Encanto and the pop charts
I was a geeky child, always fascinated with numbers, statistics and making lists (a habit which has followed me to adulthood, with a job as an accountant and a series of spreadsheets helping me keep track of all aspects of my life). As a younger child these were often focussed around sports, but somewhere along the way I picked up what would become a lifelong interest in music.
It started, I think, with seeing pop groups on the Saturday morning magazine shows like Going Live, but then progressed to Top of The Pops, where I first became aware of the pop charts. I was immediately intrigued, as it combined my interests in lists, numbers and music. Over time I became somewhat obsessed. I listened to the top 40 countdown on Radio 1 each week taping my favourites onto a blank cassette, which was the style at the time. I also bought a book which listed every top 40 chart from 1960 to 1990 with “interesting” facts, some of which I remember to this day. In fact I’m still mildly annoyed that Groove Is In The Heart got denied number 1 despite selling the exact same number of copies as The Joker. Perhaps geekiest of all, I used to have a notebook in which I would predict the next weeks Top 10 (or maybe even 20) and award myself points for how many I got right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etviGf1uWlg
My interest in music was child-like at this stage. I had songs I liked (recorded in lists, naturally), but it didn’t mean more to me than any other hobby or interest. But sometime around 1993 it became a passion. This was down to Nirvana (like many others), Kingmaker (not so many others), and, perhaps most importantly, the start of adolescence. My relationship with music completely changed, and that relationship changed my life.
My relationship with the charts also changed. Instead of just liking particular songs, I supported the bands I loved the same way I supported my football team. When Blur or Suede or Pulp broke the Top 10 (which was rare for an Indie band in early 90s) it genuinely mattered to me. I’m not entirely clear why. Maybe I took it as a vindication of my taste, maybe it was as innocent as being happy that other people loved the music I love, but either way I really did care. I’m not the only one, incidentally. When reading Morrissey’s terrible autobiography, it was clear he was deeply invested in his songs’ chart positions (and it was always someone else’s fault they didn’t get higher).
Over time, my tastes in music broadened, became less tribal, and I cared less about the chart positions of my favourite bands and songs. I still paid attention to the charts though, and if I wasn’t listening to the full top 40 every week, I was still reading it in the NME, and watching Top of the Pops. I found it weird when people said they had no idea who was number one in the charts, and couldn’t imagine ever not knowing. I was interested in what people liked, the ebbs and flows of particular artists and styles of music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRNsn7t17ac
As I learned more about how the music industry operated it became clear that the charts didn’t represent what was popular all that well anyway, with tricks like heavily discounting singles in the first week to ensure as high a chart position as possible and putting out multiple formats to entice devoted fans to buy a single 3 or 4 times. Although even that I found interesting (my future accountant brain trying to understand the machinations of the industry).
Over time, I lost interest. Top of the Pops ended. I didn’t listen to Radio 1 anymore, as my ever-growing CD collection and later 6music, Spotify and internet radio gave me so many more options. I only really heard pop music in passing, in shops or adverts, and only heard about the charts when they made the news, usually during the battle for Christmas number one. If I did see them they were full of songs I didn’t recognise, and artists I’d never heard of. I assumed things would remain this way for ever until my children came along.
We still had music on around the house as much as possible, and it was typically 6music as we didn’t have the time or energy to choose anything else to put on. The kids sometimes liked it, sometimes ignored it. But when my daughter reached about the age of 5, she started to discover pop music for herself (I blame the Trolls movies), and soon the kids were insisting on Radio 1 ahead of 6 music. For the first time in probably 15 years I had a pretty good idea of what the most popular songs and artists in the country were. I knew about Dua Lipa (mainly good). and BTS (mainly bad). I was surprised that Coldplay and Biffy Clyro were big on Radio 1, and by how many songs sounded like Drum n Bass tracks from the late 90s, or sampled 20 year old UK garage tracks (like below). Once I got used to it, it was pretty apparent that pop music now was no better or worse than it ever was, and probably a bit better than it was in the late Eighties when I first started taking an interest, the heyday of Stock, Aitken and Waterman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxBN4w4bk-c
I also started to know who was number one in the charts, (almost always Ed Sheeran), because they were on on Fridays when the kids had their tea, and when I was driving my daughter to swimming. It didn’t matter to me any more of course, but the charts were in some ways more interesting than ever. Because they’re predominantly based on streaming, they show what people are actually listening to and give a truer sense of what’s really popular at any moment.
Songs can stick around for 2 years before reaching the top of the charts, and old songs suddenly reappear for a week or two because they’re big on TikTok. The same Christmas songs get back in the charts every year. Back in the day you might know that lots of people bought ‘Spaceman’ by Babylon Zoo because it was on a Levi’s advert, buy you would never know how many people only listened to it once because they realised the 15 second segment used in the advert was the only good bit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCbAEkfXSDE
Despite their growing interest in pop music, the kids weren’t interested in the charts, until along came Encanto this Christmas. It’s the Disney Movie with songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Songs they immediately became obsessed with, and have been requesting constantly for what seems like months, even though the film only came out on Christmas Eve. One week my daughter was extremely surprised to hear “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” (the most popular song from the movie, although I have to admit a personal preference for “Surface Pressure”) on the radio because it had cracked the top ten of the charts. Presumably because all the parents in the country, like me, were being badgered to play it constantly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQwVKr8rCYw
The next week, on the way to swimming she was delighted to find it had continued its’ rise up the charts. “Mummy, mummy “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” is number 3″, she said excitedly when we got home. One week later and she made me stay in the car, almost missing the start of her lesson, until she found out it had reached number 1. There had been songs she liked before, but this is the first one she has truly been invested in, the first songs she’d cared about the success of, like me with my indie bands thirty years ago.
Will this be the start of her own obsession with the charts, or just a one off? Time will tell of course. I’m not sure whether I want to pass on my strange fascination with charts and numbers and lists to my children (although there are plenty of signs this might be the case), but I do hope that they share my love of music and the joy it has bought, whether or not their favourite songs make the top 40.
Originally published at http://colourthecortex.wordpress.com on January 28, 2022.
