Music Top 100 Charts Might Soon Disappear
Billboard Hot 100 has been around since 1957. That was nearly 50 years ago. A lot of things have changed since then and a need for a change is rising.
A lot of the time when you don’t know what to listen to, you go the the Billboard Top 100 and start listening from the top down. You skip a few sings you don’t like and listen to a few that are. As you go down, you might meet ‘your song’, that song where you need to sing along and dance to. Your jam. After the song ends then its back to skipping.
That’s the thing about music. It’s so relative that one song that everyone seems to love might be trash to you. And your song, the song that you gotta stand up and sing to, might be horrible to another person’s ears. That might be why when you turn on hiphop music, the younger generations start going wild while those who are over 50 find a place to hide.
Yet, there’s still a chart of 100 songs that show which songs are the hottest right now. It’s basically a chart of popularity, showing which songs are being streamed or broadcasted the most. Artists all try to get in this chart of ‘hot songs’ because once you’re in, they get so much more exposure as well as money.
Spotify has proved that people don’t really need Top 100 charts but rather, a recommendation system that provides music fit to one’s individual needs. Currently in Korea, the app ‘Vibe’ is trying to go towards this method while other apps such as the dominant ‘Melon’ is also following suit. Yet, the Top 100 still holds a dominant position in South Korea and mainly I think its because people haven’t had a taste of a good music recommendation system.
However, Spotify recently has launched in Korea and Youtube Music is also being used more frequently. People are getting more exposed to systematically recommended music and eventually I’m thinking in the near future, the current domiant Top 100 chart of South Korea will start to lose popularity as recommendation charts become more and more sophisticated.
I feel this type of music consumption is not only benefical for the listener, but also to various artists. Due to the fact that the top 100 song list is so dominant, artists who are on it receive huge amounts of money while those who aren’t hardly get any exposure at all. If the majority of people start to listen to recommended music, smaller artists will get more exposure while listeners can find and listen to music that better fits their taste. It’s a win-win game.
One thing to keep in mind is that if recommendation system don’t get more sophisticated, I doubt it will be able to completely replace the Top 100 chart. People go to these popular songs for a reason; most likely these popular songs are pretty good for the majority. However, if music streaming sites advance their algorithms properly, I’m betting people will start to consume recommended music more than these 100 songs.
