Billboard to Fix Album Chart...Five Months Too Late

Billboard's Album chart has been tracking the biggest selling albums in the U.S. since the 1950's; however, a number of years ago a policy change was made that did not allow older albums to appear on the Top 200. Those that had been out for over a year and had fallen below number 100 were relegated to the Catalog Album Chart. The Billboard editors reasoned that the Top 200 should reflect the sales of current product and up-and-comers and removing the steady selling but older product made room for more new artists.

When the policy was first changed, it most likely made little difference. Albums like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and the Beatles' catalog sold consistently but in numbers that would have placed the albums in the lower half of the chart.

The difference in sales between current and catalog product has slowly been changing over the last couple of years as new product has sold in smaller numbers, due to both the economy and the surge in downloading, while older material has seen steady sales with its appeal to a slightly older crowd who were still purchasing their music.

All of this came to a head this past June with the death of Michael Jackson. Sales of his albums soared with Number Ones outselling all current albums over a number of weeks and a number of other Jackson albums placing high on the charts. The trend continued on September 9 with the release of the rejuvenated Beatles catalog.

Yet, Billboard held to their policy of current vs. catalog so, even though Jackson had the biggest selling album in the country, it was nowhere to be found on the Top 200. It was only on the Catalog Album chart. Even this coming week's chart would look different if albums were taken as one. Number Ones would still be at 11 while Jackson's Essential would be 30 and a number of Beatles albums would remain in the Top 200.

It has now been announced that Billboard will once again combine all sales, whether current or catalog, into a single Top 200 starting with the week ending November 22. According to a letter from Billboard, "The events of 2009 and the continuing creativity in the repackaging of catalog titles, have led us to the conclude that the Billboard 200 would be best served presenting the true best sellers in the country, without any catalog-related rules or stipulations, to the media, pubic and our readers."

It's about time. As a matter of fact, it's well past time. The surge produced by the Jackson and Beatles products have been unprecedented and, unfortunately, are all but over. The Top 200 may reflect the true top selling albums from mid-November on, but it was woefully inadequate and, even more, inaccurate for much of the year.

Let's hope that neither Billboard or any other major chart organization from around the world ever again segregates out the old from the new.