Albums VS Singles
I initially took the decision to focus on the album charts, as opposed to the singles charts.
Perhaps without qualification, I decided this was a better guide of the nations musical tastes.
On further consideration I wonder if this is going to deliver results swayed towards the more mature album buying populace, as opposed to the pop fans – in short, am I picking a data set where rock will perform better?
In popular music, the commercial and artistic importance of the single (as compared to the EP or album) has varied over time, technological development, and according to the audience of particular artists and genres. Singles have generally been more important to artists who sell to the youngest purchasers of music (younger teenagers and pre-teens), who tend to have more limited financial resources. <…>Dance music, however, has followed a different commercial pattern, and the single, especially the 12-inch vinyl single, remains a major method by which dance music is distributed.
Am I not only discriminating against POP music if I select ALBUMS over SINGLES, but also DANCE music?
I may eventually, however be guided by the data set that I can acquire.
Is rock dead? Support blog 
I find this project really interesting and, even though I love both guitar and dance music, I would say that if pushed I would choose the side of dance music, so perhaps coming from the opposite direction to you :)
In my own music collection, I use the genre “guitar” to avoid any rock vs indie overlap, so I really like your “guitars or no guitars” idea. In fact that’s pretty much the first distinction I make when I listen to a track.
I have never really been overly fussed for album music, I don’t know if this is because I grew up on dance music, or simply because on most albums there are usually tracks I dislike, or fillers. Also I have a low boredom threshold for repeat listens so I get excited by new music, which is normally individual tracks.
Nowadays, it is extremely rare for me to ever listen to an album, normally only a couple of times when I first get it to find the best tracks. My iPod is permanently on shuffle.
I think that perhaps you would be favouring guitar music if you concentrate on albums only, although dance music has matured enough that it is no longer just faceless white labels and there are a lot of acceptable grownup electronic ‘album’ artists around now.
I’m wondering if young people buy albums or just stick to singles. I guess it should be possible to find this out. I imagine that they don’t buy many albums, so you could also be discriminating against the young and I guess when you say “Is rock dead?” I interpret that as “is rock dead to young people?” because I think that it’s less likely that older people who were into rock music have moved away from it. So I think you need to be specific about who you are talking about in terms of age?
Anyway, I could ramble about music all day. Look forward to hearing more about your project!
You made an interesting point about age. I think the kids tend not to buy anything but they download albums. I’d love to take illegal downloads into account but that would be mountainous!
I also am aware of the purchase of singles in dance music and pop. I guess I’d have to albums and singles to get a fair representation but again, that’s an epic challenge.