This is desperately needed by the global music (and radio & TV) industry.
Anyone really up to speed with the new technology and genuinely involved in fresh methodology and accurate info gathering, please let's hear your thoughts!

Can any system be anything but arbitary?

First we'd have to decide what and why we are measuring.

For example doesn't Country music sell shed loads but gets ignored? But if we want a "pop" chart it would be excluded which then gets to defining "pop" in a meaningful way.

Does a chart actually help anyway, do we need to be told?

Perhaps the new era of music downloads the "chart" is the best selling tracks from a particular website/portal/brand.

I quite like the way such a system allows the fans to define popular but can be exploited so very easilly. Especailly in the more remote corners of music.

1) The info assists copyright owners in telling us our ears and noses are right (or wrong) which validates more (or less) spend getting the product noticed.
2) The info informs the media as to which projects deserve promoting and covering.
3) An accurate chart informs music lovers about sounds which may be genuinely worth checking out.
4) It helps retail stock and order future in demand product.

Will that do for a starter?

Then download charts from websites give that info - except it's too easy to cheat.

I found your views on the changing ways of the music industry very interesting and feel, perhaps, The Chart could be one of those things that belong to the old industry model.

Could the internet create a more "word of mouth" type of marketing than has been possible before?

As such a more dynamic music scene emerge - as has happened for brief periods, like punk in the mid-ish 70s

I agree a chart is useful, but like record shops are/were?

whilst I understand that a powerful chart may be an outdated concept, the fact that it only existed in the UK (the Billboard chart was only ever a minor influence on US music lovers) meant, I think, that UK music became far more influential and important than the size of our country deserved.
The idea of a chart rated highly by media, music industry and public gives you prime time TV, mass appeal radio, print coverage - all of which can assist great music come through (just as, when hyped, it can damage the appeal of music by pushing inferior sounds).
It may be a dream and it may be last year's model, but I think it's crucial.
And the existing computerised methods appear dreadfully faulty. Computers without humans equal disaster.

Aha! I see now how a central reliable chart would be very useful for all concerned.

The BBC is independent and has the resourses necessary to compile such a thing. It would be within a public service ideal.

"Entertainment UK" perhaps

You are right about the difference in the impact of the charts in the UK and the US.

And the reason for this are (were?) the totally different media systems.

In the US radio and even TV were more targeted to local audiences.

In the UK there was this big mainstream market served by the BBC (radio / TV) and the independent broadcasters.

Today prime time tv, mass appeal radio and print (the music weeklies) have lost their audiences.

Charts (for each market segement/music genre/target audience) are still important, but I doubt that there is the need (or even the possibility) to compile ONE (all-inclusive) chart.

Let mystic KZ add his 2 pennys to this fascinating topic.

The era of the sales charts is over. It's dead.
Reason because it is no longer representative of the facts. When you have a chart that the number one sells only 23,000 in a week when there is a population of over 20million people you have to accept there should be a new method of judging success.

As far as sales are concerned it could be a cumulative sales model whereby you measure success according the the total a record sells in a given period of say 3 months which is the average shelf life of a record and then at the end of the year you do a chart of total sales. MCPS could play a part in compiling this chart as they can use the mechanicals paid by the label to judge this. Of course this is only possible if every label pays in the same way and if controlled compositions can be included somehow.

An alternative chart could be one compiled by the same people who compile the tv ratings based on various polls such as myspace downloads, p2p, sales and radio maybe messageboard buzz. Whatever it will be, it will have to be more accurate about how music is consumed and beyond manipulation from the record companies.

A chart of popularity whether it be TV commercials (thousands are whistling Cocktails For Two even if Spike Jones isn't available for purchase... due to the Schweppes TV campaign) or internet phenomenon (Pancakes!) or illegal downloads or legal downloads or ringtones (my Entertainment USA theme is big in the Midlands!) or sales (I reckon Shakira is more popular than Beyonce but how can I prove it?) or radio/TV reactions to airplay...

POPULARITY. I want it measured. NOW!