). As for irish-charts.com, I assume they've never gotten the license, hence why they don't publicly display them, and the http://irish-charts.com/ homepage still says "We need 100€ (+ VAT) a month to be able to display the irish charts including archives." (I don't really see that irish-charts.com is needed for Late Registration anyway, as it's already using an archive of the GfK page?) Ss112 00:39, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Re: Irish-charts.com, that's now irrelevant to this specific FAC, as I have changed the source to an archived link of the actual chart provider of the time, GfK Chart-Track. As Ss112 says above, if irish-charts.com ever published chart positions, they certainly don't now, and I think we should work on trying to replace all instances of their use on Wikipedia wherever possible, to avoid this situation with FACs in the future. Richard3120 (talk) 00:53, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

That covers it for austriancharts.at; thank you Ss112 for finding those links. That settles it for the FAC, since the Irish charts link has been replaced. Could we add a link or two from the WP:CHARTS page to this discussion, in case the questions ever come up again? Thanks everyone for the help. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:11, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

I'd like to contribute a little bit to the convo. Actually, Hitlisten chart for singles starts in 2001, though for some reason they're only showing singles that charted since 2007 in their current website, but here's an archived Hitlisten chart that starts in 2001, if you want to access the Danish chart prior to 2001 then I guess the only option (as far as I know) is the Music & Media/Billboard magazine. Moh8213 (talk) 22:41, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Canadian album charts in the mid-1960s (RPM and CHUM)

WP:GOODCHARTS states this regarding the CHUM Chart: "Prior to 1964, the CHUM Chart is a valid alternative to RPM, as it was considered the de facto national chart in that period; however, as of 1964, CHUM lost its special status and became just a regular single-station chart."

That seems to be about singles, but what about albums? RPM did not publish their first 25 Top LPs chart until 2 January 1967. Meanwhile, CHUM started publishing their Album Index (a top five chart) on 27 May 1963 and continued it until 30 January 1967. With no other album chart alternative, would it be acceptable to use CHUM for albums released 1963–1966? Tkbrett (✉) 14:48, 28 July 2022 (UTC)