Top 40 album charts:
The centre of the project is the visualisation of the charts, by genre, over a period of time.
This is a BASIC idea of what I hope to achieve although the final viz will be:
- over a longer period of time (perhaps 20 years)
- genres will be defined / justified
- the viz itself will be a lot clearer / detailed
THE DATA
The data for this chart was from the BPI (file)
However this data only goes back 10 years, not enough to ascertain a pattern
Questions
When does a repetition become a pattern? How many times?
Looking at the chart above, we can already start to see the rise and fall of the various genres – however there is no distinct PATTERN – I would need to look back over a much LONGER period of time in order to spot cycles.
However, I do not have access to data from this source before 1999 (this data gave me the top 40 albums of the YEAR)
What I do have is the Individual weeks charts for ever year back to the 60’s.
I have a decision to make as I have a finite amount of time:
Do I:
- Cover a shorter timescale (i.e. 20 years) but look at the whole Top 40
- Focus on the Top 10 but cover a longer timescale (e.g.40 years)
- Focus on the Number 1 album
Alternatively, I set myself a DEADLINE and simply get as much done as I can … (Look at the Top 10 for 30 years – then if time allows, extend this into the Top 20, then 40)
Another ISSUE: the further back I go in time, the harder it will be to categorize the albums – music genres shift and chance.
BREAKTHROUGH?
Despite several conversations with the BPI and the Official Charts Company, neither were able to offer me an EASY to use data set for the album charts.
However, I came across this site (http://www.ukpopcharts.co.uk/), which offers the facility to SEND you the data sets of the singles charts, for any years you like. I have requested their entire database.
However, this leads me onto another question:
Albums charts or singles charts?
Is rock dead? Support blog 
No trackbacks yet.