Who likes looking at charts?

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

From the same article, acts who have never made the Hot 100:

Jeff Buckley - not only no Hot 100 Singles entries, but Grace peaked at #149 on the Albums Chart.
Tom Waits
Dropkick Murphys - never made the Hot 100, but "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" is one of few songs to ever sell over 1,000,000 digital copies in the United States without ever charting on the Billboard Hot 100
The Runaways
Iron Maiden
LCD Soundsystem
Haim
Manic Street Preachers

Also one they could have had in the article - Blur only had two entries in the Hot 100, with Girls & Boys peaking at #59

[Satchmo Distel]

I have started to compile some stats on the 1940s R&B charts for a chart fanzine I contribute towards (circulation just a few dozen). Something to preserve my sanity while stuck in online teaching while still not able to have confidence I'll get a holiday in Greece this year.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Evidently the OCC publishes a weekly Americana albums chart, and this is the 2020 "biggest of the year" chart. Not sure what the entrance criteria are - presumably getting reviewed in Uncut is one of them.

The UK's Official Top 20 biggest Americana albums of 2020

POS	TITLE	ARTIST
1	LETTER TO YOU	BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
2	ROUGH AND ROWDY WAYS	BOB DYLAN
3	EVERMORE	TAYLOR SWIFT
4	SONG FOR OUR DAUGHTER	LAURA MARLING
5	PUNISHER	PHOEBE BRIDGERS
6	HOMEGROWN	NEIL YOUNG
7	WESTERN STARS	BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
8	GASLIGHTER	CHICKS
9	BLACK PUMAS	BLACK PUMAS
10	III	LUMINEERS
11	STARTING OVER	CHRIS STAPLETON
12	HEY CLOCKFACE	ELVIS COSTELLO
13	REUNIONS	JASON ISBELL & THE 400 UNIT
14	RUN HOME SLOW	TESKEY BROTHERS
15	SAINT CLOUD	WAXAHATCHEE
16	GOOD SOULS BETTER ANGELS	LUCINDA WILLIAMS
17	NASHVILLE TEARS	RUMER
18	THREE CHORDS AND THE TRUTH	VAN MORRISON
19	LOCAL HONEY	BRIAN FALLON
20	TITANIC RISING	WEYES BLOOD

[Jah Womble]

‘Americana’ as a genre seems to grow more nebulous by the month.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Looking into this out of curiosity, it is compiled on behalf of the Americana Music Association UK and from the start there was debate over what should be included.

[Satchmo Distel]

That problem goes back through the history of Billboard to when you'd have Johnnie Ray in the R&B charts. Billboard even stopped doing a soul chart for a while because it was not sufficiently distinct from the pop chart. Similar to Kylie getting into the Indie chart in the late 80s.

[Jah Womble]

Well, if you're going to include musicians that merely appropriate the culture, homogenise it and sell it back, then authenticity is going to be a huge issue, yes. (Mumford & Sons and their ersatz 'dustbowl chic' should have been ****ed right off regardless of whatever 'new approach' they'd recently taken.)

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Similar to Kylie getting into the Indie chart in the late 80s.

I was going to mention that, but only to point out that at least when PWL records were in the indie chart it was done on an objective basis (simply whether the label was independently distributed or not) rather than a subjective basis - even if it did crowd out some of the "real" indie acts, there was some easily understood logic to it.

The modern equivalent of this is that BMG is deemed an indie, which means that Steps, Shaky and (co-incidentally) Kylie are all in the current indie albums top 10.

[Satchmo Distel]

That indie chart looks meaningless, like compiling a chart just for the sake of it. The purpose of the chart should be to indicate to indie shops what records they should stock, which is best served by sampling those shops I'd imagine.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

That indie chart looks meaningless, like compiling a chart just for the sake of it. The purpose of the chart should be to indicate to indie shops what records they should stock, which is best served by sampling those shops I'd imagine.

Ah now then, for that you'll be wanting

the Official Record Store Chart Top 40, the UK's biggest albums of the week sold through 100 UK independent record shops, based on sales of CDs, vinyl and other formats, in partnership with Record Store Day.

but the OCC site keeps freezing in my browser so I can't link to it. But its not that exciting, unless you're on tenterhooks for the fate of Dummy by Portishead (down ten to 17).

[Satchmo Distel]

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart...d-store-chart/

'Back To Black' by Amy Winehouse has the most weeks.

[danielmak]

I think we've talked about Americana before (maybe many times haha). It is a messy term. I tend to go with non-mainstream country, folk, and alt-country as a blend.

Some current reggae charts (although I wonder to what degree some are just to cover sponsors or records sent to the site):

https://www.reggae-vibes.com/category/charts/

[Satchmo Distel]

Capitol had an Americana label in the 40s. Mainly country but also Sonny Terry (blues harmonica):

https://www.discogs.com/label/260061-Capitol-Americana

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Rather than start a short-lived "Who likes looking at tour dates" thread, I'll put this here.

50 years ago yesterday (I meant to post it yesterday), The Rolling Stones started their "Goodbye Britain" tour, as the name suggests being their last tour before becoming tax exiles.

These were the dates (wiki suggests there were two shows at each venue except for Leeds and the Marquee, although when I heard this on a podcast last week, they reckoned it was only one show per venue, but that could have been mixing up "nights" and "shows"):

4th March - City Hall, Newcastle
5th - Free Trade Hall, Manchester
6th - Criterion Theatre, Coventry
8th - Green's, Glasgow
9th - C****** Hall, Bristol
10th - Regent Cinema, Brighton
12th - Empire Theatre, Liverpool
13th - University Refectory, Leeds
14th - Roundhouse, London
26th - Marquee, London

Their previous UK live appearance was the free show at Hyde Park in 1969 in front of upwards of quarter of a million people.

What is shows is how small the UK touring circuit (particularly outside of London) was compared to America and much of the rest of Europe at the time. Although on the other hand at least those who did get tickets got to see the band (and other huge acts of course) without needing binoculars to see them.

On their next UK tour in 1973 they played similar venues in the provinces - City Hall again, Green's again (renamed the Apollo), the Birmingham Odeon and Kings Hall in Manchester) but did play to bigger crowds in London with four nights at the then Empire Pool.

[Satchmo Distel]

A rolling bar chart at this link enables you to see Chartwatch's calculations of the decade top 10 for each rolling period (Year zero being 1953):

https://chartwatchmagazine.blogspot.com/

[pebblethefish]

A rolling bar chart at this link enables you to see Chartwatch's calculations of the decade top 10 for each rolling period (Year zero being 1953):

https://chartwatchmagazine.blogspot.com/

ooh, that is genuinely great!

[danielmak]

Perhaps of interest to folks who post to/read this thread to keep it all in one spot and my other post can drift down the pages.

https://www.muzieklijstjes.nl/MojoHowToBuy.htm