"SUPER" - CHART RESULTS (arround 80.000 copies sold)

[Drico One]

In pure sales terms, it is at number 34, down from 17 - so loses 14 places due to the ludicrousness that is streaming.

Drico.

[Disco.]

Sales 1,800.

[Ramzy]

I'd love to know, but suspect we never will, how many copies each of the recent albums have done on vinyl. Using discogs as an extremely biased sample, it would seem Electric was their most popular vinyl release in a couple of decades, but it would be interesting (for me anyway) to see some figures. Do they exist?

[One of the crowd]

In pure sales terms, it is at number 34, down from 17 - so loses 14 places due to the ludicrousness that is streaming.

Drico.

Begs the question...

If they didn't offer their music to be streamed, how many "streamers" would be going out and buying a physical copy???

Geek alert: that was post #4249 from me.

Seen that four digit number someplace before

[Zog]

From a non-collectors standpoint, I can see Electric topping Super, simply because almost the entire album is the exquivalent or near to
the equivalent of 12" mixes. Super is still similar in some respects, with the heavy beats, but the average dance songs need
IMO to be around 6 minutes plus to sell those extra few copies, for non-collectors.

Just a thought.

-Zog

[CroMagnon]

In pure sales terms, it is at number 34, down from 17 - so loses 14 places due to the ludicrousness that is streaming.

Drico.

Why is including streaming 'ludicrous'? As long as streaming is weighted properly against sales, I don't see the problem. It may not give us the chart positions we want - huge hit singles and hit albums for PSB - but including streaming does make the charts representative of what people are listening to, as inane and appalling as that may be! The chart trajectory of Super is not dissimilar to that of every album in the last 15 years, is it?

The charts have to adjust as the technology changes, surely?

PSB are a cult band. They know it, we know it.

[Drico One]

In pure sales terms, it is at number 34, down from 17 - so loses 14 places due to the ludicrousness that is streaming.

Drico.

Why is including streaming 'ludicrous'? As long as streaming is weighted properly against sales, I don't see the problem. It may not give us the chart positions we want - huge hit singles and hit albums for PSB - but including streaming does make the charts representative of what people are listening to, as inane and appalling as that may be! The chart trajectory of Super is not dissimilar to that of every album in the last 15 years, is it?

The charts have to adjust as the technology changes, surely?

PSB are a cult band. They know it, we know it.

It's ludicrous because I'm ancient and don't understand the yoof and their new-fangled hifalutin technical jibber jabber like "streaming", "downloads", and "Taylor Swift".

The idea that I should understand is even more ludicrous.

I'll never recognise a chart that allows somebody to "stream" an album so many times and count that as a sale when it didn't count the thousands of times I listened to taped Simon Bates premieres of Pet Shop Boys songs on the wireless. It was better in my day. Back then, you even had the resident BBC paedophile introducing them on Top of the Pops. We were more inclusive back in the day when I was a luxuriously spiky-coiffed young go-getter.

I'm scared.

Drico.

[Ramzy]

Have to agree that the fact Super has followed the same chart trajectory as pretty much every PSB album since 1999 suggests the streaming/sales calculus is about right. And be honest - when was the last time you played an album a *hundred* times in a week? That's far more of an investment than paying £8 for a CD you might spin twice - I think it's fair enough to count that as a sale. Then there's the fact the PSB have enjoyed a bit of a resurgence recently, which non-scientifically I perceive to be partly thanks to interest from younger listeners. Would all those have got into the PSB without their music being easily available? I'm not sure Radio 2 in itself would have been enough. At least they get a handful of sales counted in addition to the increased exposure (and that wasn't true of Soulseek).

[Undertaker]

Streaming counting towards the chart is the most desperate act yet to make the top 40 interesting again. Its a nonsense. I also find it difficult to grasp how one 49 pence download sale counts the same as a £6 cd single sale.

The formats of which music have been released have always evolved. 7'' vinyl, LP's, cassettes, CD's but they always cost similar.

We really shouldnt get wound up about really because the tradition of the charts has long gone really. The Christmas number 1 doesnt even matter to anyone now. I bet most Festive number ones are forgotton already and it would be hard to remember who achieved them over the past decade.

Next its going to be the amount of plays each song recieves on the radio or what Asda plays over the tannoy in the bakery department.

[Ramzy]

There have always been airplay charts. Streaming is music people pay for and it's a huge part of how songs and albums are consumed, so why should it be excluded from the charts whose specific job is to reflect what music is popular? I may not like any of what's in the charts any more, and like many people here I loved taping things off the radio in the mid-90s, but to pretend the top 40 was once high art is nonsense. I have little interest in what was popular in the 60s or 70s, either, but I don't begrudge other people their interest in it. The top 40 reflected our interests for a finite period of time. That's hardly surprising, or wrong - it just is.

[PopArt]

Including streaming in the charts is totally stupid. They are slowly but surely killing the charts. First the singles chart became a complete nonsense and now they are slowly killing the album charts. Both singles and album should be based on sales and sales alone. And for the singles chart they should find some mechanism to only allow actual designated 'singles' to count towards the charts. So in other words find a way of discounting the random album tracks that creep in there and to disallow those songs that seem to never leave (Mr Brightside for example of the usual run of Christmas hits each December). It's just so boring.

[michael888]

Including streaming in the charts is totally stupid. They are slowly but surely killing the charts. First the singles chart became a complete nonsense and now they are slowly killing the album charts. Both singles and album should be based on sales and sales alone. And for the singles chart they should find some mechanism to only allow actual designated 'singles' to count towards the charts. So in other words find a way of discounting the random album tracks that creep in there and to disallow those songs that seem to never leave (Mr Brightside for example of the usual run of Christmas hits each December). It's just so boring.

Charts reflect the popularity of a song, and many people don't bother buying a song/a single/an album. They tend to listen to it on YouTube/Spotify/whatever. I think it's understandable to add streaming into the charts.

FYI:

[Shopper]

So Super will sell around 100,000. Not sure how much Electric did?

I always wonder the boys make any money now out of the album, after paying Stuart and other incidentals. No wonder, they have to tour constantly anyway

[Drem]

Aren't they receiving the royalties from Warner?

[alig]

So Super will sell around 100,000. Not sure how much Electric did?

I always wonder the boys make any money now out of the album, after paying Stuart and other incidentals. No wonder, they have to tour constantly anyway

I'm sure they're doing fine. Any indie artist would be happy to sell 100,000. Also, the budgets for Electric and Super must have been much lower than previously because they are entirely electronic. No orchestras, no instrument players, no conductors, no arrangers. Just two background singers. And running their own label, they get to keep more from the royalties. And don't forget the airplay royalties for their new songs.