SINGLES CHARTS-NOT A TRUE REFLECTION IN THE MODERN ERA (The Charts)

Member Name: thecoin

Product:	The Charts
Date:	14/11/00 (197 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Now and again the odd decent track does well,normally when their album is yet to be released

Disadvantages: Full of boy band rubbish

The English singles charts I beleive are a waste of time nowadays.On the contrary I believe the album charts are still significant in the determining how good a band are.
I`ll explain why,singles can be bought for around £3.99 each which is affordable to your average everyday teenager who`s buying one CD a week.I believe £3.99 is a complete rip-off for one song on a CD but if you consider your average teenager nowadays gets around £5 pocket money a week or has a part time job,a CD single a week is affordable.Nowadays the top end of the charts are full of either boy bands releasing songs about love from a purely teenage perspective or stupid songs such as the new tweenies one!.These kind of singles are so succesful for the reasons that they are aimed at teenage pop music fans of which a fair few buy one CD a week.The boybands are succesful because there songs are aimed at teenage girls.Most girls fancy the lads in the bands and most,not all buy every single they release not because they like the song just because they love the singers and/or the song is written from a teenage perspective anyway as stated before.It is also quite affordable to do this as stated above considering the price of the CD`s.Your songs such as the tweenies etc are succesful again not because they are good tracks but because all the little kids go out and buy them or teenages just buy them because they find them funny to listen to.There very rarely is actually a decent track at the top of the chart the only one recently I can think of is U2`s-Beautiful Day.This is for two reasons I believe.1-You don`t find many adults buying Chart singles nowadays.Adults tend to buy the good songs not the rubbish that teenages mostly buy,so when a band which in their day was succesful such as U2 realease a good track they do tend to buy it.Charts in those days where reflective of a decent band.I can think of other tracks such as Cher`s-believe and Black Legends-You see the trouble with me.These where both c
hart topping tracks which where good aswell and weren`t aimed at the teeneage market although some teenagers did buy them they where purely succesful because of decade gone by succeses.The second reason is,Correct me if Iam wrong but I believe(talking from my own personal perspective)That lads tend to buy albums rather than singles and thats why singles recently realeased such as Semisonics-Closing time weren`t succesful.Lads here the track and tend to go out and buy the album instead of the single,well thats what I do anyway.The only exception to that is when the album with the single on is yet to be released then lads do buy the singles but when the albums come out buy them.An example is the Stereophonics-Performance and Cocktails.Bartender and the thief was released and go to about number 3 because the album wasn`t released with the single on,before the next single had been released the album had and the band slowly dropped down the singles charts with their various releases from then on.A better example is Macy Gray.She released the hugely succesful I try,then released the album.Her past two singles have been very unsuccesful from the albums release thats because people have bought the album so therefore don`t buy the singles.
This is why I believe the album charts are a better reflection.Teenages can afford to buy them but they tend to buy the singles instead of the albums as the albums are alot more expensive.Also adults don`t buy singles they buy albums and as Ive said with most lads they too buy albums,so you do actually get a better reflection on a band.There are always the exceptions though.Such well liked bands in the teenage quarters such s Westlife and Backsteet Boys do go straight to the top due to there popularity but notice that after they have been number one for a week they suddenly drop off really quickly and then are never seen in the charts again.Thats because afetr the sudden first week rush of teenages buying them because its new no one re
ally buys them.But if you look at albums such as Coldplay`s-Parachutes and Moby`s-Play,both are actually good albums,they stay in the top end of the album charts for long periods of time,this is becuase they are actually good albums that attract to a wide audience.One exception is Boyzone though.I don`t like their music but it is less childish music.You still get all the teenages buying them but mainly adult women also buy them because they are actually quite grown up written ballads.
My advice is don`t believe the singles charts for reflections on bands capabilties,look at the album charts.

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