Define a hit

[Corabar Steve]

Yes, Darren said we are talking about the official definition, but Al didn't say that in the first post when he started this thread.

His first post says "Define hit"

This suggests to me that Al is asking for peoples own opinions rather than the definition used by Music Week, or presumably he'd have said "What is Music Weeks definition of a hit?"

That is why I gave my opinion.

If I misunderstood what Al was asking, then I apologise.

Actually, technically I started this thread when I split it to stop another one (60s Albums) going off topic. I don't actually think Alan expected it to get this drawn out when he typed the offending post.

[Excalibur]

Actually, technically I started this thread when I split it to stop another one (60s Albums) going off topic. I don't actually think Alan expected it to get this drawn out when he typed the offending post.

Yeah, thanks a lot Mr Oppenheimer!

[Have a disco]

I m sorry Im not allowed an opinion and bung me in the flaming sin bin if you so wish

My humble opinion is based on a weekly show held in America called the billboard chart show which only ever show the top 10 tunes each week which it claims are the hits. Now considering we virtually run along side the US charts I also in MY OPINION feel the same applies to the UK chart, nothing should be deemed a hit until it has been and stayed in the TOP 10 for more than a week, anything else below is a tune that has charted nothing more or less than a statistical fact for history sake. In some peoples eyes anything that has not made No1 is not a hit look at many classic records that made No2 and no higher

[Corabar Steve]

News Flash! This isn't America!

Badger, I always thought you had a sense of humour. Obviously I was wrong.










Aren't the charts also known as the "Hit Parade"?

[Have a disco]

I do have a sense of humour and yes the charts are also know as the hit parade. but then they only covered the top 20 if I rightly remember. What I meant buy our charts applied to ours to theirs is that 50% of the acts are from the USA in our own charts.

I will not let my passion for music get to me in future LOL

[BeerFunk]

They are the people who compile the official chart. They don't make them up. They are not of people's opinion. They are official.

Now tell me what you don't understand.

I understand that just fine.

Now ask yourself how they came to the conclusion that any song making the top 75 is a 'hit'. Was it based on scientific evidence? A public poll?

No - it was the collective opinion of the people working for the officoal charts. It is also probably in their best interests to incorporate the top 75.

If a nationwide poll of what people thought was a hit were to be organised - top 10, 20, 30, 40, or 75, then I'm certain that most people would say top 40 or better.

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

I understand that just fine.

Now ask yourself how they came to the conclusion that any song making the top 75 is a 'hit'. Was it based on scientific evidence? A public poll?

No - it was the collective opinion of the people working for the officoal charts. It is also probably in their best interests to incorporate the top 75.

If a nationwide poll of what people thought was a hit were to be organised - top 10, 20, 30, 40, or 75, then I'm certain that most people would say top 40 or better.

I agree and did way back in the thread.

[PropellerHeadCase]

so what? You're still wrong, because as Darren said before:

"We are talking about the official definition and not your opinion."

Well, actually, as Rob said...

Yes, Darren said we are talking about the official definition, but Al didn't say that in the first post when he started this thread.

His first post says "Define hit"

This suggests to me that Al is asking for peoples own opinions rather than the definition used by Music Week, or presumably he'd have said "What is Music Weeks definition of a hit?"

That is why I gave my opinion.

If I misunderstood what Al was asking, then I apologise.

Actually, technically I started this thread when I split it to stop another one (60s Albums) going off topic. I don't actually think Alan expected it to get this drawn out when he typed the offending post.

Offending?

Of course its flawed, Music Week doesn't know anything, its only been the trade paper for all things chart since 1959!

And how long have the bodies responsible for Pro-Dub been in existence? (And how much debate did THAT generate?) And how many long-standing and much-cherished scientific principles are crushed by new information?

