I suspect it’s apathy. Does it matter, in one way, particularly to a record company, 8 years after the final chart that this is being chosen as the definitive chart? I am reading the old music weeks being posted on the American site and reading about the tie at number 1 (or not...) and the only reason they where annoyed was because they coul;dn;t use the tag “number 1 in the UK” at that point as a marketing tool. Would they have cared 8 years later?
Take Please Please Me. in 1963 it either was or was not a number 1. 15 years later does that, to the record company, matter? To us of course it does! But to EMI when the bulk of those sales where done and any now would be on the name Beatles and not “former UK number 1”.
I’d say again in 2001 or so when the chart canon was “officialized” it was decades later and it doesn’t matter - to the record labels.
Maybe I’m being to glass half empty, but that would seem the logical case to me. My current job is a maths tutor for a company specialising in international students. Right now we care about student numbers this year and next year vs last year and the year before. We don’t really care about numbers from 10 years ago - unless we can use that as a competitive advantage or it adds to a big number. Record companies almost certainly work the same. “x sold 2,000,000 copies!” is what they care about, not “x was number 1 on this chart and 2 on this one so can we have this as the official chart”.
I’m happy to be educated otherwise if anybody knows better than me, but the above, to me, seems logical and plausible.
Take Please Please Me. in 1963 it either was or was not a number 1. 15 years later does that, to the record company, matter? To us of course it does! But to EMI when the bulk of those sales where done and any now would be on the name Beatles and not “former UK number 1”.
I’d say again in 2001 or so when the chart canon was “officialized” it was decades later and it doesn’t matter - to the record labels.
Maybe I’m being to glass half empty, but that would seem the logical case to me. My current job is a maths tutor for a company specialising in international students. Right now we care about student numbers this year and next year vs last year and the year before. We don’t really care about numbers from 10 years ago - unless we can use that as a competitive advantage or it adds to a big number. Record companies almost certainly work the same. “x sold 2,000,000 copies!” is what they care about, not “x was number 1 on this chart and 2 on this one so can we have this as the official chart”.
I’m happy to be educated otherwise if anybody knows better than me, but the above, to me, seems logical and plausible.
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