THE COUNTDOWN WILL BE UPDATED EACH SATURDAY. Cut off is Saturday, 12:00 P.M. GMT.
Hello, and welcome to my first countdown here on ATRL!
Being a fan of method and careful planning, I've decided to create some personal rules so y'all know get to know how my countdown works in an easy way. Don't worry, everything is detailed in this first post for future reference.
What I looked for in this countdown is to actively reflect the most popular songs of the current week, not only based on my plays, but also their position on the Hot 100/iTunes Top 100, as well as taking into account how many different songs of a particular artist appear in my Top 10 list.
Alas, I have come up with a personal
formula.
Explanation:- 60% last.fm: This has the most weight - my personal plays from last.fm. Divide number of plays / total plays.
For example, if I have 200 total plays in a week, and Adele's Rolling In The Deep has 35 plays, 35 / 200 = 17.5% of total plays. Weigh it in with 60% and that song already has 10.5% of charting power. I call this DOMINATION %. More on that later.
- 30% Billboard + iTunes: While my chart allows ANY song to chart, there had to be a way to prioritize what's hot and what others are also listening to during the current week. So in comes this category. Here, all we do is take Billboard chart position + iTunes chart position (must be in Top 100, else it will not count - yes, even if it's #101) and both have an influence of 50% each on the 30%. So, basically, 15% for each.
Let's take the above example. Suppose that RITD is #3 on Billboard Hot 100, and #1 on iTunes. So we take ((101 - #BILLBOARD) * 0.15 + (101 - #ITUNES)) * 0.3. In this case, it gives us 29.7%. Add on the 10.5% we got from the plays, and we get 40.2% of domination %. That's a HUGE increase, because if a song is popular, that 30% really makes a difference.
Like the formula image states, this part only counts if a song is a single and/or is charting. If it's a single, it must be charting in either, or it will get 0%. If it's NOT a single and it charts in iTunes 100 (Billboard Hot 100 is only for singles), it will get the appropriate percentage.
This is done to prioritize singles and charting songs as opposed to album tracks and non-charting songs.
The beauty of this is so the chart can always stay fresh, but also add a little spice in regards to have a random song (or more) that's not a single in there, that I might be obsessed over in any given week.
- 10% Song:Artist Ratio: This is simply to give a percentage boost, so it's not as relevant as the other two weights.
My chart is a double edged sword, so an artist must beware. Do you take the quality route, or the quantity route?
Golden Rule: No more than 2 songs from any artist can chart simultaneously in any week.
However, the song:artist ratio counts ALL the songs that that artist has on my last.fm chart.
This means that if Adele has 4 songs on that full chart (even if only 2 can chart), her artist ratio will be 4:1, or 25% of that 10% she can gain.
It may seem irrational, but this is to avoid artist tracks spamming my countdown. If practically every single song from Adele's 21 album appears on my charts, this wouldn't be fair to the other artists. The 10% is done to prioritize artist with just one hit song on my countdown.
So let's take Adele, even though she's been hit with a 4:1 ratio, and calculate her total domination %.
40.2% (from previous calculations) + (100/4)*0.1 = 42.7% DOMINATION.
But what exactly is this 'domination %'?
Well, on this chart, based on weighted scores, a song can have between 0 or 100 domination. The edge values are completely utopic, because 0 means it wouldn't even chart and 100 means total domination, so no other song would chart.
This domination percentage is done to determine where the songs will place in the top 10, AND to see how a song is influencing the chart. For example, a song with over 50% domination is one that clearly is extremely influential not only on my last.fm chart, but on the official ones (Billboard and iTunes). Few songs have a ratio over 50%, which you could call
supermajority.
How to comment
If you wish to rate and comment,
please don't just write '8/10' without saying at least a song you like/dislike. So if you say:
8/10.
Rolling In The Deep is overplayed though!
This would be constructive criticism, and that's always good for me to improve on.
Thanks to everyone who read this. The countdown will follow in the next post.
DEBUT
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