New information would include the addition of airplay statistics and download statistics over the course of the half century in question, not to mention the move from LP to tape to CD to MP3 and the ever reducing cost of the equipment to produce and play recorded music. Proof that the music industry is moribund was amply provided by its inability to embrace downloading until it had no choice (Napster, AudioGalaxy, LimeWire, etc.).

Yes, people's opinions as to what constitutes what will be different. From chart-heads and trainspotters, such as ourselves, to those that need to be spoon-fed their music by radio and TV. As the greater public (for and from whom the charts are ultimately created) are more in the latter category than the former, I think their opinoin on what constitutes a hit is EXTREMELY germane, especially as it is also their opinion that ultimately defines what WE play.

A song that peaks at 75 and falls off the chart the next week is only a hit by an official definition that has been out of date almost since it was created and has only become more anachronistic with the addition of radio play stats (making the top 40 or even the top 20, realistically speaking, "hits") and the addition of downloads (making the top 20 or even the top 10, realistically speaking, "hits").

Why are the charts effectively smaller when, in reality more listening/buying behaviour is being monitored? Because now when a song is number one it is a far more genuine reflection of the public's listening and buying habits, because now it's harder to plug to platinum a single with store orders, pre-release, and buy radio slots for new material and so forth. The download has effectively turned the charts into user-loaded content. (What was Steve suggesting just the other day about highjacking the charts for Valentines Day? Oh, and how did Buckley's version of 'Hallelujah' re-chart to Christmas number 2?)

You're welcome to your 'official' definition, but 'officially' bumble bees can't fly and helicopters can't do loop-the-loops.

[soundtracker]

I love a big post, don't you! Its a way of saying, perhaps if I go on for long enough people won't be bothered to reply to all the nooks and crannies, and you're dead right! I haven't got time or inclination to rip it apart section by section but:

Why can bumblebees fly?

For years I have often heard people say that bumblebees should not be able to fly. Unfortunately, no one seems to have told the bumblebees this as they still fly around unaware of the fact that they are 'aerodynamically incompatible with flight'.

So lets think about it rationally, is the bumblebee too stupid to realize it can't actually fly or are the original mathematical calculations that came up with this theory of non-flight flawed?

Let's go back to where this whole thing started. There was this Swiss aerodynamicist, while at a posh dinner, who got talking to a biologist who started asking about the flight of bees. So the aerodynamicist scribbled the calculation on the back of a napkin but, seeing as he was at a dinner party (and therefore possibly on the tipsy side and uninterested in talking shop), he simplified it. He assumed that bees have a smooth, rigid wing, like the wing of an airplane, and he had to guess the weight and wing area of Mr Bee. Shockingly, the calculations suggested that the bee generated insufficient lift to be able to fly, but the aerodynamicist had had enough by this point and went back to getting drunk (OK, I might have just made up that drunk part).

However, the story spread and unfortunately wasn't taken as a lesson that a mathematical model of something is not the same as the real thing. Anyone who played with a dead bumblebee as a kid (was that just me?) will have noticed that their wings are nothing like the wings of a plane. Instead, they are not rigid and they bend and twist during flight. In reality, the beating bee's wings have more similarity with a helicopter rotor than a airplane wing.

A recent model of how rapid oscillations, like those created by a bee flapping it's wings 130 times a second, affect the air around them have in fact shown that bumblebees can fly. Insects appear to fly in a sea of vortexes moving against the main current of the air. I'm sure the bees will be glad to know that they don't defy the laws of nature after all.

So, in fact no one ever proved that a bumblebee can't fly. They simply illustrated that a simple mathematical model is not appropriate for describing the bumblebee's flight. However, the myth that a bumblebee can't fly is still flying around, unaware that it, unlike Mr Bee, is the one that is wrong.

and Walk right back was a huge Everly's hit in the sixties, getting to number one, and being used as the title of their 1970s greatest hits package - so whatever definition you use for a hit - not many people will be able to go against a number one single that spent 4 months on the charts!

[BeerFunk]

Well said Al, I could not have put it better.