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| The official UK top 40 will take audio streaming data from Spotify, Deezer, Napster, Xbox Music, Music Unlimited and Rara. Photograph: Dado Ruvic/Reuters |
It was once described by Thom Yorke as the "last desperate fart of a dying corpse". But now for the first time music streaming from websites such as Spotify will help to dictate which songs enter the official singles chart.
From the beginning of July, audio streams of music will be counted towards official chart rankings alongside single purchases anddownloads.
The Official Charts Company, which compiles the weekly chart, said it was a necessary reform in light of the growing popularity of digital streaming, with the number of weekly audio streams now exceeding 200m.
This year alone has already seen nine different tracks exceed a million streams in a week, including Rather Be, the No 1 debut by Clean Bandit, and Waves by Mr Probz.
The chief executive of the Official Charts Company, Martin Talbot, said this was a natural development to reflect to the changing ways the public now access music. He said: "The singles chart in the UK has always been purely based on the sales of singles, whether it be downloads or CDs or cassettes or even 7in vinyl, so broadening that for the first time to incorporate audio streams is a significant event. The chart has always evolved over 50 years to incorporate lots of different formats and the different ways people consume music and I suppose this is part of this evolution.
"Over the last 18 months we've seen a real explosion in the amount of streaming that goes on and it's a rapidly growing market. It's a shift in the way music fans, particularly hardcore music fans, are accessing their music. This singles chart is all about representing and reflecting music popularity and we felt that because of this rapid growth, we had to look to include streaming in our data."
The official UK top 40 will take audio streaming data from Spotify, Deezer, Napster, Xbox Music, Music Unlimited and Rara, as well as sales figures from thousands of retailers and online digital download sites to compile the popular weekly music chart.
In an effort to keep the process fair, 100 streams will be the equivalent of one single purchase or download when compiling the chart.
This is the biggest reform to the UK singles chart since 2005, when legal downloads were first included in the chart alongside physical-release sales.
The move was backed by Dan Smith, the frontman of Bastille, whose song Pompeii is currently the most streamed song of all time. He said: "I think streaming going into the chart is definitely a good thing. I think for the charts to be fair it has to reflect how people digest music."
The sentiment was echoed by singer/songwriter Billy Bragg. But while Bragg said he backed the decision to include streaming in the charts, it also highlighted issues that still exist in the relationship between streaming sites, record labels and the artists whose music is played.
He said: "I think it is a good thing because it is clearly the way music fans are accessing and listening to music, and streaming sites are making a significant step in getting people to pay for music again, which for artists is very positive.
"But we are very early in the process of accessing music in this format and there needs to be something done about the remuneration for artists. We really need a new model with the record companies that makes things a lot fairer and get artists to engage with it more."
The decision to count streaming data could be controversial among many artists who have accused Spotify and other streaming services of exploiting their music and paying them tiny royalties in return.
Yorke, the frontman of Radiohead, last year pulled his solo project Atoms for Peace from Spotify after disputes over royalties, and rejected the idea that music streaming was the future of music consumption. He said: "I feel like as musicians we need to fight the Spotify thing. I feel that in some ways what's happening is the last gasp of the old industry."
Writing in the Guardian last year, David Byrne, former lead singer of the Talking Heads, said the amount paid to artists per stream was "minuscule … if artists have to rely almost exclusively on the income from these services, they'll be out of work within a year."
Top 10s, first quarter 2014
Sales
1 Happy – Pharrell Williams
2 Rather Be – Clean Bandit ft Jess Glynne
3 Timber – Pitbull ft Kesha
4 Hey Brother – Avicii
5 My Love – Route 94 ft Jess Glynne
6 Dark Horse – Katy Perry ft Juicy J
7 Money on my Mind – Sam Smith
8 Feelin' Myself – Will.I.Am ft Miley Cyrus/Wiz Khalifa/French Montana
9 Trumpets – Jason Derulo
10 Crying For No Reason – Katy B
Streaming
1 Happy – Pharrell Williams
2 Rather Be – Clean Bandit ft Jess Glynne
3 Timber – Pitbull ft Kesha
4 Hey Brother – Avicii
5 Drunk in Love – Beyoncé ft Jay-Z
6 Trumpets – Jason Derulo
7 Counting Stars – Onerepublic
8 Dark Horse – Katy Perry ft Juicy J
9 Royals – Lorde
10 Pompeii – Bastille
Source: Official Charts Company
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