Thursday, September 04, 2008

How do you actually demand a chart recount?

Slipknot have stolen the US album chart number one position from The Game.

The Game's LAX was ahead when the chart was first published, but only by a thin slither of a margin, so for some reason, they decided to count again. This time - somehow - All Hope Is Gone came out on top. So that's the number one.

Given that the data must have stayed the same, and presuming that they use a computer to do the adding up, how exactly did it get two different results from the same process on the same numbers? Or are the US album charts counted by hand, using huge ledgers and abacuses? Did Microsoft issue a patch halfway through to correct the "7+7=13" bug?

We might never know. We should, however, be delighted that the compilers of the American chart take their job of awarding the prize to the correct candidate so seriously. If only they could be put in charge of the presidential election results.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1492244/20041013/strait_george.jhtml

Apparently it's not unusual for them to 'reprocess' data like this. As you suggest, quite how it can be reprocessed at all is strange...

Simon Hayes Budgen said...

But if a quick count again can cause #1 and #2 to be transposed, then presumably the lower reaches of the chart, where the difference between, say number 70 and number 80 can be in the dozens, must be as unreliable as to be pointless. They might as well just get someone from Wal_Mart to draw the chart up from memory of what they put through the till.

Spence said...

I think the biggest surprise in this story is that it's the Slipknot record that makes number one. Slipknot at number one in 2008? Didn't their shtick get tired somewhere around 2002???

Chris said...

But they're back! And they've got new hats!... I mean masks!

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