After facing various setbacks, Rolling Stone is finally launching daily interactive charts. According to an article published yesterday, Rolling Stone Charts is an interactive set of music charts that update on a daily basis. Furthermore, the system offers an “in-depth” and “in-the-moment view”. This is including the biggest songs, albums and artists in music. Diving deeper into this new feature, Rolling Stone explains:
Virtually every metric in entertainment is reported on a fixed weekly basis, which is out of date with actual consumer trends. Rolling Stone Charts counter this reporting with daily updates, as well as user-friendly functionality and unprecedented transparency. We offer deeper, more granular insights into music than what’s ever been available to the public — and focus on the metrics most reflective of current listening habits as well.
5 Daily Interactive Charts
Chiefly, with Rolling Stone launching charts, there are a few different groups covered. In particular, the various groups include:
The Rolling Stone Top 100 Songs
The Top 100 songs are the most popular songs in the United States. It tracks this metric by following major streaming providers as well as digital and physical purchases. This will not include passive listening or terrestrial/ digital radio. A seven-day period is covered and updated daily, with a finalized version posted each Thursday.
The Rolling Stone Top 200 Albums
The Top 200 will log the most popular albums. This chart also uses physical and digital album sales, song sales and audio streams. The chart is updated daily and finalized on Mondays. There will be a default display of the final tally from the prior week.
The Rolling Stone Artists 500
The Artists 500 will be taking a glimpse at the most popular artists of the week. Specifically measuring by audio streams, this will not include passive listening.
The Rolling Stone Trending 25
The Trending 25 will be ranking new songs that are seeing the biggest gains in popularity for each week. This will be measuring metrics by percentage growth in audio streams. It will only include songs released in the last 12 months.
The Rolling Stone Breakthrough 25
The Breakthrough 25 is for rising artists. Intending for the biggest stars of tomorrow, this could give a real snapshot of who’s going to make it big. This will only feature artists who haven’t appeared in the Artists 500 chart previously, and will be tracking audience demand via audio streams.
In summary, the interface itself is very big, and very clear. You can toggle through various charts seamlessly. It feels similar to Spotify charts, but contains way more information. Some of this information includes “song units”, the rise or decrease in the last 24 hours, and even the record label affiliated with the song/ album. The interface is very intuitive and seems like a great resource for tracking music metrics.