Looking at the Top 40 albums in the UK this week, it is clear that the charts have become a mausoleum. There are solid showings from Oasis (a compilation album originally released in 2010 and two studio albums from 1994 and 1995), Fleetwood Mac (a compilation from 2018 and a studio album from 1977), Abba (1992), Michael Jackson (2005), Elton John (2017) and Eminem (2005). A quarter of the UK’s Top 40 albums were originally released over a decade ago. Are our music tastes becoming increasingly nostalgic? The number of people who turned out to see Rod Stewart playing the legends slot at Glastonbury certainly suggests that. But there’s also another possibility: music streaming is causing the charts to spiral backwards into the past.
The UK charts date back to 1952, when the New Musical Express, now known as NME, would phone a handful of record shops to ask what was selling best. Since then it’s become more professional: the Official Charts Company (OCC) took over the charts in the 1990s, and as of 2004, it began to factor in download sales. The biggest transformation arrived in 2014, when streaming data started to be included in chart ratings. Though streaming arguably saved the record business (artists and songwriters argue they are not seeing much of that upside), it also suffocated the charts.
